Style : Gardens : Period Peace

If your goal is a harmonious and believable landscape, then your house and garden should not be at odds. This Colonial-style knot garden in Arcadia is at peace with its Early American-inspired house because Pasadena landscape architect Mark Berry wisely avoided palm trees, redwood decks and other unlikely elements. Instead, he stuck with brick and boxwood.

Situated between a small guest house and a new kitchen wing, the garden began as a kitchen garden with herbs filling the geometrically shaped beds. But flowers--zinnias and bedding dahlias during summer--prevailed because they look more dramatic against the rich green hedge.

An existing crape myrtle kept the new path to the guest house from being a straight line. The path has to jog a bit to avoid the tree, which is just enough relief from a design that could easily be too orderly. Berry calls the plan “soft but formal,” and it makes a completely appropriate companion for the house. You could say that this knot garden is the perfect way to tie house and garden together.