Garden rooms bring floral beauty to your home

This week, we invited Jake Young to be guest columnist to discuss possibilities to be explored and developed in your own outside living spaces. If we keep talking about spring, maybe it will finally come.

Perhaps there is not a more enchanting place than a mid-summer botanical garden full of color, natural fragrance and vegetation. You can bring this same beauty to your back yard by applying some of the same design principles used in your home to create a garden room or an exterior gathering place.

The garden room can serve as a place for outdoor entertaining, a space for growing delicious fruits and vegetables or a sanctuary busy with humming birds or bees spreading pollen. If created and maintained properly, the garden room can be the treasure of any residential landscape.

What makes a garden room different than a conventional garden found in most typical residential landscapes? A conventional garden is often located in the back, low in priority and only visited while planting, weeding or harvesting. Conventional gardens are for utilitarian purposes only; while the harvest they grow can be enjoyed, their spaces often are not.

Garden rooms are designed with a vision of people, plants, and space intermingling in beauty and harmony. Garden rooms have edges, borders, alignment, pathways and specific entrances. They range in size and scale, depending on space and land availability.

Rooms can be large and rambling over an acre of space or compact and cozy, with size more similar to a room at home. Regardless of size, a beautiful and tranquil space designed for both people and plants can be created.

The location of the garden is a key to its success. Common vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and beans need at least eight hours of direct sunlight, and leafy greens require four to six hours. Another variable to consider in the location equation is what the main function of the space will be.

Will it be primarily for entertaining or used as a place to retreat to with a book and a hammock?

The further the garden room is placed from the home, the more likely it will be a tranquil getaway. Conversely, a garden room nearer your house will create a natural flow of movement to outdoor dining and entertaining. Another advantage of placing the garden near your indoor or outdoor kitchen is to make access to harvesting fruits and vegetables very convenient.