The Request
The clients had just moved their primary residence from the mountain town of Estes Park to the bustling suburbia of Fort Collins, and already found themselves missing the tranquility of an evening spent in the wilderness. They wanted to create that sensation in the back yard of their new property, which featured an approximately 5000 square foot area behind the grass lawn.
What they absolutely did not want, though, was more work. They wanted a space that wouldn’t require excessive maintenance, and along with that came the increasingly-common request for low water use.
The clients were exceptionally open-minded from a stylistic perspective - one of the homeowners is Japanese, and they asked for a concept that would reflect that heritage while adapting to the very different climate of Colorado's high desert.
Getting Started
The existing area was an absolute jungle of overgrowth and thick layers of river rock, to the point that there was no discernible design at all. In fact, it was only after beginning demolition that we realized a flagstone pathway ran through the entire space.
To start, we cleared 99% of the site down to bare dirt, which meant hauling out more than 50 tons of debris. That left us with a number of mature trees around the border and a few half-buried boulders - much less maintenance already!
The Design
The more I studied the structures and traditions of Japanese gardens, the more I realized that a successful adaptation of those concepts would also address the client’s requests for minimal upkeep and low water expenditure. The concept of ma, which can be described as intentionally empty space, was particularly helpful.
In addressing the question of functionality, I took inspiration from a synthesis of the stroll and rock styles of traditional Japanese gardens. As is the case in stroll gardens, the journey is the main event, and the path serves as the artery of the space. Many formal stroll gardens, however, are densely filled with plant material to provide interest and selectively hide and frame different “scenes”. This is where I adopted the principles of the famous temple rock gardens - even with nothing but gravel, variations in the secondary characteristics (shape, arrangement, etc) can make the space exceptionally engaging.
Some temple gardens, like the one above, also feature a few striking rocks in the otherwise empty space, which is an effect I tried to recreate using isolated high-impact elements like bamboo or a cloud tree. As part of this new design ethos, we used the demolition process to gently accentuate the topography of the space, creating peaks and valleys that feel like they’ve always been there. The variation in elevation gives the design another layer of complexity, without adding more “stuff”.
The fire pit area is very informal, as a reflection of the client’s previous enjoyment of the campfire-stye pit at their mountain house. Locally sourced Colorado Buff boulders were individually selected and placed to create a rustic seating area, and the pit itself was dug down to create a subtle amphitheater effect that makes the space more intimate.
The Process
Some of the greatest challenges of the project were in sourcing and executing the featured elements. After researching dozens of different varieties of cold-hardy bamboo that would survive Colorado’s climate, I settled on the rare Phyllostachys Aureostacus Spectabilis, and had twenty 5-gallon plants shipped via freight from a grower in Portland, Oregon. Because Spectabilis is a running type (in comparison to the well-behaved clumping varieties), we had to install a 36-inch deep and 60mm thick polyurethane barrier around the beds to prevent unwanted spreading. Given that the largest planned bed was inaccessible with large equipment, creating the barrier trench was particularly challenging!
The most challenging element, though, was getting the cloud trees. At the size I was looking for, the trees (often Scotch Pines) have to be trained for 15 years or more to achieve their namesake “cloud” look. I finally found a grower in Minnesota who had what we needed, and after learning that the shipping costs would shatter my budget, we decided to make the 28-hour round trip to pick them up ourselves. It took a lot to get those two trees to their permanent home, but seeing them in the final product made every second of effort worth it.
Creating a natural breeze pathway was a priority for this project, but I had difficulty finding a solution that would be stable on slopes, resistant to weeds, and avoided ugly metal edging. The solution came in the form of plastic geogrid, often used for erosion control. By staking hundreds of individual cells into a dug-out and barrier-lined trench, and then compacting the breeze (also known as decomposed gravel) into them, we were able to create a pathway that won’t sprout weeds, won’t disperse over time, and has no edging.
The Results
After about a month of hard work, we were able to finish the space within the client's desired timeframe. I am incredibly grateful for their trust in designing and executing this project - they understood the vision and were willing to adjust as needed to make it come to life.
If you'd like to create a space that is uniquely yours, I'd love to talk - you can reach me with the contact form here or by email at erich@ensodb.com.
Thanks for reading!
-Erich Hixson
Founder, ENSŌ
Thanks to Lauren Harrison Photography for her incredible photos of the finished product
