The Meditation Garden

The Meditation Garden

This garden, shown in spring, is built on a filled-in swimming pool. The concrete pool deck still encircles the planted portion of the garden, which blends with a pre-existing woodland-style garden bed in the foreground. From foreground to background, the Meditation Garden winds sinuously from a sunny area into a larger shaded portion under a considerable oak canopy. Two water features punctuate the “journey,” with the gazebo structure serving as the “destination.” Native and naturalized plantings enliven the space year-round, with peaks of color from spring through fall. Woodland-loving Creeping Phlox steals the show in May, pictured here in lovely pink-lavender drifts that perfume the air with an intoxicatingly sweet fragrance. The garden is frequented by a diverse mix of pollinating insects, hummingbirds, songbirds (who love the stone bird bath), and other wildlife, including turtles.

The Story Behind the Meditation Garden

The Meditation Garden is actually part of a series of landscape design improvements across the entire property, inspired by the residents’ desire for a more ecological landscape approach with less lawn. Beyond the main Meditation Garden is a naturalized dry-shade slope that was formerly lawn but now hosts multiple native species of wildflowers, ferns, and grasses. Outside the fence, about half of a much larger lawn area has been transformed into a more “sustainable lawn,” covered with flowering clovers and ringed with sun-loving, pollinator-attracting wildflowers and shrubs such as coreopsis and Virginia rose.

The Meditation Garden and surrounding landscape also tell a story of personal loss… and healing. Two adjoining gardens, one subtle and shaded, the other sunny and lively, celebrate the lives of a beloved mother (The Mother Garden) and brother (The Brother Garden). The main Meditation Garden serves as the centerpiece (“centered” piece), providing year-round solace and affirmation of life to the surviving family members.