A Toronto Front Yard Gains Style and a Taste of the Southwest
This fresh design includes gravel beds, Cor-Ten steel planters and cold-hardy plants inspired by desert landscapes
Annie Thornton
August 6, 2019
Houzz Editorial Staff
The landscape of the American Southwest is worlds apart from that of Canada, but that didn’t stop the owners of this Toronto home from wanting to bring a taste of the desert to their front yard. The owners, who are avid gardeners, loved the rock, rusted metal and desert plants they had seen while on vacation in Arizona. They turned to landscape designer Shelby Hallman Mailloux of Earth and Sole to translate that vision into a design that would thrive in their climate.
Photos by Jenna Muirhead
Yard at a Glance
Who uses it: A family of three and their dog
Location: Leslieville neighborhood of Toronto
Size: 546 square feet (51 square meters)
Designer: Shelby Hallman Mailloux of Earth and Sole
As part of the redesign, the homeowners wanted their front yard to be more functional and to have more curb appeal, privacy and plants. Maillou preserved an existing mature spruce tree and a front porch that the homeowners like to sit and relax on, but excavated nearly everything else, including an existing retaining wall and interlocking brick pavers.
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Yard at a Glance
Who uses it: A family of three and their dog
Location: Leslieville neighborhood of Toronto
Size: 546 square feet (51 square meters)
Designer: Shelby Hallman Mailloux of Earth and Sole
As part of the redesign, the homeowners wanted their front yard to be more functional and to have more curb appeal, privacy and plants. Maillou preserved an existing mature spruce tree and a front porch that the homeowners like to sit and relax on, but excavated nearly everything else, including an existing retaining wall and interlocking brick pavers.
Find a landscape designer on Houzz
Prefabricated Cor-Ten steel planters line the front edge of the elevated yard, beautifying the sidewalk, screening the home from the street and acting as a retaining wall for the slightly raised front yard. Their weathered finish complements the home’s brick exterior while also echoing the desert aesthetic that the homeowners admire.
Mailloux filled the planters with breezy grasses and dusty, trailing plants — species similar to what you might see in the desert but much more cold-tolerant. The plants include ‘Silver Brocade’ artemesia (Artemesia stellariana ‘Silver Brocade’), ‘May Night’ sage (Salvia ‘May Night’), ‘Xenox’ stonecrop (Sedum telephium ‘Xenox’) and, for height, ‘Northwind’ switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Northwind’).
The homeowners hand-water the containers every other day in summer and reduce watering in the cooler months. They leave the plants up over winter and cut them back in early spring.
Planter fabrication: Hogtown Sheet Metal + Custom Fabrication
Mailloux filled the planters with breezy grasses and dusty, trailing plants — species similar to what you might see in the desert but much more cold-tolerant. The plants include ‘Silver Brocade’ artemesia (Artemesia stellariana ‘Silver Brocade’), ‘May Night’ sage (Salvia ‘May Night’), ‘Xenox’ stonecrop (Sedum telephium ‘Xenox’) and, for height, ‘Northwind’ switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Northwind’).
The homeowners hand-water the containers every other day in summer and reduce watering in the cooler months. They leave the plants up over winter and cut them back in early spring.
Planter fabrication: Hogtown Sheet Metal + Custom Fabrication
The family’s trash, recycling and green-waste bins sit just inside the wall of planters, in the front corner of the yard. Mailloux chose this spot because it provides easy access to the street but also keeps the bins out of the way and out of main sightlines.
Instead of building an enclosure around the bins, the designer placed them on a pad of Wiarton limestone pavers. She didn’t want to call more attention to the trash area or have it compete with any of the yard’s other design elements.
Instead of building an enclosure around the bins, the designer placed them on a pad of Wiarton limestone pavers. She didn’t want to call more attention to the trash area or have it compete with any of the yard’s other design elements.
Rock and gravel spread over new soils add to the desert-garden effect that the homeowners wanted. The materials also help maintain soil moisture and act as a weed barrier, preventing unwanted plants from popping up in the garden.
A straight cedar boardwalk leads from the street to the front door, adding another texture, color and material to the stone-and-metal-filled yard. The wood will continue to age and develop a soft gray patina, with the only maintenance being an annual power washing in spring.
In this photo that looks toward the street from the house, you can see how the planters and plants lining the front of the yard add privacy, with a passing pedestrian and parked cars mostly obscured from view.
A straight cedar boardwalk leads from the street to the front door, adding another texture, color and material to the stone-and-metal-filled yard. The wood will continue to age and develop a soft gray patina, with the only maintenance being an annual power washing in spring.
In this photo that looks toward the street from the house, you can see how the planters and plants lining the front of the yard add privacy, with a passing pedestrian and parked cars mostly obscured from view.
Mailloux opted for cool gray, purple and blue plants to create the feeling of a Southwest garden, with cold-hardy grasses, flowering perennials and succulents filling the plant palette. Patches of sedum and thyme are spread across the ground, similar to how succulents and other ground covers carpet the desert floor. “The goal was [to create] something desert-style but lush, not bare,” Mailloux says.
‘Little Spire’ Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Little Spire’) and ‘Big Ears’ lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina ‘Big Ears’) add height, texture and color to the front yard plantings. A weeping lime-colored Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) stands out as the bed’s focal point.
A new stepped cedar fence increases privacy along the south side of the yard; it matches the existing fence on the north side of the yard. Grasses planted along the fence will fill in as they mature.
Plants: Beech Nursery
‘Little Spire’ Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Little Spire’) and ‘Big Ears’ lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina ‘Big Ears’) add height, texture and color to the front yard plantings. A weeping lime-colored Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) stands out as the bed’s focal point.
A new stepped cedar fence increases privacy along the south side of the yard; it matches the existing fence on the north side of the yard. Grasses planted along the fence will fill in as they mature.
Plants: Beech Nursery
Other plants in the front yard include woolly thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus), ‘Albiflorus‘ thyme (Thymus praecox ‘Albiflorus’), ‘Pacific Blue Ice’ hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum ‘Pacific Blue Ice’), October Daphne stonecrop (Sedum sieboldii), ‘Autumn Fire’ stonecrop (Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’), ‘Carl’ stonecrop (Sedum ‘Carl’) and ‘Dazzleberry’ stonecrop (Sedum ‘Dazzleberry’). Grasses include inland sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium), black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’), blue fescue (Festuca glauca), blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens) and ‘Morning Light’ maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’), which add interest and structure over winter.
All watering in the garden is done by hand, as the homeowners requested. Over time, the plants will continue to fill in and the garden will evolve. “It is a gardener’s garden,” Mailloux says.
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All watering in the garden is done by hand, as the homeowners requested. Over time, the plants will continue to fill in and the garden will evolve. “It is a gardener’s garden,” Mailloux says.
More on Houzz
Tour other inspiring gardens
Browse thousands of photos of landscapes
Work with a landscape architect near you
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Greetings from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The space looks like a Southwest garden for the most part. Good work, design team.
Pea gravel is the easiest to keep weeded. May Night salvia, lamb's ears, and ice plant grow well here, too. Albuquerque is a high altitude desert.
We also bought a home with a gravel driveway and "yard". In spite of cleaning up and replacing gravel, it still gets some weeds. After storms and in the fall, it is necessary to blow off the leaves and other debris to keep it from degrading and making "dirt" in the gravel (raking pulls up the gravel). The gravel also needs swept from sidewalks, the garage and the street and cleaned out of the flower beds at times. It holds the heat from the sun. You need to be careful when you shovel snow off the driveway. That said, it does not need watered, mowed, and is a permeable surface for water drainage so we keep it. It is not "no maintainance" I would not use it for mulch in flower/shrub beds, though, in the area where we live.
.... personally speaking (.. from virtual solutions.... that is...) i think a space in terms of actual designer.... an space can potentially integrate various potential functions (do not forget form..., yet it is not essential...)... a lawn area for children playing (or a droid.... chasing a paper.... or her catalogue or whatever....).. of course the unfolding colour vista from the front entrance.. is reasonable the absence of light features at the gate.... and towards the front entrance... could be challenging for those whom like work late or whatever... (picking up the kids from virtual Battle chess tournaments....)
A statue upon one of the sides.. would allow some of the moss theeeur top be lazily draping across it... with a nice lantern... hanging the torch thing to prevent steampunk vampires and what not... all of a sudden the moss is more proficiently utilised (without virtual solutions.... what would a personage dooo....).... of course conditions can have an potential impact for the selection options of foliage or materials and hence - colour schemes or profiles.. including texture what not.. however.... a personage thinking on their feet... could include more structure than just a one tier layer of landscape design.. a second or a third... heaven forbid... - this would include the shrub... and statue layer... and then of course pagolas (an Australian term for awesome.....).. are part of trees in a third tier... filling some of this space with items for an eye to view... however obviously for function purposes.... access to the bins is necessary... however the visual vista was not spoilt for tha'.. .earthy tones.... yet not as kid friendly as i would fancy....'nuff said...