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While the continuous snow and blizzard-like weather swirls about our area - it's difficult to imagine a season filled with sunny spring days just around the corner. But, before we know it, we will return to enjoying the great outdoors. And, what better way to experience the beauty of our natural surroundings than with a thoughtfully planned, gorgeously designed, exquisitely manicured garden oasis - custom tailored just for you. President and Director of Design at Lambert Landscape Company, Paul Fields, (ASLA) shares his personal expert advice and dishes on everything you need to know for creating a stunning backyard garden.

• A great garden is a garden that has style. For a garden to evoke a sense of style, it must be designed with deliberation. A fine garden design seamlessly complements the home’s architecture and blurs the interior and exterior living spaces.

• I am drawn to and most enjoy designing gardens that have a sense of containment. These spaces form backdrops for plantings, benches, and garden ornaments; and they should provide openings along axes that draw us from one space to another.

• A garden’s “bones” are extremely important as they hold the garden together year-round. This structure can be achieved by the use of hard elements such as walks or walls or by the use of clipped hedges or trees.

• Gardens are visually complex: textures, forms, colors. Therefore organization is crucial. Whether it is naturalistic or formal, being able to see through to a garden’s bones is critical in achieving a cohesive and pleasing effect.

• An element of surprise is important in any garden. Containment with an opening drawing one into another space, revealing something not seen before, adds intrigue to the garden.

• When using color, a scheme must be established. I prefer mainly white flowering plants because the effect against green is soothing, pleasing to the eye, and wonderful at night. Combinations that I have found to work well together are white, blues, and greens and pinks with oranges. Use yellows and reds sparingly.

• Containers are an important aspect of most gardens. They provide style, are great for specimen plantings, and are of a better scale than large beds for the planting of color in most residential gardens.

• Water provides life, movement, and whimsy to any garden. It can also be the most significant element because people are drawn to it—it is the source of life. I use water, fountains or pools, due to the psychological cooling effect in our warm climate.

• Garden ornaments play an important role in garden design because they lend style and provide a focus. They can also give resolve to or ground an otherwise unorganized view.

• And remember, a fine garden should look designed.

About Paul Fields and Lambert's

As one of the firm’s owners, Fields serves as president and director of design, where he continues to spearhead and ensure Lambert’s award-winning garden development performance. During his more than 20 years with Lambert’s, Fields has built his reputation on creating gardens utilizing timeless principles of classical garden design. And with his focus on the high-end residential client, he has firmly established himself as a leader in this market – strongly believing in the unified design achieved with a unified design team, which includes the client along with the landscape architect, architect and interior designer.

With its 90th anniversary in 2009, Lambert’s is the oldest design/build landscape architectural firm in Dallas and one of the third oldest still in existence in the country with Maintenance and Tree Care divisions that focus on residential gardens of timeless designs- organically! For information, visit www.lamberts.net, or call 214-350-8350.
 

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