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Garden Tour: Andrea and Ben’s urban patio

October 9, 2008 by Andrea Bellamy 5 Comments

Today marks the launch of Rock n’ Scroll: the Heavy Petal Garden Tour (woot!). See gardens from around the world, and share your garden with the whole wide web. Here’s how. To kick off the tour, I’m sharing my own back patio with you. Enjoy!

The basics

Gardeners: Andrea Bellamy and Ben Garfinkel (with daughter Lila, five months)
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Size: 195 sq ft. 13′ (4m) x 15′ (4.5m)
Orientation: east
Zone: 8b
Years gardened: 2.5

The Details

Style: West Coast modern.
Inspiration: Modern architecture, Japanese gardens and the West Coast forest.
Favourite element(s): The fence (it was time-consuming, but relatively inexpensive and made such a huge difference in the feel of the space). I also love my little woodland garden bed.
Favourite plant: This garden contains predominently green foliage plants, and it doesn’t really have any one plant that steals the show. I like the way all the different greens work together – it’s such a soothing effect – rather than one particular plant. That said, Acer palmatum ‘Fireglow’ (‘Fireglow’ Japanese maple) provides the only foliage that isn’t green, and as such, is a focal point.
Biggest challenge: Coming to terms with the fact that I couldn’t have everything I wanted in such a small space.
Biggest save: The furniture (bought second-hand and refurbished.)
Biggest splurge: The Galiano Grey basalt pavers.
Advice for others: There are almost always thrifty ways to mimic big money magazine ideas if you’re willing to put in the time.

Cladding the inside of the existing fence with 1″x3″ strips of cedar gave the space a different feeling without completely remaking the fence (or breaking strata rules).

The furniture was bought second hand and completely refinished.

Before: Boring pavers, a rough-looking fence, crappy furniture and a motley collection of containers.

After: Sleek and polished, and way more appealing to hang out in.

See more photos of our garden on Flickr.

Share your garden with others. Click here to copy and paste the survey into an email, attach photos, then email me!

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailSubmit your garden! Take us on a garden tour. Default ThumbnailI love my new fence Default ThumbnailAdventure: Nitobe Memorial Garden Default ThumbnailThomas Hobbs’ garden

Filed Under: Garden Design, Garden Tours, My garden Tagged With: design, Garden Design, garden makeover, garden tour, patio, small space, urban

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tyra says

    October 9, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    I just love before and after photos, the result is very nice. I envy you the autumn garden cleaning, shall we swap?/ LOL Tyra

  2. Andrea Bellamy says

    October 9, 2008 at 7:04 pm

    Tyra – It is very low-maintenance, that’s for sure! One bed is mostly bamboo, maples and native groundcover and the other is all native plants, so I do very little in terms of “clean up”. I wouldn’t mind a little more, actually!

  3. nawlins dawlin says

    October 16, 2008 at 10:45 pm

    all I can say is… LOVE it! :)

  4. VictoriaPB says

    May 24, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    Serene, zen and so crisp…. Love that the furniture was re-furbished. Absolutely delightful..(Thanks, Russian Hill Handyman for posting this link!)

  5. jette says

    May 22, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    Cool! absolutely cool, cant find better words.. Where do you grow your veggies? (That I understood from your previous postings that you grow..?!) I’m asking as I have a very similar garden and would like my own fresh, organic vegetables somehow fitted in with all the rest..

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