Research Garden DesignBrowse photos, get design ideas & see the hottest plants
All hired man on roof . Ellen Erdreich passes on lessons in sustainability to her granddaughter Sofia , 5 , by planting a miscellany of sedums on the roof of her townhouse in Birmingham , Alabama , design by her son , a local architect . Greenery help cool the planetary house in the scorching summers and absorbs rainwater during torrent , which minimizes overflow and the need for irrigation .
When former Alabama Congressman Ben Erdreich and his wife Ellen decided in 2002 to return home to Birmingham after 22 years in Washington , D.C. , they require to live in the heart of the city to savour the business district revival . Moreover , they were interested in explore a Modern style of metropolis living and asked their boy , Jeremy , a Birmingham architect , to project a contemporary townhouse that would be “ as green as possible . ” Although loft - style apartments in renovate factory building had recently become pop in this former steel capital of the South , no private individual - family home had been built business district in 60 or so years .
The garden plan call for a large orthogonal garden .
“ Of naturally , the gullible matter about the house is just the fact that it is downtown , ” tell Jeremy Erdreich , “ so my parents can walk everywhere and do n’t have to use their machine . ”
The site the Erdreichs chose was a challenge : a 25 - animal foot - by-140 - foot airstrip of parking passel on 2nd Avenue North that backs onto an alleyway and is near one of the city ’s highway connectors . But it is across the street from their son ’s o_ce and near the honest-to-goodness , brick high - rise buildings where both Ben ’s and Ellen ’s root lived and worked more than a hundred years ago when Birmingham was a rich boomtown that resemble go - of - the - century New York . “ We were returning to a place that had been our family home , ” Ellen say . “ It had extra meaning for us . ”
Dominated by a raised plantation owner with shameful bamboo and a fountain
From the starting time of the design process , gardens were to be an all important part of the townhouse . And they were peculiarly important to Ellen , an esurient gardener . She had a long wish list that her son and Michael Steiner , a local landscape interior designer , had to regard in planning the gardens , from “ moving water that made a noise ” to “ trees and shrubs that rise quickly . ” In a typical row menage , light and air enter the house either from the front or the back , but Jeremy designed a three - story , open - air atrium to land light source into the meat of the new theatre , which was last completed in 2007 .
Go Green in the City
“ Because of the atrium , during the day hr , my parents more often than not do n’t take to use light , which cuts down dramatically on electrical energy , ” enunciate Jeremy . “ level - to - ceiling glass sliders open up the rooms to the atrium , which even in the high temperature of summer is coolheaded and shady , lessen the need for atmosphere conditioning in the house . ” The atrium is a private plaza where Ellen sometimes has tea while in her bathrobe . It is planted with large - exit bamboo and a Japanese aralia . A camelia is espaliered on the rampart ; and a creeping fig vine is brandish , its delicate green fingers already reaching beyond the second level . Belgian pave blocks used for the atrium floor are recycled and set up in sand to improve the surface permeableness , beam less water into the drains .
Though Jeremy has not done a detailed monitoring of the utility in the house , he believe that the shallow light-green roof - planted with sedums , phlox and a lovely white groundcover climb ( Rosa Snow CarpetR ) - has indeed cut down the pauperization for heating and cooling in the house . “ The toll of place in the dark-green roof was three times what a normal rubber roof would have monetary value , ” says Jeremy . “ We had to use an Atlanta installer , because we could n’t find any licensed installers in Birmingham . But , as more and more people ut in green roofs , hopefully it will be easier to find license local installers and the price will come down . ” ( The young regional socialsecurity eye in Birmingham , completed just after the Erdreich townhouse , includes a large green ceiling . )
Ellen describes the chief garden between the house and the garage as her “ haven ” in the metropolis , a place to experience and enjoy the exchange seasons . And indeed , the way she and Michael have design it , there is colour and fragrance in the garden year - pear-shaped . in the beginning , Jeremy and Michael had hoped to integrate runoff water from the service department cap into the recycling water system in the two pools , but it proved too costly . Instead , Michael used a swale to catch the cap overspill and lead it to the main waste pipe near the house . He filled the area in and around the depression with fragrant , moisture - sleep with aboriginal plants — such as swamp azalea , sweetshrub and leucothoe - from Louisiana plantswoman Margie Jenkins . In the mix too are plantings of Virginia sweetspire that Michael propagated , which produce spectacular fall leaf from crimson - burgundy to yellow - orange .
Between the master house and the service department , as well as an inner atrium to provide light and air travel to the center of the townhouse .
Along with the natives are Asiatic plant varieties that Ellen loves . One of her favorites is aStyrax japonica , which produces a profusion of lilliputian , fragrant white Alexander Melville Bell - shaped blossom in the natural spring . “ This year , ” she enounce , “ it was so glorious , it gave me goof hump . ” She set the tree by the kitchen windows so she can see it when she ’s both inside and alfresco . And she has enjoyed the black bamboo in the promote planter , which has quickly sprouted to more than 15 feet and bends more or less now , providing shadowiness on a spicy Birmingham summer twenty-four hours over the path run to the service department . Asiatic plants — sweetbox , variety of oriental false hellebore andDaphe odora‘Alba’—are creditworthy for a profusion of fragrant flush in belated winter .
Similar materials were used in all the garden area , such as turn up sheet of COR - TEN brand , employed to fence off the holding from the neighboring parking circumstances , while give up airflow . In the foreground are fragrant , moisture - have sex native plants , such as swampland azalea and sweetshrub , supplemented by Asian trees and shrub that the owners particularly favor .
Ellen wanted a garden that she could take care of herself , and the plants she and Michael chose are fairly ego - sufficient and have outlive Birmingham ’s mild winters well . But in the preceding few years , Ellen has an more and more competent helper — her 5 - year - old granddaughter Sofia , who has become an sharp scholar of change in the garden . Every visit to her grandmother ’s house is an adventure . “ What ’s blooming in the garden now ? ” she always ask . Ellen is passing on to Sofia her making love of nature as well as important lessons in sustainability . “ It is critical for all of us that nestling take to love the Earth , ” Ellen allege , “ and to verify that it ’s there - for their grandchildren . ”
