Formal Italian Garden with Pergola
Recipe Amy Howerska Recipe Amy Howerska

Formal Italian Garden with Pergola

The Brief

The beauty of imperfection in antiquity drove the aesthetic of this project. My client travels extensively in Europe -specifically Italy and France and had architectural antiques they wished to incorporate into the fabric of the garden. My brief was to create a lush, Italian-influenced garden capable of providing a year-round venue for my client's legendary parties, as well as a private garden, to relax and enjoy from the adjacent carriage house.

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Iconic Ickler House with Terraced Garden
Recipe Amy Howerska Recipe Amy Howerska

Iconic Ickler House with Terraced Garden

Design constraints of the Garden.

A unique Eichler home perched on an awkward, steep lot in Twin Peaks. Not only was the site protected as a historical building. This garden had also been neglected for approximately 20 years and self-sown non-native invasive trees and weeds had the garden in a chokehold. The garden was so overgrown we had to hire specialist contractors to clear the steep site save for a handful of salvageable plants. Once we removed the invasive plants it created an immediate lack of privacy. We solved this by planting fast-growing screening shrubs later to be succeeded by twenty seven Japanese maple trees.

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Disused paved area to Sensory Destination Garden.
Recipe Amy Howerska Recipe Amy Howerska

Disused paved area to Sensory Destination Garden.

All small spaces have the potential to be a garden.

This project located in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco was a prime example of unused garden potential. The small space metamorphosed from an awkward, triangular overlooked concrete pad - to a private scented courtyard.

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