Landscape architect Lila Fendrick took inspiration from a vine-covered cottage in the British film Howard's End when she planted Boston ivy, wisteria, and roses to climb the walls of a cottage-style house in Washington, D.C.
Gordon Beall
The Problem: These Washington, D.C., homeowners desired a quaint, English-style garden to match their cottage house. Instead, their intractable backyard consisted of a precipitous hill covered with ivy and towering poplar trees, whose smothering shade prevented any flower beds from flourishing.
The Solution: The first thing landscape architect Lila Fendrick did was excavate the hill, boldly subtracting five feet of earth, and leveling it out into several graduated terraces. The ivy covering and poplar trees were replaced with cottage flower beds bursting from a structure of walls, hedges, and borders.
A new terrace, added to the back of the house, helps relate the house to the garden staging area. The terrace, which gently steps down from the house, is paved in a variety of bricks, sandstone, and flagstones. The mosaic pattern adds interest to the broad expanse.
The new terrace and flower garden are mediated by a water garden consisting of a formal fish pond that cascades into a lower level lily pond. In turn, the water garden leads to the English lawn, bordered by lush blooms. Lila packed the cottage-style flower bed with roses, herbs, and perennials for color and fragrance.
A "secret garden" was also added to the side of the house and the front entrance was given more cottage appeal with climbing roses, ivies, clematis, and wisteria that blanket the stone walls and gambrel roof of this Cotswolds-inspired home.
The Inspiration: Fendrick took her inspiration for this garden redesign from the classic English gardens of Gertrude Jekyll, but modified the flower palette with some American plantings.
Source: Lila Fendrick Landscape Architecture, 310/907-7700
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