Home & Design
Landscape design - Design
Landscape design - Design

The garden, between the house and pool, offers an elegant setting for parties.

Fence - Gate
Fence - Gate

Brick pillars adorned with wrought-iron fencing create a stately side entry.

Patio - Fireplace
Patio - Fireplace

A seating area and brick fireplace connect both sides of the pool house.

Window - Swimming pool
Window - Swimming pool

The pool house contains a changing room on one side and a kitchen on the other.

Garden - Landscape architecture
Garden - Landscape architecture

The formal flower garden features a fountain as a centerpiece.

Botanical Decorators - Swimming pool
Botanical Decorators - Swimming pool

Flagstone steppers edged with mondo grass surround the pool.

Virginia - House
Virginia - House

A flagstone terrace atop the garage is a unique perch on which to relax.

Botanical Decorators - Basketball court
Botanical Decorators - Basketball court

From the terrace atop the garage, the owners can watch kids play below.

Botanical Decorators - Landscape design
Botanical Decorators - Landscape design

Botanical Decorators designed a formal flower garden with a fountain at its center.

The Great Outdoors

Botanical Decorators designs a lush, formal landscape to complement a stately home

The Great Outdoors During the remodel of a grand Alexandria, Virginia, house, the owners tapped Botanical Decorators to create a landscape to match, with a historical feel, spacious lawn and places suitable for large-scale entertaining.

Most of the land was in front of the house. “We created powerful geometry and a real pull towards the front with a formal flower garden and fountain centerpiece,” landscape designer Morgan Washburn explains.  The property also encompasses a pool, pool house and sprawling lawns bordered with shrubbery and flowering trees.

The garden, between the house and pool, offers an elegant setting for parties. Guests mingle among tree hydrangea, standard lilac, boxwood, Russian sage, salvia, and Persicaria. Flagstone steppers edged with mondo grass surround the pool, while the pool house is actually two structures containing a changing room and kitchen, connected by a seating area and brick fireplace.

Dogwood, redbud, Sweet Bay magnolia and weeping cherries offer low-maintenance color throughout the year. Romantic Deodar cedars evoke the look of Spanish moss for the owners, who hail from Richmond and New Orleans.

Brick pillars adorned with gaslights and wrought-iron fencing create a stately side entry. A flagstone terrace atop the garage is a unique perch on which to relax and watch the kids playing below.

AWARD: Grand, Craftsmanship (Design/Build). LANDSCAPE DESIGN: MORGAN WASHBURN, Botanical Decorators, Olney, Maryland. POOL HOUSE ARCHITECTURE & CONSTRUCTION: CHRISTOPHER CAHILL, Cahill Design Build, Olney, Maryland. POOL: Sunset Group, Crofton, Maryland.

Writer Karen Watkins is based in Bethesda, Maryland. 

For a list of all LCA 2014 residential awards click here.

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HOME&DESIGN, published bi-monthly by Homestyles Media Inc., is the premier magazine of architecture and fine interiors for the Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia region.

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