Small landscapes matter. When designed with care, they can support wildlife, manage water, and offer daily moments of beauty and calm. These spaces shape how we experience our homes and how our homes participate in the larger landscape beyond their boundaries.

My work explores this intersection between private gardens and the broader environment, showing how thoughtful design in small residential settings can contribute to something larger, benefiting both the land and the people who live with it.

SMALL SPACES, BIG IMPACT

Featured Project

Personal Garden | Frontyard| Living Laboratory

This garden serves as a living testing ground for my design philosophy. It allows me to observe how plant communities establish, change, and interact over time while responding to real site conditions. The space is intentionally evolving, with an emphasis on native plants, habitat creation, and stormwater infiltration.

Front view of a two-story house with a navy blue door, beige siding, stone accents, and multiple windows with white blinds. There are steps leading up to the front door, a bush to the right, and a small patch of green grass in the foreground.

Taking Stock

Assessed existing foundation plantings and spatial constraints, including an overgrown Loropetalum and established Chinese holly, to understand structure, scale, and potential.

Front yard of a house with two black doors, one on each side, with wreaths and house numbers. In the middle, there is a small garden bed with trimmed bushes, surrounded by some grass and soil.

Starting Fresh

Started with a hard prune of the Loropetalum to see how much available space there was to work with. Eventually decided to remove the Loropetalum altogether.

Front yard with a raised flower bed bordered by gray stones, containing a bush with dark purple leaves, in front of a house with two navy blue doors, white siding, and white trim, and a large window with horizontal blinds.

Adding a Border

Installed a retaining wall to help define the edge and keep the soil in place. Disconnected the downspout to help with stormwater infiltration, so it would no longer wash away mulch onto neighbors sidewalk.

Front yard flower bed with purple and green plants, bordered by stone bricks, in front of suburban house with black door, steps, and windows.

Installation Day

Close-up of a front entrance with a concrete step, a black front door, a colorful welcome mat, and small plants growing beside the sidewalk.

A diverse mix of plants went in all at once to fill the space quickly, protect the soil, and give wildlife somewhere to move and settle in.

Front yard garden with colorful flowers and shrubs in front of a house with two black doors and large windows.

A Few Months Later

A garden bed with pink, purple, and yellow flowers, a butterfly resting on the purple flowers, and a sidewalk with parked cars in the background.

The plants have settled in well. Pollinators are already showing up, and runoff onto the neighbor’s sidewalk is no longer an issue.

A small green lizard resting among green leaves.

Front yard garden with green plants, flowers, shrubs, and a stone border in front of a house with two black doors, windows, and white siding.

Shrub Removal

To add even more biodiversity, decided to remove the Loropetalum. It was much too large for the space and required constant trimming to keep it from overwhelming the other plants

Front porch garden with various blooming flowers, bushes, and potted plants in front of a house with a dark door and white siding.

Letting it Fill In

A front yard garden bed with various green plants, pink flowers, and ornamental grasses, bordered by a row of gray stones, in front of a house with a dark front door, hedge, and a screened porch.

Added grasses for additional texture and winter structure as well as autumn blooming perennials to extend the bloom season for pollinators.

Personal Garden | Backyard | Living Laboratory

With the patio opening onto a wooded lot, the backyard was designed to feed and shelter wildlife while also managing roof runoff.

Bare soil with wood mulch in a backyard, surrounded by grass, with a house in the background featuring a door, windows, and bushes near the house HVAC system.

Taking Stock

Similar to the front yard, the backyard had only a few shrubs.

A backyard garden with plants and flowers, partially shaded. There are potted plants on the ground, a large bush, some small shrubs, and a patch of grass with wood logs. Gardening tools, a bag of soil, and a bucket are also visible near the patio.

Starting Fresh

Utilizing some unused firewood, I created a temporary bed to help define the space and keep the landscaping crew from mowing over the plants. Fully intending to widen the bed later on.

Small garden with freshly planted jessamine vines, bordered by stones and a trellis.

Screening Adjacent HVAC

The addition of climbing vines, a trellis, and a defined border help to bring unity to the space and block the neighboring HVAC unit.

A man with a white shirt and yellow shorts is digging a hole using a shovel. There are two red cushioned chairs, one with a blue pillow, on a patio behind him. Various plants, gardening tools, and potted plants are visible around the area.

Building a Wildlife Pond

A small garden pond with water lilies and a fountain, surrounded by rocks and border plants. There is a stepping stone pathway leading away from the pond to shrubs and trees.

A well-maintained backyard garden with a small pond bordered by pebbles, surrounded by lush green shrubs and plants. There are colorful flowering plants, a small sign requesting no pruning or spraying, and outdoor patio furniture with several chairs and cushions in the background.

This small pond was built to provide a reliable water source and create habitat for frogs, dragonflies, and other wildlife that move through the yard. While digging, I uncovered old slabs of concrete and stone buried on site. Instead of hauling them away, they were reused to form the garden border around the pond, tying the feature back into the landscape and reducing waste.

Garden scene with various potted plants, a small pond surrounded by rocks, stepping stones, lush green bushes, and trees in the background.

Now We Wait!

A garden with lush green plants surrounding a small pond with lily pads, small stones, and aquatic plants. In the background, there is a large bush, an outdoor air conditioning unit, a blue recycling bin, and a red hummingbird feeder. The garden is partly shaded with sunlight.

A garden with a stone pathway, green shrubs, flowering plants, a bird feeder, and trash bins in the background.

Added more plants for biodiversity, including lots of lovely ferns and partially shade-tolerant species. Now comes the hardest part: waiting for the plants to stitch themselves together and for the wildlife to notice.