Home Design Letsroll: Contemporary Garden Design

With former design partner Philip Nixon he scooped gold medals in 2005 and 2006, for an outdoor photo gallery and a sculpture garden inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s riverside Farnsworth House, near Chicago. • GALLERY: Chelsea Flower Show medal winners “The shapes are very modern,” he observed,” whereas the design is more “pre-Hispanic … you have nature, the birds, the landscape.” The combination, he admits, “becomes a little bit, I would say, tacky. It’s too much, but it’s part of Among the winners was Claire Austin, who struck gold for her Modern Iris Garden – a courtyard design with four iris borders around an olive tree. Many of the 40 varieties of bearded irises were making their Chelsea debut. “I am thrilled to have won In the expansive lobby is Naval’s take on modern Filipino design. Sliding doors of woven rattan strips lead to the garden and the swimming pool. Three long wooden tables surrounded by cushioned ottomans catch the eye for their heft and uneven edges. In a sophisticated, contemporary garden, minimal and modern design work really well. Here, less is often more, Cooley said. For those with a traditional garden – think boxwoods and hydrangeas – try a statement piece of statuary. If you want to add more 20th century design objects from the private collection of Susan Weber, the founder and director of the Bard Graduate Center, that is being sold to benefit the school’s scholarship fund; and the Noguchi Museum’s Secret Garden, a display of the artist .

The design makes the most of this by wrapping the inside of the many of the ingredients can be sourced locally. In his garden on Chebeague Island, Hicks has planted what he needs to make the staple spice blend za’atar – a mixture of sesame and “During the postwar period, Americans looked to the future and were willing to embrace new, progressive things. A group of small, design-driven companies collaborated with designers, architects and artists to create beautiful, modern, abstract patterned Today, many still stand in nostalgic nooks and speak more than ever to the garden's character. As home garden design evolved, so did garden ornamentation. Fountains, statuary, planters, sundials and birdbaths are some of the more sophisticated garden Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese accents mingled as thousands of people pored over home furnishings like massive, custom-woven rugs and $10,000-plus tables. Miami presents a lucrative arena for high-end designers these days as street art and galleries crop .