“I DO” Landscape

Summer 2024

“I DO” Landscape

June 26, 2024

Words by Veronica Toney | Photos by Josie Henderson

Hands-on homeowners refine the gardens on their Olathe acreage for a picture-perfect wedding backdrop.

inding the perfect outdoor wedding venue can be tricky. It needs an abundance of lush grass, colorful flowers, various greenery and open spaces to welcome guests and set the stage for a breathtaking ceremony. When the daughter of these Olathe homeowners decided her parents’ backyard would be the ideal spot for her wedding, they knew they had some work to do to transform it into a dreamy matrimonial backdrop.

“These returning clients are do-it-yourselfers,” notes Laura Stack, designer, horticultural consultant and owner of Creative Outdoor Spaces. “I was called back to give them some ideas of how to tidy up their landscape.”

When it comes to helping gardeners refine their spaces, Laura starts by explaining and emphasizing the importance of scale and creating vignettes.

“We talked about what they have, how to repurpose and where to transplant [existing plants] to serve a purpose and make more sense,” she explains. “When you are in big spaces, you need to make things fit the scale. We made the pond beds bigger, added masses of a few varieties and repeated accent plants.”

The home was originally a farmhouse. When the owners purchased it, they already knew they wanted a naturalistic exterior for their new home. Thus, they made landscaping decisions to accentuate the land in the front and backyard, such as natural stonework and a pool design that resembles a pond.

A pond pool functions like a traditional pool—descending from shallow to deep—but with natural edges and borders. The gradient from the pool’s entrance to the deep end is also very subtle. Here, the entrance is off the deck, guided by a path of river stones leading into the shallow end. On the opposite end, a large flagstone slab creates a lounge area and doubles as the pool’s deep-end diving board. The added dock and babbling-brook waterfall feature enhance the pool’s relaxing atmosphere.

The homeowners are also avid gardeners, planting bright flowers and shrubs around the property. Laura helped them refine the plant life around the pond pool to complement their gardening and the mature plants in the yard.

“What was missing around the pool landscape were evergreens and taller plant heights,” Laura explains. “The mostly perennial garden landscape lacked winter appeal and interest. The expansive view needed taller plants to frame foreground views of the spacious lawn and woodland background.”

To address this, Laura left the aquatic plants that the homeowners had previously selected and refined the pond’s landscape by making suggestions and additions to the surrounding beds. She also removed some plants and flowers to emphasize and repeat fewer plant varietals, allowing them to keep the central focus on the pool.

“We chose a few common-denominator plants and planted them en masse throughout the landscape beds around the pool perimeter to create a comprehensive overall view,” Laura says.

Thinking of how the wedding guests would move around the backyard, her team installed flagstone landscaping around the pool for seating, sunbathing and—most importantly—a walkway. The flagstones form a natural walking path around the house, ushering guests to the front door or back of the home.

For the home’s front exterior, they concentrated on curb appeal by using natural materials to create photo-ready vignettes. In the driveway, the team increased the landscaping around the fountain, establishing it as the chosen focal point.

“To showcase and bring the fountain feature into scale, we added larger ledge stones to widen the driveway and river rock to expand the landscape bed,” Laura describes.

Next, she enlarged the beds around the mature trees to bring the planting beds into scale with the surrounding foliage. The extended beds also help direct guests to the front door or to the back of the house. Laura then created a pathway from the main tree to the front door by removing some of the landscaping the homeowners had previously planted. Opening up this space helped maintain focus on the standout trees, flowers and plants in the garden beds.

Rather than purchase new plants, they repurposed hostas and daylilies from other spaces around the house to fill in the larger beds.

“So many people want to remove everything, and I don’t really recommend that,” advises Laura. “If you have some [plants and trees] that are mature, keep those and then allow other things to mature [around them].” This strategy ultimately creates a more true-to-life landscape that mimics those found in the wild.

Laura also created a feature element near the home with hedge logs upcycled as bed borders. “The client was excited to repurpose their collection of stumps as landscape accents and logs as bed borders,” she says. “We also had a creative notion to construct a retaining wall. We dug a three-foot trench and set the logs upright and nestled them together.”

Designing photo-worthy stops along the way—from the fountain to the front door to the backyard—creates the perfect backdrop for any occasion. With a touch of twinkle lights throughout, the space transformed into a truly magical setting, perfect for celebrating a family wedding.

Landscape Consultant: Creative Outdoor Spaces

Natural Pool Designer: Total Habitat, @totalhabitathttps://www.instagram.com/totalhabitat