Discover a Hidden Jewel

Concealed from the street, a delightful space makes room for both plants and parking.

It's classic Charleston, South Carolina: A secret garden I tucked behind a house offers tantalizing glimpses of itself from the street. Intrigued, you duck down a narrow alley or peek through a wrought iron gate to see a leafy sanctuary. Such surprises are common in this historic city. But the biggest surprise of this garden is how it came to be.

The center of Charleston provides residents limited on-street parking. If you can't park on the street, you need a place to park behind the house. This garden began as an ordinary parking lot serving two houses. Landscape architect Robert Chesnut evaluated the space taken up by the lot and concluded that there was room to park four cars and also include a pocket garden. So that's what he designed.

A Wonderful Welcome

The main entrance to this garden is a narrow driveway shoehorned between two houses on a downtown street. Returning home by car, the owners proceed down the gravel drive for a short distance and then turn left into the parking area. All the while, they can enjoy their private little garden. It looks lush and inviting year-round thanks to a framework of evergreen trees, shrubs, and ground covers.

Walks made from salvaged bricks laid in a mosaic pattern lead into the garden from three different directions. You can walk from the parking area through an arbor covered with fragrant Confederate jasmine or stroll from the drive between a pair of palmetto trees or enter from near the head of the driveway just behind the house. The walks converge on a small parterre composed of clipped dwarf yaupons and neatly trimmed beds of Asian star jasmine. A flower-filled planter placed at the center provides a focus, while a brick wall cloaked in emerald green creeping fig (Ficus pumila) furnishes a handsome backdrop.

As this garden proves, city dwellers needn't sacrifice natural beauty to cars and traffic. With a good design, plants and parking can peacefully coexist. -STEVE BENDER

* For More Info

Charleston courtyard makeover:

southernliving.com/april2007

left and below, left: A planter in the center of the parterre serves as a focal point.

far left: A pair of palmetto trees and an arbor smothered by Confederate jasmine mark two of the entrances to this garden.

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Apr 2007
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