When a neighborhood home became available as a tear down these homeowners couldn’t help themselves. They loved their Frontenac location. They saw the chance to buy the 2.5-acre lot and build the perfect home for themselves and their college-aged triplets for years to come.
Working with David and Drew Schaub of Schaub Projects Architecture + Design, the couple created a home to work on three different levels: a lower level that opens to the outdoors and centers on family recreation with a pool table and golf simulator, the main level with a master suite and family living area and the upper level with bedrooms and baths for the triplets.
Just as important as the indoor space, the active family needed outdoor space to gather and simply have fun. They wanted a pool and a hot tub. They needed multiple spaces for outdoor entertaining. A pickleball court became part of the plan as did a large firepit to prolong the months when the family could enjoy the new outdoor space. They also added a screened porch, something they did not have at their old house, to the mix.
While they could move their furniture from their old house to the new one, they could not move the mature trees from their old yard to the treeless space where they were building their new home. The couple agreed to leave the woodsy far back of their large lot unmanicured for privacy. Near the house, however, they needed to install landscaping that would create visual interest for years to come and soften the hardscape of their new home. They wanted planters in the patio area and easy-to-maintain beds to provide definition in the in the grassy areas in front of the house. For all this, they turned to George Tucker owner of Landesign.
“The first thing I do when I meet with homeowners who are landscaping a new home is to ask them what were their experiences with landscaping at their last home and what they want their new landscaping to do. I want to know what kinds of maintenance they can afford and handle. You have to design with appearance, functionality and maintenance in mind,” George explains. “She was more about appearance and he was concerned with functionality.”
With functionality in mind and five adults coming and going, the circular driveway at the front of the home needed to be wide enough to allow two cars to pass easily but not look like a subdivision street. With appearance in mind, he created a series of berms to soften and break up the front yard and give extra height to the still young plants. He also added feathery, burgundy-leaved Japanese maple trees to a number of planters to provide height. Paired with red geraniums, they provide an immediate lush impact.
The berms, anchored with feathery, fast growing ‘Green Giant’ arborvitae and equally fast-growing Norway spruce, sporting with sharper needles and drooping branches, feature many of the same plants but in different combinations. “I did a lot of layering,” George explains, noting that an important consideration was the deer population and picking plants that are not deer favorites. “Deer can be very destructive and very challenging to work with,” he says Through the years, he noted, he has learned to work with a limited plant palette where deer can be a problem. He also was careful to combine evergreen and deciduous shrubs, so the landscape looks good year-round.
Some of the plants that made the grade include long-blooming, red ‘Knock Out” and red, ground cover (carpet) roses, boxwoods, dogwoods and redbuds. Hydrangeas encompass smaller white ‘Bobo’, ‘Ruby Slippers’ a dwarf oak leaf variety that starts off white and then turns scarlet, and native ‘Annabelle,’ which sports huge white blossoms.
While not as well-known a shrub, he made liberal use of long-blooming ‘Rose Creek’ abelia with red stems and glossy green leaves that features small fragrant white blossoms from May through September. It is semi-evergreen unless winters are harsh and is known to be deer resistant. The compact size, topping out at 3-feet tall and 4-feet wide, and ability to thrive in both sun and part shade make it useful in many garden locations.
He also used a number of large, 8-12-foot, ‘Pragense’ viburnums, a Missouri Botanical Garden Plant of Merit, known to do well in the St. Louis climate. Like the abelia, it can be semi-evergreen and thrive in both sun and part shade. The showy, fragrant May blossoms result in red fall berries that mature to black. Deer are not fond of the leathery leaves.
For winter evergreen interest he included tall, slender ‘Taylor’ junipers and low growing, almost fluffy ‘Grey Owl’ junipers. To add movement to the landscape and additional winter interest, he made liberal use of tall ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass, another Missouri Botanical Garden Plant of Merit, and lower growing ‘Adagio’ maiden grass. Both are adaptable to a variety of garden conditions and sport pinkish blossoms that turn white and remain on the plant through the winter.
George continually used two easy-to-grow groundcovers through all the beds. Sedum’ Kamtschaticum’, or stonecrop, has plump rounded. bright green leaves and is covered with golden, star-shaped blossoms from late spring through summer. The flowers turn russet and the foliage becomes tinged red in fall. In contrast, lirope or monkey grass remains green and has mounded, strap-like leaves.
“Our outdoor spaces are really our favorite spots of the new house. It was really a one-stop shop,” the wife says of working with George and Landesign, who handled not only the landscaping but things such as exterior home lighting and landscape lighting. "We were so impressed, we hired him to do ongoing maintenance as well. My husband and I loved the whole process, and we pretty much agreed on everything. We couldn’t have asked for more. We were very lucky and blessed.”
