Jalata Landscaping

Jalata is a garden in a residential development, with all that implies: a plot bounded by a fence of dark slats, neighbours close by and a pool that wants privacy without raising walls. Our answer was to plant. Where others would have put a hedge, here there is a dense band of perennials and grasses that grows in summer until it hides the fence and, at the same time, lets air and light through.

The layout is simple, with straight lines: the long pool with its pale stone edge, a lawn for lying down and playing, and bark-mulch paths that run around the perimeter inside the planting, like a corridor between flowers. A stretch of stone slabs among lavenders and a few steps take up the slight change in level.

On that structure, the planting is generous and mixed. Veronicas and salvias, verbenas floating at mid height, red and white valerian, lavender, and the spikes of pennisetum and other grasses that set the whole in motion with the evening breeze. Flowering runs on from spring until well into autumn, so there is always something open. These are species that need little water and little care; we chose them so the garden would age well without someone behind it every week.

The result works at two scales. From the water, the vegetation is a tall edge that gathers the space and filters the views of the surrounding houses. From the lawn, it is a picture that changes colour every month. And between the two, the bark path for going up close to see what has flowered this week.

A garden with a pool does not have to be lawn and hedge. Here it is meadow, and the pool is inside it.