A Backyard Waiting for a Garden
The before photos from this Uptown New Orleans property show a familiar scene: open ground, a dark fence, and a few young trees trying to hold the space together.
The homeowner wanted more than a planted edge. They wanted a landscape that felt like a modern canopy retreat—green, private, and comfortable to use day and night. Most of the work happened virtually. With the clients living out of town, our landscape architects relied on photos, video, and shared plans to move the design forward while construction continued on site.
Design Goals: Canopy, Comfort, and Clarity
The original layout did the bare minimum:
- From the start, the brief was clear:
- Create a tall green envelope that screens neighboring houses.
- Keep the layout clean and modern, not busy.
- Solve for lighting, drainage, and irrigation so the garden is easy to live with, not just look at.
- Make room for generous outdoor dining and everyday use.
The site carries its own history—Laurel Street sits on former plantation lands later divided into Faubourg Bouligny and West Riverside—and even produced a fragment of slag, hinting at 19th-century blacksmithing. Our task was to add a new layer of history in the form of a durable, livable garden.
Layered Planting: The Modern Canopy
- We started by building the framework:
- Sabal and Mediterranean Fan Palms set the vertical rhythm.
- Oakland and Savannah hollies and Little Gem magnolias form an evergreen backdrop that softens the black fence.
- Sweet bay, pineapple guava, sasanquas, and gardenias add seasonal texture and fragrance.
Closer in, we used broad-leaf evergreens—philodendron, fatsia, giant shell ginger, variegated ginger—to soften walls and corners. At ground level, ligularia, holly leaf fern, foxtail fern, Aztec grass, ajuga, dwarf monkey grass, Black-Eyed Susans, salvia, and firecracker plant stitch everything together, keeping the garden green with pulses of color across the year.
Personal Details, Thoughtful Infrastructure
Two details make this garden feel uniquely the homeowner’s:
- A California-inspired outdoor shower, framed in planting.
- Sculptural pieces and art inherited from the homeowner’s mother, who worked with a prestigious New York arts organization, placed as quiet focal points
Behind the scenes, upgraded drainage, zoned irrigation, and Kichler low-voltage lighting make the space practical. Water moves away from the house, plants get what they need, and the garden feels inviting after dark.
Why Plan With a Landscape Architect
This Laurel Street before-and-after is less about adding “more plants” and more about editing a bare plot into a clear, modern canopy garden—one that fits New Orleans’ climate and the way the owners actually live outside.
If your yard feels unfinished, but the bones are there, bringing in a design–build–maintain landscape architecture firm can turn that in-between stage into a true after.