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Beautiful Arbor and Garden

Southern Living, May 2005 by Welch, William C

With just a little creativity, you can transform a small space into something really special.

Wayne and Jerrie Mackay created an inviting retreat on a typical suburban property in north Dallas. The busy couple enjoys their yard and takes pride in designing innovative and attractive solutions to their landscape challenges.

Wayne loves to plan landscape construction projects and build them himself. "The garden is my place to relax and unwind," he says. Considering the small lot and nearby houses, he realized that screening was necessary to provide a buffer and a backdrop for the garden. The fence, gate, and terrace Wayne built are simple and beautiful. Readily available materials, such as pressure-treated wood and copper pipes, are combined to form well-scaled designs. Using the same stain on the fences and the arbor helps to unify to the space.

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Side Yard

Most suburban properties have awkward areas on their sides that seem too narrow to develop, but Wayne and Jerrie created a 12-foot-wide garden that serves as an outdoor extension of the dining room. A curving walk with a round terrace at its end gives the illusion of spaciousness.

Complicating the design was the property next door, which is several feet higher in elevation, necessitating an 8-foot-tall privacy fence. Wayne designed and built the wooden fence, with assistance from his neighbor. It connects to the Mackays' house, enclosing the space. Rather than creating a typical solid fence, Wayne chose to open a 4-foot-wide section with a trellis-like inset, which allows breezes to cool the terrace and provide air movement to keep the plants healthy. Jerrie says, "This area has become my favorite quiet place to have coffee and read."

The planting areas along the curving walk are filled with an assortment of native wildflowers, such as purple and yellow coneflowers, white yarrows, Mexican hats (Ratibida columnifera), oxeye daisies, blue salvias, and larkspurs. This effect is accented by a beautiful Chinese trumpet creeper (Campsis grandiflora), which decorates the fence with soft, melon-colored flowers during spring and summer. A butterfly house makes an attractive accessory for the array of meadow flowers.

Enter Here

The focal point of the front yard is an arbor that serves as an entryway to the back of the property. Wayne built the structure with standard-size treated lumber and then stained it to match the fence.

A key to the success of the arbor is making the entrance somewhat wider and taller than a typical door. The overall dimensions of the arbor are 8 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 30 inches deep with a 5-foot-wide, gated opening. Wayne designed the posts from 2 x 6s and 2 x 3s that slip over 23/8-inch-diameter galvanized pipe fenceposts. This keeps the wood from being set directly into the ground. Trelliswork between the posts and beams is made of treated pine 1 x 2s spaced 4½ inches apart. He added copper pipes above the gate opening as a decorative detail.

Wayne and Jerrie chose a sweet autumn clematis to accent their arbor entry. Other great options include roses, 'Tangerine Beauty' crossvine (Bignonia capreolata 'Tangerine Beauty'), Confederate jasmine, and Carolina jessamine.

WILLIAM C. WELCH

Beautiful Arbor and Garden

Southern Living, May 2005 by Welch, William C

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