anyone else ready to bust out the patio chairs? It’s finally starting to feel a bit like spring, and to celebrate we are featuring inspiring garden shots from the new book: Architectural Gardens: inside the Landscapes of Lucas & Lucas, a portfolio of 10 lushly illustrated residential landscape projects in California’s wine country.
Designed by husband-and-wife duo Mike and Jennifer Lucas, each of the projects addresses the connections between home and land and include a site plan. readers will learn how to implement features such as landscape windows, breeze-catching grasses, cascading concrete waterfalls, and trees with thoughtfully cast shadows.
Scroll down and get inspired with these stunning outdoor spaces!
Architectural gardens includes a roundup of Mike Lucas’s favorite plants — those best suited to different types of properties and for different purposes (like drought tolerance or fast growth). The featured projects will appeal to garden designers, landscape architects, landscape contractors, architects, and home builders, as well as home gardeners looking for inspiration.
Put on your sunscreen and get ready for a tour of some sublime outdoor spaces, plus get tips for your own outdoor oasis!
Make the Walkways Wide
When Mike first encountered this hilltop estate just outside Santa Rosa, California, tall hedges blocked views of the surrounding hills. now the pathway from the driveway to the front door is fully paved with enough room for two people to walk on comfortably, side by side. The native basalt variety he chose has a variegated finish that coordinates with the mottled bark of the oak trees. He also chose basalt paving for a majority of the walkways and patios throughout the landscape. “I was careful to keep the material palette simple and understated,” says Mike.
Photographer: Caitlin Atkinson
Plot Focal Points
An old pear orchard had once stood in this Sonoma, California property, but it was overgrown and dilapidated and ringed with barbed-wire fences throughout the site. Mike’s design team found inspiration in the local mission San Francisco Solano, where courtyard walls provide refuge from the elements. The homeowners and designers also incorporated aspects of the mission’s spare aesthetic into the home’s design. Architectural elements such as the tower, courtyard walls, and shade structure, punctuate the otherwise flat site. “These features create focal points for outdoor entryways and spaces to entertain,” says Mike. “Trees were the only vertical visual elements on the otherwise flat site.”
Photographer: Marion Brenner Photography
Frame A View
Due to regular afternoon winds and the noise of a nearby road, the client desired an enclosed space for dining, mingling, and cooking outdoors. To maintain a visual connection between the courtyard space and the landscape, windows and doors were punched through the walls to frame views; old-fashioned rolling shutters are deployed when the winds get too intense. To allow for large windows, the wall height was set at eight feet, which provided enough space around the window for structural support.
Photographer: Marion Brenner Photography
Carve Out seating Areas
Most of the seating and dining areas are tucked under the covered breezeway, and a few smaller seating areas are placed around the pool to capture some of the most stunning views.
Photographer: Marion Brenner Photography
Protect Veggies From Critters
For this 10-acre residence near downtown Sonoma, California, Mike developed a garden that would serve as a home base for a couple from Texas (although originally from Canada), who wanted to retire in an area known for its food and wine culture. “The owners fell in love with this big flat property because of the open sky and prairie-liKe føler, at det mindede dem om, hvor de voksede op i Canada, “siger Mike. Et træ-og-tråd hegn holder kaniner og andre critters ud af haven, som er fyldt med grøntsager og blomster og er forbundet med en lille frugtplantage af frugttræer, der strækker sig ind i vingården for produktive vinstreord.
Fotograf: Caitlin Atkinson
Vælg en punchy accent plante
Et traditionelt to-etagers hus med masser af charme blev placeret på denne ejendom i Healdsburg, Californien, men haven forlod meget at ønske. Heldigvis så boligejerne ud over forfaldne træbevægelser, en aldrende pool, rottende æbletræer og en døende eg. Mike’s største udfordring var at skabe en haveplan baseret på ejernes ambitiøse ønskeseddel: en garage, en kunststudio, en køkkenhave, et poolhus, en bocce domstol, et udendørs køkken og spiseplads med pejs, en opdateret pool , såvel som en overflod af planter. Wraparound verandaen træder ned til landskabet i flere retninger for nem adgang til udendørs underholdende rum. Sorbetfarvede roser tilføjer livsstil til en ellers monokromatisk palette.
Fotograf: Marion Brenner Photography
Tilføj varme med en brandfunktion
En sti omkring huset åbner op til et udendørs køkken og spiseplads udstyret med en bred pejs. Stående sycamore træer blev valgt til deres hurtige vækstrate; Et eksisterende æbletræ har udsigt over rosa roser, der tilføjer en farve.
Fotograf: Marion Brenner Photography
Skabe dybde med hardscaping
Denne sti forbinder forhaven og baghaven såvel som den grøntsagshave og huset. Der var ingen naturlige udsigter fra haven, så landskabet langs denne vej blev helt bygget gennem brug af landskabsstrukturer, planter og belægning.
Fotograf: Marion Brenner Photography
Brug venstre materialer
Køkkenhave senge blev bygget med ubrugt sten fra belægning og vægge. En uformelt træ-og-tråd trellis understøtter espalier frugttræer og adskiller køkkenhave fra resten af haven. Ejers kunststudio, som er forbundet med garagen, er synlig ud over de hævede senge.
Fotograf: Cesar Rubio
Brug vinstokke til at blødgøre strukturer
Under en tårnhøje baldakin af oliventræer, som er mere end hundrede år gammel, er et frodigt landskab med en gammel verdensmiddelhavs-følelser, der omgiver et fransk landsstil hjem. En pergola dækket af frodige vinstokke rammer hoveddøren for at fuldføre eventyreffekten.
Fotograf: Caitlin Atkinson
Tilføj tekstur gennem plantager
Mike undgik at introducere for meget farve i nærliggende plantager for at opretholde en følelse af sindsro, men i dette tilfælde injererer bladene af planterne og buskeinteresserne.
Fotograf: Caitlin Atkinson