Grandview, Ohio
Urlin Ave
What does it mean to design a garden around a house?
At this Grandview Heights residence on Urlin Avenue, the answer begins with architecture. The home’s Arts & Crafts character, exposed wood beams, substantial garage gable, blue exterior, and strong geometric forms called for a landscape that felt equally considered. Rather than simply surrounding the house with planting, Landfare Ltd. looked at the property as a series of rooms, views, transitions, and moments to pause.
The goal was not simply to create a beautiful front yard. It was to understand how the homeowners actually use the property: where they sit with a cup of coffee, how they approach the front door, what they see from the upper porch, and how the garden reveals the architecture as they move through it.
That is where high-end landscaping design becomes more than planting and hardscape. It becomes an extension of the home.
Designing the Landscape Around the Architecture: An Arts & Crafts Garden in Grandview Heights
Four Levels, Carefully Connected
The grade of this property is more complicated than it first appears.
The landscape unfolds across four distinct levels, requiring careful attention to elevation and transitions. Good grading is often one of the least noticeable elements of a finished landscape, but it is among the most important. When the work is done well, the movement from one level to the next feels natural.
Stone walls establish those transitions while also creating a stronger architectural framework for the garden. Openings within the walls were deliberately positioned to preserve sightlines, including views back toward the home and through the landscape to the front door.
The result is a garden that reveals itself gradually rather than all at once.
Bluestone Brings the House and Driveway Together
One of the most distinctive details is the treatment of the existing exposed aggregate driveway.
The driveway had character, but years of cracking and separation had left it feeling dated. Rather than replacing the entire surface, Landfare introduced bluestone channels into the existing joints. The new stonework draws the driveway visually toward the house and creates a deliberate connection with the bluestone used on the front porches and upper-level porch.
It is a simple idea, but an effective one: repeat the right material in the right places and the entire property begins to feel more cohesive.
That same attention to material continuity carries into the lower portion of the home, where the stone was upgraded to create a more substantial, elevated appearance.
Echoing the Architecture in Stone
The architectural language of the house also inspired the stonework.
Three arched openings were incorporated into the retaining walls, echoing the arches and inset forms found within the architecture itself. These openings provide visual relief within the masonry while creating depth and perspective as you move through the garden. The railing was also reconsidered. Black wrought iron replaced the existing railing with a cleaner, more architectural profile that complements the stone without competing with it.
A black iron fence continues that visual language elsewhere on the property.
A Garden Designed for Coffee, Not Just Curb Appeal
Perhaps the most important question in any landscape design project is also the simplest:
How do you want to use the space?
For these homeowners, the answer included a quiet morning cup of coffee from the upper porch.
That small daily ritual helped inform the design. The landscape was composed not only for the view from the street, but for the views from the house and porch. It is a garden intended to be experienced at different times of day and from different elevations.
This is one of the principles that guides Landfare’s approach to high-end landscaping in Grandview Heights, Upper Arlington, Dublin, and throughout Central Ohio. The landscape should respond to the way a family actually lives.
Boxwoods as Architectural Elements
The planting palette reinforces the Arts & Crafts sensibility without becoming overly formal.
American boxwoods and pom-pom topiary introduce rounded forms against the stronger architectural lines of the home. Boxwoods repeat throughout the various levels, visually connecting the garden as you move through it.
Little-leaf boxwoods and hedgerows create structure, while hornbeams provide height and a softer vertical element. Importantly, the boxwoods are spaced with restraint. The goal was to create breathing room rather than fill every available space.
Seasonal flowers introduce maroon, orange, and yellow tones within the more disciplined green framework.
At the front entry, urns provide another architectural punctuation point. Their form complements the substantial piers at the front of the home, demonstrating an important landscape principle: features that initially seem oversized can become perfectly proportioned once the surrounding planting is established.
Landscape Design That Begins With the Home
The finished garden feels distinctly connected to the house because it was never treated as a separate project.
Bluestone responds to the architecture. Stone walls echo its geometry. Ironwork complements its structure. Boxwoods reinforce its proportions. Even the driveway was reconsidered as part of the larger composition.
That is the difference between adding landscaping to a home and designing a landscape with the home.
In Grandview Heights, where established architecture and mature neighborhoods create a strong sense of place, the best landscape design doesn't compete with what is already there. It listens to it, refines it, and creates a setting that feels as though it has always belonged.
For homeowners considering high-end landscaping, custom hardscape, or a future outdoor living project, the starting point should be simple: look at the architecture, then think about how you want to live around it.
Landfare Ltd. creates custom landscape and hardscape environments throughout Grandview Heights, Upper Arlington, Dublin, Powell, and the greater Columbus area.
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