Designing a Garden for Outdoor Entertaining

LINDSEY TAYLOR

Erik Otsea

1. Extend the home’s design into the garden

JUDY KAMEON creates gardens that practically insist on being lived in, not just envied by the neighbors. The founder of Los Angeles-based Elysian Landscapes and a perennial host who entertains regularly in her garden-cum-laboratory, she’s been designing painterly, beckoning yards in and around Southern California for the past 16 years—and plans to share her wisdom in her first book, “Gardens Are for Living,” due next spring from Rizzoli.

When working with new clients, Ms. Kameon invariably finds that they’re not making the most of their existing gardens. “It’s important to understand what is underutilized on the property, where the potential is and then how that can be realized,” she said. “I like gardens that engage and can be enjoyed on many levels. Of course, I’ve been designing mostly in Southern California, where outdoor living is year-round, but I believe a lot of my ideas can be applied in other climates.”

Before Ms. Kameon transformed the garden shown here—the grounds of a 1930s home in the Silver Lake neighborhood of L.A.—the new owners, a couple with two young children, hardly used their outdoor space. It had a pool and some lovely trees, but no areas defined for entertaining or play. Moreover, the garden had no color relationship to the house’s pale blue, white and black ’30s palette. Her goals: to delineate outdoor living areas and create a seamless style connection between the house and garden. As she explained, “Continuity is important. It stops a design from feeling contrived.”

Underused areas in gardens, Ms. Kameon said, often reflect “bad choices in furniture, bad placement or no furniture at all.” Her recommendation: If you plan to do more in your garden than just grow plants, invest in quality pieces—comfortable seating, sturdy tables—just as you would for your indoor living spaces. Outdoor furniture needs to be worked into the budget upfront.

Beyond furniture, Ms. Kameon likes to activate a space with elements that reliably entice people: a water feature, a fire pit or a built-in BBQ. Pots, pillows and lanterns are essential details for her. “An outdoor space needs the same consideration as an interior,” she said. “Accessorizing polishes off a space indoors and out.”

Below, some lessons on making a garden thoroughly livable, as illustrated by her Silver Lake project.

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Illustration by Judy Kameon

THE MASTER PLAN Garden designer Judy Kameon’s blueprint for a property in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood features (from left to right): enclosed front courtyard with water feature (1); clients’ residence; back patio and pool area; built-in sofa (2); separate seating zone on concrete “area rug” (4); teepee hidden among the trees in back corner (3). “I like dynamic gardens that inspire activity,” Ms. Kameon said. “They needn’t be passive spaces.”

1. Extend the home’s design into the garden: The property’s front courtyard was little more than two shade-providing olive trees and some sad, out-of-place paving. To establish a more inviting relationship between house and yard, Ms. Kameon introduced encaustic cement outdoor tile in a Deco pattern that picks up on the home’s old Hollywood glamour. “A front garden is like the first room in the house,” Ms. Kameon explained. “The style and the color palette should relate to the architecture.” An existing circular fountain (above, center) was updated with coordinating black-tile edging wide enough to sit on. “The water feature is the first thing you hear when you come through the gate,” she said. “The ear tunes to it immediately and the street noise falls away.” Also new: a daybed from Plain Air (a company Ms. Kameon started with her husband, Erik Otsea), an ideal spot for early morning coffee. The plants, a calming palette of purples, silvers and blues, are mostly shade-tolerant succulents. She incorporated some classic ’30s plants—junipers and English ivy—to suggest the landscaping was original to the house.

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Erik Otsea

2. Build in seating

Chevron

in Oxford Grey. Whimsical aqua birds from L.A.’s Chinatown seem engaged in a gossipy conversation.

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Erik Otsea

3. Give kids their own distraction

3. Give kids their own distraction: In a dark, unused corner of the property, Ms. Kameon found a suitably mysterious spot for a children’s teepee the family owned but never used. She laid a meandering path (more fun than a straight one) to its door with circular pavers and spotlit the approach with bright lime-green foliage. Behind the teepee, she planted looming birds of paradise for an exotic look. This hideaway proved almost too irresistible: At the first party the owners threw after the garden was installed, the tent was crowded with more adult guests than kids.

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Erik Otsea

4. Lure guests with a fire pit

4. Lure guests with a fire pit: After a makeover by Ms. Kameon, a previously ignored part of the family’s garden has become a go-to spot. She first defined the space with a poured concrete patio that acts as an area rug, its size determined by the dimensions of the sectional sofa, designed by Plain Air. She planted bright shrubs in lime green and silver to illuminate and embrace the space. Boosting conviviality: a bright yellow Bauer Pottery planter, ceramic drinks tables and punchy ottomans that complete the seating circle around the big draw—an easy-to-light gas fire pit from Plain Air filled with heat-retentive Lava Rocks.