Hartlage Garden // Seattle, WA

The small home garden of Richard Hartlage serves as the laboratory for his design firm, Land Morphology. With a six-foot, hand-made Italian pot sculpture in front, you can’t miss the house from the street. Perhaps the vermilion paint job gives it away too! The front garden meadow features a serpentine of boxwood that frames the plantings and provides winter structure. Venturing into the backyard, the first seating area is a deck clad in diamond plate aluminum and ringed in terracotta planters of boxwood topiaries. The lower area is paved in granite planks with a turquoise ceramic table as a focal point. This area is enclosed with industrial containers planted with rare shade plants, while a gnat haze of hanging baskets swarms overhead. A nine-foot-long water trough is planted with waterlilies and aquatic iris. Privacy is provided by a weathered steel fence.  The dramatic features of this garden are intended to be enjoyed by small gatherings.

Photography by Miranda Estes