the best part of a backyard is living in it

one of the things i love most about the landscapes we create is seeing what happens after we leave. we spend so much time thinking through the design—where the trees should go, how a path should move through the garden, where a stone patio will sit, what will bloom and when—but eventually the landscape becomes part of someone’s everyday life. and that’s really the point.

a backyard can be used in so many different ways over the course of a weekend. maybe someone is outside early in the morning with a cup of coffee, sitting under a tree before the rest of the house wakes up. maybe the kids are running through the yard, someone is pulling weeds in the garden, or a dog is stretched out in the shade. there might be friends gathered around a fire in the evening, or maybe everyone is simply sitting outside after dinner because the weather is beautiful and nobody feels like going inside yet.

i think those little, ordinary moments are what make a landscape successful. we’re not designing outdoor spaces just so they look good in a photograph. we want them to become part of the way people live. i love the idea of a garden that gets walked through every morning, a favorite chair tucked underneath a tree, or a stone path that leads you somewhere you might not otherwise have gone.

nature is a big part of that for me. i’m always drawn to landscapes that feel a little less manicured and a little more alive. i want to see movement in the grasses, birds moving through the trees, bees and butterflies visiting the flowers, and plants changing as the seasons go by. i love mature trees especially. there is something about being underneath a big old tree that makes a backyard feel established and peaceful in a way that newly planted landscapes simply can’t replicate.

that’s one reason we enjoy working in older, established neighborhoods throughout glen ellyn, wheaton, naperville, geneva, batavia, and the surrounding western suburbs of chicago. there are often beautiful mature trees and existing landscapes that give us something to work with. we don’t necessarily want to erase what is already there. sometimes the best landscape design is about listening to the property and figuring out how to add to it.

stone plays a similar role in many of our landscapes. i love the way natural stone can make a new patio or seating area feel like it belongs in the landscape rather than looking like something that was simply placed in the backyard. outcropping, boulders, stone paths, walls, and patios can give a garden structure while still feeling natural, especially when they’re softened by layers of trees and plantings.

we think about all of this when we’re designing and building landscapes in naperville, aurora, plainfield, yorkville, batavia, geneva, glen ellyn, wheaton, downers grove, lisle, and throughout the western suburbs. every property is different, and every family will use their yard differently. that’s what makes residential landscape design so interesting to me. there isn’t one perfect backyard.

ultimately, i think a great landscape should make you want to be outside. it should give you a reason to walk around the garden, sit under a tree, have dinner outside, watch the sunset, or spend a saturday morning doing absolutely nothing. those are the moments we’re really designing for.

the plants will grow, the stone will weather, and the landscape will change over time. hopefully, somewhere along the way, the backyard stops feeling like a project we designed and starts feeling like it has always been theirs. that’s when i know we’ve done our job well.