An older established neighborhood in Indian Wells, CA...
This courtyard design reinvents an intimate space into a viewing garden from inside the house; and, in contrast to the rest of the landscape, this japenese inspired garden will pleasantly surprise visitors at the front door.
Currently, the space is cluttered with several plant materials, a curvilinear band of concrete header board (how they thought that was a good idea, I don't know) and all in a tiny space (no more than 16'x16'). In the corner is a mature ficus tree, that amazingly hasn't lifted the foundation of the house.
In fact, I love the ficus tree...It brightens the space with its massive white trunk and blankets the ground with a woven pattern of its roots. I've proposed to demo all but the tree and use this tree as the anchor for the space. Mondo grass will ramble over and around the roots, making a "grassy knotted knoll" into an island within birds-eye gravel. A pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana) will be trimmed up into a small multi-trunk specimen tree becoming the human scale against the mature Ficus. And the punch of color will be from Golden Euonymus at the entrance to the courtyard. I will re-use boulders and flagstone from the rest of the property.
(I have designed the remodel of the entire landscape for this home, but the courtyard, is taking on the most dynamic transformation.)
Please check out Sukiya Living, The Journal of Japanese Gardening, if you're interested....This publication has helped inspire this drawing (as well as many other designs). www.rothteien.com
