Collection by Andrea Smith
Growing Upward: 9 Ways to Plant Vertically
To live in a city often means abandoning all hope of owning a garden. By planting vertically, however, these projects were able to add greenery without sacrificing precious floor space.
Inspired by her visits to Japan, architect Cary Bernstein did not build to the property lines but left open about three-and-a-half feet on each side of the house: “These little side gardens make rooms feel bigger, since they make nature part of your interiors and bring light and air circulation into the house,” she says.
A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.
Cox initially conceived the deck as a conventional surface for relaxing and entertaining. With the bench, however, he seized an opportunity to create something both functional and visually arresting. “You go down these paths and, as the design mutates, other ideas attach themselves and make it stronger and more interesting,” he says.