A Stone-Cool Garden
02 Sep 2010
The creative stonework in this garden makes it stone-cool rather than stone-cold.
Photos by WeinrauchPhotography.com When Brad and Emily Hahn purchased their Mapleton Hill home in 2003, it’d been a rental property for 30 years. The neglected house needed a facelift, and the yard was covered in pesky vines, unwieldy rhubarb and dying pear trees.
During a nearly two-year renovation of the home’s interior and carriage house, much of the unwanted vegetation didn’t survive. That left the Hahns, and landscape architect Hidelly Kane, with a blank canvas.
Today, that canvas is filled with an array of ferns, perennials, shrubs, grasses and small trees. What sets the Hahns’ yard apart, though, may be the handsome flagstone that frames raised garden beds, provides walkways from front to back, and forms a backyard playground for the couple’s two young children.
“Essentially, our patio has become an extension of our house,” Emily says. The patio is a regular hangout for their son Baker, 6, and 4-year-old daughter Alice. “They can cruise around on their tricycles and bikes on it,” Brad says, “then just jump right down into the backyard.”
Kane, a former owner of L.I.D. Landscapes in Boulder nearly three decades ago, now works with her husband, architect Chris Hanson. She begins landscape design projects by taking notes inside. “When I walk into someone’s house, I look at their interior furnishings, I look at how their space is organized,” Kane says. “And I try and take that same feeling outside to extend their level of comfort to the outside environment.”
Adding to the outside comfort in the Hahns’ home are small flagstone walls that rim plant beds on the east and west sides of the patio. The walls provide comfortable seats for adults or for children bursting with stories to tell their mom and dad. Smaller, foot-sized stones sit just below sod level in the backyard and create a path from the patio to the carriage house. Setting the stones low allows the kids to play soccer on the grass without concern of stubbing toes, Brad says.
- The flagstone patio is a favorite bicycle cruising ground for Baker, 6, and Alice, 4.
Mowing and More
One innovation Kane brought to the project makes lawn maintenance easier. Anyone who’s labored with a lawn mower around small stone walls or rises knows they’ll usually have to come back with a weed whacker to cut the grass at the wall’s edge after the lawn mower is back in the garage. To avoid that, Kane often includes what she calls a “mow strip,” where wall meets grass.
- River rock and cement frame the front porch and create the perfect backdrop for flowers to take center stage.
- Setting path stones below sod level created a safe playing field for the children while allowing for easier mowing.
- Climbing roses on a decorative trellis add charm to the Hahns’ carriage house.
