Drive-By Gardens: No-lawn flower garden at Houston Heights bungalow
We’d cruised down Peddie Street in the Houston Heights neighborhood to find the riotously colorful house and garden that locals had urged us to see. But Peddie offers a two-for-one special, and when we spotted this pretty garden across the street from the first one, we got twice as much eye candy.
The khaki-colored bungalow is more restrained than the red cottage across the street, and its garden is more disciplined. And yet it’s still wildly colorful, with hotter hues by the street and cooler colors near the house. Since hot colors attract the eye and cool colors recede into the distance, the effect is to make the front walk look longer than it really is.
A little internet sleuthing reveals that the owner is a garden designer, David Morello of David Morello Garden Enterprises. I like the structure he’s created with low boxwood hedges at the front porch…
…and on each side of the front walk near the street — evergreen “bones” that support the garden through less-flowery seasons.
The public sidewalk setback is vast on this street, basically dividing the front yards in half. Between the street and the sidewalk, the owner widened his flagstone walk with a circle about 8 feet in diameter, creating a welcoming landing that attracts the eye and helps avoid a bowling-alley effect.
On Google Earth, the picture of this house shows a very different yard: no garden, just overgrown trees and lawn between the street and sidewalk, and a tall hedge along the public walk hiding the house and immediate front yard from view. Clearly this is a relatively new garden. The owner opened up the yard by taking out the streetside trees and the hedge and gave it a friendly welcome with the new stone walk. He planted low hedges for structure and plenty of flowers for traffic-stopping color…
…and he laid a small, rectangular patio under a magnolia, providing a place to sit and enjoy the garden. Texas Black gravel paves the arrow-straight pathways through the garden. Strong lines give order to the profusion of flowering plants.
I love that the owner planted Texas wildflowers like these bluebonnets amid his cottage favorites.
Springtime in Texas
I also admired the way the gravel path flows right into the gravel driveway, for a cohesive look. Stone edging helps keep gravel out of the beds.
The cocoa-colored garage blends into the background, allowing the evergreen plants along the driveway to be the stars. Enormous sago palms and variegated pittosporum are low maintenance and green up the space.
I really enjoyed this garden and also the dynamic between the two Peddie Street gardens — both exuberantly flowery, but executed in very different styles. What nice views they’ve created for each other!
For a look back at the colorful cottage garden at 605 Peddie, just across the street from this one, click here.
All material © 2006-2014 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
My sister lives in Humble, Tx. I’d love to see this done to her front yard. Janet and Ken Smith,Pine Green Lane, Humble, Tx. Love your no grass yard and beautiful flowers.
Hi, Linda. This isn’t my garden, just one I spotted while in Houston last weekend. Thanks for stopping by! —Pam
These colorful photos makes me want to start planting. Sigh Must wait a little longer. Gorgeous!
I’ve been planting like a squirrel in November, Lisa. Hope you get a chance to do the same soon. —Pam
What a show stopper. My goodness, is this really March in Texas. I wonder what flowers he uses in the summer as many of these winter annuals die.
Someone needs to make another trip this summer to find out. —Pam
WooHoo! Two drive-bys in one day! Thanks for showing us another fantastically colorful garden. I like this one too, similar to the first but with more structure.
I’m glad you enjoyed the posts, Alison. Can you imagine being their neighbors? Lucky people. —Pam
WOW! What a gorgeous garden, much better than a lawn with just grass. Love how the boxwood hedges add structure. I’m sure this yard stops traffic!
It sure stopped our car! —Pam
Thank you for sharing these two lovely colorful gardens. Oh how nice it would be to have neighbors like them!
Pam, your blog always inspires me. Thank you!
I’m glad you’re enjoying the spring pictures, Chey. —Pam
A two fer! So interesting to have these gardens across from each other. I’m guessing it is not accidental that both owners are design professionals.
Honestly, I’m not sure I’d want to live too close by – the pressure would be intense to “keep up with the neighbors”! Jenny – I was wondering the same thing – “how will these look in July or August?”. Hope somebody checks them out – I’d love to see if they simply make annual substitutions to handle the heat.
That’s what I’d expect. If they were big perennials gardeners, they wouldn’t have space for all these annuals. —Pam
I really love how he added the circular area to the flagstone, the Texas black gravel walkway/patio, and the different tone choices in the hedging to add dimension. And the hot color front/cool back that you mentioned, which I hadn’t understood as a technique and wouldn’t have realized if you hadn’t mentioned it. I sit here and think, ‘Would I have ever thought of any of that?’ Probably not. There is a lot of cleverness to be appreciated here. I love that the TX black gravel area has kind of a ‘private’ walkway that anyone walking that deepset public sidewalk would know not to use.
As a kid growing up in xeric Phoenix, I was always amazed when I went to Disneyland and saw the incredibly dense, potent gardens and well-designed and maintained spaces. The annuals that were fairly matured and established by the time you saw them planted in the decorative beds, as they’d been tended too in the back for months and installed in the dead of night. The building facades on Main Street, USA that used forced perspective to seem taller and grander. Those elements are what draws my heart so near to these two Houston Heights gardens, I think.
I enjoyed your Disneyland analogy, Kate. A staff of gardeners helps with all that, of course, but clearly these two homeowners are dedicated gardeners to have achieved so much color, fullness, and beauty. —Pam
Been following you since we lived in FL in 2005…your first cottage style garden reminded me of what I’d left behind in my South Louisiana bungalow. Never dreamed work would take us to TX and never dreamed I’d come the full-fledged-stalker-circle…did the drive by on this one today (as I HAD to take a field trip to Buchanan’s anyway…) and what a treat it was! Keep up the drive bys…this is one of my favorite topics on your blog…that and your beautiful photography and great plant info! I’m definitely going to have to take another field trip when the real Texas heat arrives in Houston.
Thanks for your kind comment, Julia! I’ll have another drive-by post sometime this week — another for you to stalk in Houston. 😉 —Pam
Want both of these Peddie gardeners for neighbors. It would certainly liven up our little burg.
I’d love it too, Vicki. More gardening is always a good thing. —Pam
LOVE this!
Me too, Deb. 🙂 —Pam
Thanks for the wonderful article – and beautiful pictures! Just what I needed to see today. I’d been bemoaning the fact that there seems to be so much landscaping and so little gardening but here it is: a spectacular garden. Will head out to see it this weekend while attending the Heights Home and Garden spring tour!
Quick question – when you do these drive-bys, do you knock on the door first or just shoot away?
I generally don’t have any contact with the owner unless he/she pops outside. Taking pictures of what you can see from the public street or sidewalk is legal, and I am careful not to step into the garden without an explicit invitation. Have fun touring, Elizabeth! —Pam
Thanks! Years ago, I was standing on a sidewalk trying to take a picture of a pandorea vine and did not realize how I was disturbing the homeowner. I think we both probably scared each other half to death! Can’t wait to go see this house.
Ha ha, yeah, that could lead to a startling situation. —Pam
Hi Pam,
I went to Houston with a friend this weekend to see an art exhibit and we both liked your pictures of this yard and the one across from it so much, we decided to go see them for ourselves. We found out Houston Heights was having a House and Garden tour,too, so we went on that as well. It was a great way to spend a Saturday. Thanks for all your great pictures and posts!
How fun! Lucky you to stumble across the Heights tour as well. —Pam
Wow! I bought a little bungalow last year as an investment, and would love to do something similar with the tiny front yard!