Read This: The Art of Outdoor Living
Are you craving greenery? Want to drool over gorgeous Southern California patio and entry gardens while gleaning excellent design ideas for your own garden? Then immerse yourself in Los Angeles designer Scott Shrader’s book, The Art of Outdoor Living: Gardens for Entertaining Family and Friends (Rizzoli, 2019). This beautifully photographed, oversized hardback was published pre-pandemic, but I didn’t come across it until late last year. It’s especially timely for the Covid era, when we’re all using our outdoor hangout spaces more than ever and wanting them to be more inviting and comfortable.
Shrader is a designer to the stars — Ellen DeGeneres and Patrick Dempsey are name-dropped on the book flap — and that might dissuade the average gardener from looking here for design inspiration. It shouldn’t. While the featured gardens are very high-end, their loveliness is rooted in elegant simplicity, an emphasis on greenery over masses of hardscaping (Shrader favors inexpensive gravel paving), and an inviting practicality that the designer explains in an overview of each garden.
For instance, I’m in love with this front yard’s meadowy swath of sedge cut through by a sinuous flagstone path, with different-sized balls of clipped boxwood adding playful dynamism — like bowling balls in a game played by giants, come to rest on an overblown lawn. There are only four plant species in this vignette if you include the trees in the background, but it could never be called boring.
Shrader’s Mediterranean aesthetic of evergreen shrubs, olives, agaves, and flowering fruit trees lapped by pea gravel paths and patios and set off by rugged stone paving can readily be translated to green Southern gardens and to central Texas gardens especially. Think Hotel San Jose’s greenery-wrapped gravel courtyard, or Jackson Broussard’s manicured yet expressive garden, or Deborah Hornickel’s clipped formality offset by Texas natives. For Austin homes with a contemporary aesthetic, this is a popular look — a lusher alternative to the also-popular spiky desert-ish garden.
Shrader defines his role as extending the character and style of a home into the garden, so that the whole space flows cohesively. He believes gardens are for living in, not just looking at, and he shows how to create welcoming spaces that invite you to sit and relax. Your own gardening budget (and mine) may be a fraction of Shrader’s clients’, but much of what he accomplishes is done with gravel and plants — and the elusive yet powerful qualities of well-defined space and simplicity.
Disclosure: I purchased this book myself and reviewed it without any compensation. This post, as with everything at Digging, is my own personal opinion.
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There’s nothing wrong with eye candy. I love it and it keeps me dreaming about the things I might do in my garden.
Agreed, Jenny.
Thanks. I lived in that region briefly, many, many years ago. Always fascinated by what could grow there. Thanks for the review, I will need to revisit again through the pages of that book.
It’s a beautiful gardening region for sure.
His projects are generally too large scale and ritzy for my taste but I love his use of big boulders and clipped boxwood.
He’s quite good with those.
Not to brag (OK, just a little), but I think my two level stone tile covered terrace and stone paths through full plantings fit right into that aesthetic. And my experience is that it works beautifully for outdoor dinner parties and such.
You’ve made a lovely space for outdoor entertaining, Peter.
YES!!!! This is my hands down favorite coffee table book and it lives in my shed lounge for my convenient perusal. I actually straight up stole that boxwood/sedge/stone combo for the deer-infested full shade oak canopy garden I planted in the fall. I am so excited to see how it’ll look when the sedge fills in.
He pretty much uses the same 5 plants over and over again, but all of the gardens in the book have a really distinct vibe. It just proves that it’s not so much about what plants you use as much as how you use them!
I’m not surprised that the boxwood/sedge/stone combo appealed to you too, Lori. You MUST show me pics of your Texas interpretation when it grows in. And good point about how he uses a limited plant palette to such varied effect!