Turn your home into paradise

source :DIVYA KUMAR,The Hindu, May 22,2010, Bangaluru

The modern landscaped house garden is a multi-tasker. No more plain vanilla patch of lawn with a handful of flowering shrubs on the side. These gardens are being designed with multiple facets — play areas for children, sit-outs for the adults and party lawns for guests — to meet the needs of the entire household, and built in a variety of ways, from ‘vertical gardens' to delicately-lit rooftop gardens, to cope with the rapidly shrinking urban spaces.

“Nowadays, homeowners are much more aware of what can be achieved with landscaping,” says landscape architect K. Raghuraman. “It's all about creating quality living spaces.”

One of the foremost requirements, quite naturally, is using landscaping to provide a sense of privacy in the midst of the hustle and bustle of our metro.

“There may be a slum behind the backyard or a school nearby and there's too much noise,” says Sekar James of Master Plan Landscape Architects. “You've got to take these demands of an urban space into consideration while planning the garden.”

So, some people opt for netting or mesh (covered tastefully with pretty creepers) above their walls (“some up to 30 ft. high,” says Raghuraman). Others, such as Chandra Sankar, opt for a more natural solution — tall trees all around. “I love trees in general, and planted as many as possible to cut out the heat and dust,” she says of her graceful home.

A screen

“The Ashoka trees have been there a long time, I wanted a screen all around the periphery of the garden and they do the job perfectly.”

The other big one is using landscape architecture to ‘create' space for greenery, even when there isn't much to start with. “People go in for a ‘ vertical garden', where you build pergolas and let flowering creepers grow on them, or go for wall-hanging plants,” says Raghuraman.

The chronic lack of space in cities — combined with the need for privacy — means that one of the most popular trends in landscaping of homes is the terrace or roof garden. “People are doing landscaping on all levels — not just on the roof, but also on terraces,” says K. Senthil Kumar, landscape architect.

No limits: Separation of garden areas with different utilities is the cornerstone of modern home landscaping  

There's pretty much no limit to what you can do, as long as you make the terrace or roof structurally sound, he says: 

“You have to ensure that the construction is water-proof and that drainage is good, and then you can put in lawns or wooden decks, flowering shrubs or tall trees, water pools or cascades.”

Dr. Abysam, for instance, has opted for one in his newly constructed home. “I believe that only greenery gives life to a building, so I've used whatever little space I could to create gardens,” he says. 

In addition to his small showpiece front garden, all water and bamboo, he's opted for a landscaped terrace on the first floor. “It's a completely private area for the family, with grass surrounded by flowering shrubs and creepers,” he says.

Many uses

This separation of garden areas with different utilities is the cornerstone of modern home landscaping. 

“It caters to the living style of the owners — you might have a barbeque area for the man of the house, a quiet area for the lady of the house to sit and read, a corner for the children to play and even an area for the dogs,” says James.

As Ms. Sankar puts it, “Just a lawn would be boring, wouldn't it? You need to cut and break the monotony.” 

So her garden consists of a quiet sit-out in the front with cane furniture next to the colourful play area for children, and completely screened off from the main entrance, a private lawn for garden parties.

And then there's that little indefinable something extra, that touch of magic that these homeowners look for. That's the reason why Dr. Abysam has, for instance, put in a bubbling water cascade at the entrance of his home.

“That sound of water makes you think of sitting by a stream with the smell of wild flowers in the air… it makes you feel better even as you get out of the car,” he says.

Or why Ms. Sankar loves sitting in her beautiful roof-top garden — all water pools, trees, and flowers — in the late evenings.

“There's a terrific ambience, with the floor-level lighting coming on, the lovely breeze setting in, and the temperature dropping quite a bit.”