Botanica Atlanta | Landscape Design, Construction & Maintenance

Imagine your home without one of its rooms. Can you imagine cooking without a kitchen? Would you feel well-rested without a bedroom where you could properly sleep? Could you live without a living room?

Picturing your house without one of these important spaces probably conjures ridiculous images of sleeping on the couch and washing dishes in your bathtub. Every room in your house provides you and your family with a specific purpose: an area to relax, a place to bond with family and close friends, a destination where you can retreat from stress. And yet many homes lack one important type of space.

Image: Lachlan Hardy

Every garden is composed of one or more distinct, contained spaces. Landscape designers and garden aficionados alike often refer to these enclosures as “outdoor rooms,” and, if properly designed, one of these “rooms” could become the most valued space of your entire home.

In a typical day, a working adult spends very little of their time surrounded by nature. Between the indoor hours spent at the workplace, the monotonous minutes spent commuting, and the various household tasks that seem to fill those hours before bedtime, most people can only steal a few fleeting moments outside. These long hours under fluorescent artificial lights and behind car windshields can wear down the human body and mind. In the modern world, there is a disconnect between human life and the plant and animal kingdoms, and this is far from a natural condition. Our ancestors spent all of their waking hours in the outside world.

Images: Sam Valentine, Jo Naylor, and Tom Bream

It is no wonder that “recreational” activities – those defined as restoring, physically or mentally – almost always take place outdoors. Looking up at the blue sky, sensing a cool breeze, feeling light raindrops, or even being pelted by the occasional squirrel-flung acorn stirs a restorative feeling in the human soul.

Images: Sam Valentine, Marvin Gardens, and Drew Avery

“Outdoor room” is a flexible term, and a designer can detail your garden’s enclosing walls to meet your aesthetic preferences. Several climbing plants, such as the fine-textured creeping fig (Ficus pumila) or the ornate Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata), can clothe the surface of a garden’s walls without causing permanent damage. Alternatively, massing several dark-foliaged evergreen shrubs such as the resilient Japanese privet (Ligustrum japonicus) or vibrantly blooming camellias (Camellia japonica) can imply the enclosure of a wall without the cost of a construction job.

If you find yourself yearning for fresher air and more sunlight in your daily life, consider building an outdoor room. Think of an activity that you enjoy doing most – arts, crafts, family meals, or even cooking – and there is a very good chance that a carefully designed outdoor space can readily accommodate that function.

Author: Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP