A woman spent four years turning her small courtyard into a stunning dream home that amazed the world

In an environment of rapid consumption,

restlessness has become a common affliction for many people.

Who knows when it started,

but we are no longer willing to spend too much time on any one thing.

In fact, the most refined life

is about making the dreams you have had come true one by one.

Danshui,

a post-70s beauty who harbored a garden dream,

turned her dream into reality over the course of four years.

As clear and light as water,

and it is precisely this authenticity

that allowed her to live out a different version of herself in the garden.

She knew well that building a garden was no easy task.

By a stroke of fate, she met garden designer "Shanjiang,"

and with the support of a professional designer,

Danshui went from garden novice to skilled garden maker.

[Danshui's Small Courtyard],

from a barren patch of land to overflowing with floral fragrance.

Garden name: Danshui's Small Courtyard

Garden address: Huzhou, Zhejiang

Garden area: 40 sq m

Garden owner: Danshui

Lead designer: Shanjiang (Zhao Hong)

Designer's musings: A garden should be livable

When I first saw Danshui's Small Courtyard, it was a row-house garden with an area of only 40 sq m, and the southern wall boundary was an irregular curve. Although the area was small, in the design plan we basically satisfied all the functional needs, such as an outdoor living room, an ordinary pergola, a real-fire fireplace, a fountain pool, a garden vegetable plot, flower beds, a two-person bench, a standpipe, and other courtyard elements.

Floor plan

Because Danshui's main building is in a European pastoral style, the garden style was also established as a European country courtyard. In terms of design layout, we adopted a 45-degree angle and a centrally symmetrical form. The overall plan is more lively in composition and also adds a sense of spatial layering, greatly improving the visual perception of the garden's area.

During the construction process, Danshui and I worked together with great chemistry. The garden originally had a red maple, an orange tree, and a camellia. Considering the garden's presentation effect, we transplanted all these large plants to the wall along the boundary, and planted climbing roses, hydrangeas, and other flowering plants along the fences and walls on the east and west sides.

Construction drawing

In order to create a green wall effect, we designed the southern courtyard wall as a low country wall built with natural stones, and let star jasmine, Angela roses, Boston ivy, and other climbing plants grow on it.

Low country wall

Not only that, we also used vegetable color blocks to create landscape in the middle of the garden, designing a flat hexagonal family vegetable garden.

Hexagonal family vegetable garden

Personally, I am quite satisfied with the garden layout. Small as it is, it has everything. Being able to incorporate so many elements into a 40 sq m space is very difficult. After the garden was completed, it did not look messy at all, only refined in every way. What is even more surprising is that the garden looks bigger.

The garden's current presentation fully meets expectations. Of course, this would not have been possible without the owner's trust and support, so I am very grateful to Danshui for cooperating with our design plan, successfully turning the two-dimensional design drawing into a three-dimensional reality, and also following the design requirements one hundred percent in terms of materials used.

In fact, if you want future family vegetable garden planting to be neater, I suggest that the four sections of the vegetable garden be planted with single, low-growing varieties, such as herb plants. Be sure to avoid messy planting. Patches of greens, patches of lettuce, patches of basil, and so on are good for creating color blocks.

Throughout the entire construction process, I never visited the site. We communicated entirely online. When the client encountered problems, she would consult in time. This process also trained Danshui into a skilled garden maker, and of course, it also made us very good friends.

In fact, in garden design, the first thing to think about is not how to lay it out or how to pair plants, but rather to think about a lifestyle and help the client accept and fall in love with that lifestyle. An ornamental courtyard will eventually become tiresome, while long-term heavy gardening work will overwhelm the garden owner and cause them to lose enthusiasm and abandon the garden.

Therefore, my design philosophy for gardens is: a garden should be livable and practical, allowing the garden owner to live, work, and socialize in the garden, and thereby fall in love with garden life.

Owner's musings: Nothing to do with glory or favor, but there are flowers

In early 2014, my new home was completed. Looking at the patch of wild grass outside the window, I realized for the first time that I needed a small courtyard full of greenery and blooming flowers. My family said I have always been single-minded. Once an idea arises, it is hard to stop it, so I also embarked on the long road of garden making.

A small courtyard full of the mottled feeling of passing years

From design to completion, Danshui's Small Courtyard was basically finished in two months, and the overall hardscape cost was around thirty thousand yuan. As for design needs, I hoped that functionally it would have both the privacy of daily life and the functionality of an outdoor living room. Therefore, in the layout, we changed the outermost isolation belt from the original green hedge to a stone wall. After Boston ivy and star jasmine covered the stone wall, the entire small courtyard was full of the mottled feeling of passing years, appropriately ensuring private life.

At the courtyard entrance is a retro archway. The rusty rivets tell a distant story, and the archway is covered with European roses. When spring comes, flowers bloom all over, captivating the eye. Inside the courtyard, an ordinary pergola, a real-fire fireplace, a fountain pool, a garden vegetable plot, flower beds, and a two-person bench are all available, ensuring the function of receiving guests and making friends, and also providing enough space for us to tinker around.

Using vegetable color blocks to create landscape

As for plant configuration, I have always been exploring. In the early days, I kept buying and planting according to my preferences, and it was a bit messy. Two years later, I began to sort it out and used subtraction to find suitable plants for the small courtyard. In order to quickly create a green wall, I chose Boston ivy, and within one year the stone wall already showed obvious results. To create year-round greenery, I chose star jasmine and banksia rose. The European rose Angela at the archway was the earliest plant I planted and has now taken shape. Along the wall, hydrangeas and climbing roses are the main plants. The vegetable plot in the middle was changed to low-growing vegetables, using vegetable color blocks to create landscape.

Clever use of materials for DIY

The shape of the fireplace archway stumped the construction workers. By accident, I saw a spare tire in the trunk and had a flash of inspiration. I went to a repair shop and asked for a discarded tire, and successfully used it to complete the firebrick fireplace. On weekends, I strolled in the mountains and picked up a piece of broken wood. I placed it on the original marble slab of the fireplace, giving it more of a lived-in feel. My husband opened up a spot in the basement, bought a saw, and used waste materials to DIY a succulent table, nearly becoming a master woodworker.

The partners who participated in building the garden with me included garden designer Shanjiang and my husband. Shanjiang was responsible for the overall design and remote control, my husband was responsible for buying materials and finding construction workers, and I was responsible for communicating and coordinating with the designer. For example, I wanted to build a fireplace, a pool, a firebrick bench, a standpipe, and an ordinary pergola in the garden...

At first, my husband was extremely unwilling to participate in garden making. Now, his love for flowers and plants far exceeds mine... Perhaps this is the charm of a garden.

Over four years, Danshui's Small Courtyard went from barren to abundant. From design to construction, and then to completion, I learned a lot throughout the whole process, and even became good friends with the designer. Of course, through gardening I also met many warm, kind friends who understand life and love to share, which helped me evolve from a plant killer who knew nothing to a beginner flower farmer.

Curling up in the garden, spending warm times together

What I like most is the fireplace. Through the floor-to-ceiling window of the living room, directly facing it, the garden becomes a painting. After work, my husband plants flowers and hoes weeds in the yard, while I cook a loving dinner for the family in the kitchen. Sometimes we dine under the pergola, facing a courtyard of blooming flowers, with floral fragrance overflowing. In leisure time, the whole family curls up in the garden, watering and moving soil together, spending warm times together.

On weekend afternoons,

I most enjoy sitting in my own garden,

savoring all kinds of tea snacks I baked myself,

with a few close friends,

nothing to do with glory or favor, but there are flowers.

The most beautiful times are no more than this.

Just like this,

a cup of clear tea, a volume of poetry, no remembrance of the past.

Gardening fills life with expectation and beauty, teaches people to slow down, to patiently wait for every flower to bloom, and even more, it helps me understand how to carefully savor and appreciate the scenery along life's journey, cherish every stage of life, and treasure every person around me.

-- Danshui