Soft clouds of shrubs and fragrant roses fill a steep hillside with spectacular stone steps carved into the hillside, winding down to a lower terraced lawn area that is flooded with pockets of shade, a respite from the sunny pool terrace high above. The cobalt blue pool, terraced off the rear elevation of the house, sits in a chiseled field stone terrace with a gracious dining terrace located above the pool. Breathtaking views are found and captured in your memory from every angle.

 

This is a garden for butterflies and song birds, it is a healing garden that cascades down a hillside. One smells the fresh air from the breezes off the river, the fragrance from the old French Bourbon roses and watches the sway of the Babylon Willow adjacent to the field stone pool terrace. The senses are enlivened in this garden. There is beauty by the bucketful. The graceful water feature is a chiseled boulder at the end of the pool which holds the water in its carved basin before channeling it out to the pool, imitating a Vermont stream in the Green Mountains. 

 

Underneath it all, the stone terraces were engineered to withstand an earthquake. Trees were used for their architecture. We selected house paint colors to work with the garden. The new front garden came to life with a serpentine main path which we merged with a secondary path to the new cobblestone driveway. We used natural materials throughout the front and rear gardens, there is a branch bench, field stone paths, field stones integrated into a brick wall. 

 

Above all, the garden like her owners is an elegant melange of the dramatic nature found in Northern California, Vermont and the Vaucluse region of Provence, France.