Landscape Inspiration: Colonial Revival Landscape Restoration

Garden plans and garden planning often encompass concerns greater than simply plantings. Often when we think of planning a garden space we need to consider the greater landscape and it's interaction with our living space. This landscape design, submitted by JOS Landscape Architecture is a prime example of striking balance and harmony between selected plantings for a location and the home those plantings are associated with.

Jayne Spector and her team were faced with restoring and updating a landscape design to fit with the Colonial Revival home. Hallmarks of the Colonial Revival architectural style include symmetry in the facade and the use of pillars or columns which add to the sense of structure and intentionalism in design. Some architectural historians say that Colonial Revival marked the end of the Victorian period in architecture and is loosely based on Federal and Georgian architectural styles. Most agree it is in clear contrast to the elaborate Victorian Queen Anne architecture.

The work JOS undertook involved rerouting the driveway, restoring the large Porte cochere, correcting existing drainage issues and maintaining and enhancing the landscape. All of this needed to be done in a manner appropriate to the architectural styling and integrity of the home and existing landscape. The plantings utilized in this garden plan show that often it is important to consider a pre-existing mature landscape when redesigning even a portion of it.

In this garden plan we are looking at the landscaping inspiration of the entryway, the stairs and examining plant choices for mature landscapes.

Landscape Restoration Summary

The landscape restoration plan for the Colonial Revival home dealt significantly with restoring the large Porte cochere as a fittingly scaled and finished entrance to the home and rerouting the driveways. This included handling and correcting existing drainage problems through the construction of a new retaining wall and the repair of underground drainage systems. Enhancing the landscape while remaining appropriate to both the revival period and physical scale of the home played pivotal roles in decision making about what to plant.

As symmetry in design is an underpinning of the Colonial Revival style it was of paramount importance that any new plantings offer continuity of this symmetry.

The Entryway or Porte Cochere

A Porte cochere is defined as a roofed structure covering a driveway at the entrance of a building to provide shelter while entering or leaving a vehicle. It derives from the French porte meaning 'door' and cochere meaning 'for coaches'. In this building the vehicle is foot traffic, but the grandeur and sense of arrival remains as intact as though pulling up front in a horse drawn carriage.

From the image on the right you can sense the feeling of purpose. The plants used to line the walkway passing the front entrance to the home guide the walk and the eye. JOS chose Common Boxwood, Viburnum which provides striking white flowers in the spring and summer and red berries in the winter, and a Pieris Japonica with its' showy white flowers and sometimes striking color range of foliage as it ages. The newer cultivars provide smaller plants, but the size of the home begs the larger cultivar, which until recently had been considered the garden standard.

The choice of two seperate varieties of Viburnum speaks to the fact that Viburnums are some of the most attractive and adaptable shrubs for home landscape projects. They can be used as hedges or screens as well as in mixed borders of perrennials and shrubs. Often they can even stand alone as specimen plants. The Viburnum Allegheny choice provides aditional texture to the landscape close to the home with their wrinkled leaves.

The Stairs and Retaining Wall

Part of the requirements for this project involved the creation of a retaining wall as part of an overall effort at improving on water drainage for the property. Sometimes the simpest of needs create the best opportunities for expression. The simple requirement to reach the upper lawn via stairs built through the new retaining wall is one example of this.

Materials used in the construction of the stairs and landings includes elegant bluestone which along with the stone planters used at the entry to the stairs, contrasts wonderfully with the materials used in the retaining wall. The rigidity of these materials offers a striking balance to the flowering plants greeting the visitor as they walk the staircase.

Surrounding the stairs are Dwarf Boxwood which are attractive yet unassuming. They do not detract from the view of the front of the house and it's entryway as the visitor climbs the stairs and the handsome structure comes into full view.

The Cultivars

The plant selections for this landscape design were based on the following criteria:

• Plants needed to offer Deer foraging resistance.
• Plants must have non- invasive qualities and offer easy maintenance.
• Shade and sun tolerance as appropriate to their locations.
• Availability of large specimens to compliment the scale of existing plants and the large structure.

The cultivars chosen for this landscape plan included:

About the Designer

JOS Landscape Architecture is an award-winning design firm providing site design, landscape restoration, master planning and landscape management consultation services since 1988. We offer services directly to commercial, institutional and residential clients in addition to working as consultants to allied professionals. We are a small firm which has built a reputation for doing what we do best - landscape planning rooted in the plants, animals, soils and cultures native to the Delaware Valley. This has allowed us to act as local consultants to national design firms to create landscapes that are sustainable in our region. We participate in multi-disciplinary design projects with local surveying, architectural, engineering, construction, interior and graphic design firms. We have developed relationships with many talented professionals and artisans which we can call on to meet the specific needs of individual projects.