play it cool

With a backyard arbor, your summer retreat is never more than a few steps away.

The moment you walk outside, you can feel the penetrating rays of the sun. Beads of perspiration trickle down your temples. And you're only taking a leisurely garden stroll. You don't even want to think about a working pace. This is summer in Virginia Beach, and-as in most of the South this time of year-it's hot.

But for Al and Bridget Ritter, a cool sanctuary is always nearby. Stepping into the dappled shade of their backyard arbor provides respite from the harsh sun. Inside, the damp stone floor is checked with diamond-shaped light patterns cast by the lattice walls and exposed rafters of the roof. In just a few growing seasons, vines have scampered up and over the arbor, softening the rigid geometry of the treated-pine structure.

Bridget, the gardener in the family, played a large part in planning the basic design of the arbor. "It took about two years of looking at magazines to figure out what we wanted," she says. "At first we were considering a freestanding gazebo. We kept drawing and redrawing and eventually decided on an attached arbor."

Built To Blend

Bill Pinkham, landscape designer at Smithfield Gardens in Suffolk, Virginia, headed up the team that turned Bridget's ideas into reality. "What we ended up with is pretty close to one Bridget saw in a magazine but with some modifications," Bill says. He paid particular attention to the scale of the arbor, matching it to the size of the existing wings of the house.

"After it was first built, way too big," Bridget says. "But now that we have vines on it, it looks much better." The arbor is draped with 'Nelly Moser' clematis, climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala petiolaris), 'Texas Purple' Japanese wisteria (Wisteriafloribunda 'Texas Purple'), and Confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides).

The arbor's cross shape was the ideal solution to an existing problem. "The original property line was right outside the back door of the house, so it always looked awkward," Bill says. "The Ritters bought the lot behind them, and then they wanted to erase the old fence line. So that's mainly what we were trying to do with this structure." By extending the arbor out from the house and surrounding it with paths and plants, they created a garden that envelops the house and makes it look like the backyard has always been part of the property.

Because the arbor connects to the back of the home, it serves as much more than a garden escape. It also acts as a pivot point for circulation in the backyard. Standing inside the arbor, visitors face four choices. They can enter the back door of the home; go out the back of the arbor to the lawn and down toward the rippling waters of Linkhorn Bay; take the Pennsylvania fieldstone path to the front of the home; or follow the stone path to the old slate patio.

The arbor serves mainly as a circulation area, so Bridget and Al don't clutter it with furniture. Whether they are coming or going through the back door, the shelter serves as a transition from the sweltering sun of the garden to the cool environment inside.

Good Choices

The sharp difference between the plants inside the arbor and those located just outside demonstrates the cool microclimate created by the structure. Outside, sun-loving 'Becky' Shasta daisies, hybrid daylilies, and 'Zagreb' threadleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata 'Zagreb') fill the garden with color. But when you step inside, you find niches brimming with shade-loving trilliums, common bleeding hearts (Dicentm spectabilis), hardy begonias (Begonia grandis), and autumn ferns (Dryopteris erythrosom).

Bill's wife, horticulturist Linda Pinkham, selected most of the plants, but Bridget has added some of her favorites. "I love to go to garden lectures and symposiums and then come back and ask Bill or Linda, 'Can I grow a so-and-so?' " says Bridget. The things I plant, such as trilliums and bleeding hearts, are things I have to baby. But that's fine because I enjoy it. I love to hand-water, especially inside the arbor. It's very soothing."

On this particularly warm afternoon, Bridget finishes watering the hanging baskets and remains inside the arbor to pluck a few weeds and spent begonia blooms, avoiding the sun-drenched bed of roses around front. And that's okay. When you're in this garden, it's not loitering. It's called lingering.

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Jun 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved