Courtyard Garden Design & Services in Lancaster, PA
YOUR COURTYARD GARDEN: AN OASIS OF SERENITY
Designed to screen out the distractions of unwanted views, courtyard gardens offer protection and refreshment in harsh settings as diverse as cities and windswept farm fields. Extend the privacy and comfort of your home with your custom courtyard garden oasis. View a living painting, the distilled essence of the natural world from your picture window, then step into the garden to savor life in your peaceful enclosed space.
A PLACE OF REST
A courtyard garden’s characteristic enclosures can be walls, buildings, fences, or hedges. These garden structures control the view and define the relationship between the garden and the outside world. Providing privacy, quiet, and a break from ground-level clutter are important considerations when selecting construction materials for the courtyard walls. In addition, the texture and color of courtyard enclosures contribute much to the garden’s ambiance.
A PRACTICAL OASIS
A courtyard garden design is relevant in tight city properties and more spacious settings. For a sanctuary from urban stress, a courtyard garden can literally bring a breath of fresh air into a private and peaceful setting (as well as Urban Gardens). A courtyard garden can also create privacy, shelter, and intimacy within a larger property.
VALUED SPACES & SHELTERED PLACES
Courtyard gardens are usually modest in size, which makes the details more important. Small spaces allow for higher quality materials, permit more precise garden care in the limited time available to busy homeowners, and provide closer, more intimate settings which encourage conversation and relaxation.
Courtyard Garden Design Examples
Escape from the hustle and bustle of life to the serenity of a courtyard garden designed, built, and tended by the experts at Hanselman Landscape. Relax while your children explore a world of healthy play, interacting with natural elements within a protected space. Multiply your delight by intentionally designing your gracious courtyard garden to integrate with your indoor environment. Bring serenity to your city lot as you replace the chaotic view of sidewalks and traffic with the natural delights of a courtyard garden. Create a secluded setting away from parking lots for guests to enjoy your hospitality.
An Oasis of Serenity: A Story
Japanese Courtyard Garden (Lancaster City) Article:
When Jean traveled to Japan to participate in an extended Suzuki violin course, she assumed she was simply enhancing her career as a violinist and college music professor. She had no idea how much her six months in Japan would enrich her entire life. In addition to learning the Suzuki method of playing the violin, she gained an appreciation for the Japanese integration of natural beauty into everyday life displayed in the small, carefully maintained courtyard gardens next to virtually every Japanese home.
Following her trip to Japan, Jean returned to Lancaster with the dream of bringing the beauty of nature into her daily experience and began to look at Japanese garden books for ideas that could be implemented in the small backyard of her city row home. Jean remembers, “I was very impressed with the courtyard gardens I had seen in Japan and wanted to have something similar next to my home. Thank goodness I found those garden pictures in a book and somehow, I knew who to call.” (She remembers having seen a Hanselman Landscape newspaper ad and being impressed with the Japanese influence evident in their work.)
In late spring of 1994 following Jean’s initial phone call, James Hanselman went to Jean’s home to discuss her garden ideas and goals. According to Jean, “James looked at the ‘idea pictures’ I had found and assured me they could be implemented in my backyard. It was a meeting of the minds, and we began to plan the garden we would build. In fact, I still have the original hand-drawn plans James gave me!” One of the major challenges Jean wanted to address with the garden installation was water run-off from the next-door property uphill from her home. In addition to addressing the run-off issue, James was asked to incorporate a measure of privacy and separation for Jean in her rapidly developing community.
Over the course of that summer, James and his team designed and crafted an outdoor living space that achieved all of Jean’s requirements and realized her Japanese garden dreams. Jean reports that the rainwater now runs onto the street behind her property. In addition, the wall James designed and built is exactly like those she remembers seeing in Japan. Since the community has changed a good bit since she moved in 40 years ago, Jean is grateful for the privacy and peace the wall allows her to enjoy in her garden. The stepping stone path provides ready access to the garden, and the plantings provide interest in each season of the year: a Stewartia tree displays dramatic blooms in the spring, lush plant growth brings cool refreshment to hot summer days, Japanese Maples blaze in the fall, and Nandina berries provide a splash of red against the nearby evergreens in winter. According to Jean, her garden is “lovely, even in the snow!”
Other than occasional weeding and watering, Jean entrusts the shaping and clean-up of the plants to the Hanselman Landscape maintenance crew. She thoroughly enjoys their visits: “They come two or three times a year. They are wonderful–so polite and considerate–and we have nice chats!”
For other city dwellers who have limited space but would enjoy the serenity, beauty, and interest of a garden next to their homes, Jean’s advice is simple: “Do it!”
**If you choose to take Jean’s advice to enrich your life with a garden, we would love to partner with you to make your outdoor oasis a reality!
Our Garden Design Process
Explore
Share your goals, ideas, and project budget and we will begin to survey and plan your garden
Design
We will consider all your primary view perspectives, both inside and out as we design your garden
Build
Your garden dream will begin to take shape at the hands of our highly skilled craftsmen and landscapers
Enjoy
Every project ends with the reward of experiencing the joyful stewardship of your little piece of creation
Testimonials
What surprised us most was how much more we love our home since Hanselman Landscape began working here! In addition to the beautiful new backyard oasis they created, they are here regularly to care for our plants, turning existing shrubs that we thought were worthless into beautiful, valuable specimens.
Our needs were to have as much privacy as possible from neighboring homes. Everything was done to perfection. This was the first time in a while (even with building a new home) that we gave the job to someone and never, ever had to go over again and again what was to be done.
Words do not serve well to express the sense of serenity and pleasure which your fine work evokes. I would liken the feeling to that of walking alone through a great museum.
I can’t even put into words how much I love my new yard. Hanselman Landscape did an outstanding job–changing an ugly piece of land into a serene and beautiful garden. The workmanship of Hanselman Landscape’s employees is of the highest quality.
Hanselman Landscape has helped us re-landscape our property over the past 3 years. James has a way of guiding you through your own garden, taking in the vantage points, and uncovering your vision (even though you didn’t know you had one)!
We liked the way James (Hanselman) explained and introduced the suggested plantings, actually showing us leaf samples. We needed and appreciated his guidance. Thanks for adding to our enjoyment of our home with your creative landscaping.
The Gardener’s Journal
- Spring“April is a time of wonder, when the spring peepers emerge from hibernation and begin to call, when… Read more: Spring
- A World of Wonders“The world will never lack for want of wonders.”~ G. K. Chesterton This week, I hope that your… Read more: A World of Wonders
- Gardens for ChildrenJames’ first official “children’s garden” was commissioned by a church preschool director who desired a natural play space… Read more: Gardens for Children
EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE OF HANSELMAN LANDSCAPE AND GARDENS
Founded in 1985, Hanselman Landscape & Gardens designs, builds, and nurtures a wide variety of gardens in both private and corporate settings. From our headquarters in Manheim, Pennsylvania, we serve clients throughout the region, including Philadelphia’s Main Line—and as far away as Cambridge, Massachusetts. We also cultivate unique specimen plants, which we make available to discriminating gardeners and architects.