Designing Garden Rooms: How to Create Botanical Destinations Within Your Landscape

In the Garden at 19 Birch Lane

At 19 Birch Lane, our gardens weren’t designed to be viewed all at once—they were designed to be discovered. Strolls lead to vistas, paths open into secluded corners, and moments unfold with intention. That’s the essence of garden room design: it invites exploration, surprise, and emotional connection.

Our owner and visionary designer, Aric Odone, has spent years shaping this 5-acre property into a tapestry of distinct yet connected botanical destinations, each carefully framed with views, planting layers, and future expansions in mind. From the Reflection Pond to the Greenhouse Deck, every space is a room with a purpose, designed to create an experience—not just a view.

🌿 What Is a Garden Room?

A garden room is a defined outdoor space with its own character, structure, and rhythm—much like a room in a home. But instead of walls and ceilings, we use plants, sightlines, and natural boundaries to create a sense of enclosure and mood.

Whether your landscape is sprawling or compact, the principles of garden room design allow you to build atmosphere, guide movement, and turn any garden into a series of purposeful experiences.

🏡 Garden Rooms at 19 Birch Lane: A Framework of Beauty

At 19 Birch Lane, our garden rooms are layered into the landscape to feel both immersive and intentional. Here's a closer look at how Aric has defined some of our most beloved spaces:

✨ The Reflection Pond & Pergola Room

Anchored by a tranquil pond and shaded by tall grasses and layered perennials, this space centers around our elegant white pergola. It’s a place of pause and reflection, often used as a wedding ceremony site. The pond reflects light, clouds, and garden color, creating a serene backdrop year-round.

🌿 The Greenhouse Deck & Bar Garden

This garden room extends from our vintage Lord & Burnham greenhouse, opening onto a deck that overlooks the surrounding gardens. Planted generously with Proven Winners favorites like ‘Limelight’ hydrangeas, ‘Rockin’ Blue Suede Shoes’ salvia, and ‘Supertunia Vista’ petunias in vintage containers, this space is designed for entertaining and taking in wide-angle views.

🌳 The Woodland Walk (In Progress)

A future garden room under development, this shaded corridor will transition guests from the formal gardens into a quieter, contemplative space filled with ferns, astilbes, hellebores, and hostas. Designed for serenity, it will be edged in low boxwood hedging and layered with trees for dappled light.

📐 How to Design Your Own Garden Rooms

Whether you have a quarter-acre suburban lot or a rural property like ours, you can create stunning garden rooms by following these core principles:

1. Define the Edges—Without Walls

Use hedges, ornamental grasses, layered borders, or even a row of large pots to create a sense of boundary. At 19 Birch Lane, we rely on boxwoods, ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass, and tall plantings of Proven Winners ‘Color Coded’ coneflowers to carve out space naturally.

2. Design for a Purpose

Ask: what do you want this space to feel like?

• A place to relax? Add a bench under a tree canopy.

• A space to entertain? Incorporate a pergola, pavers, or bistro seating.

• A burst of seasonal color? Design a mixed perennial bed with spring bulbs and late-summer blooms.

Each of our rooms at 19 Birch Lane has a core purpose—some are emotional (serenity, romance), while others are functional (gathering, transitioning, showcasing bloom).

3. Use Focal Points to Draw the Eye

Fountains in the garden add beauty and charm along with the gentle sound of water running helps draw people's attention to specific parts of the garden.

Every room needs a visual anchor. This could be:

• A sculpture

• A flowering tree

• A water feature

• A large Proven Winners centerpiece, like a ‘Bobo’ Hydrangea in full bloom or a ‘Jazz Hands’ Loropetalum

Focal points invite the visitor to linger, look, and feel.

4. Build with Plant Structure and Seasonality

Don’t just think about color—think about form, texture, and timing. Here’s how we layer it:

• Structure: Boxwoods, ornamental grasses, shrubs

• Seasonal bloom: Tulips (spring), roses and coneflowers (summer), amsonia and switchgrass (fall)

• Evergreen interest: Yew hedges, hellebores, sedges

Proven Winners perennials we rely on:

• ‘Cat’s Meow’ Nepeta for blue-toned edging

• ‘Denim ‘n Lace’ Russian Sage for late-summer haze

• ‘Little Lime Punch’ Hydrangea for long-lasting impact

• ‘Fire Light Tidbit’ Panicle Hydrangea for compact focal color

5. Create Pathways Between Experiences

Transitions matter just as much as the rooms themselves. Paths lead the eye and body—crushed gravel, stepping stones, or even turf ribbons create continuity between rooms. We often use vista lines to give guests a glimpse of what’s ahead without revealing too much.

🌸 Designing for Motion and Emotion: The Guest Experience

At 19 Birch Lane, every garden room is designed with the guest experience in mind. Whether someone is here for a wedding, a tour, or a quiet afternoon walk, we want them to feel:

• Surprise: A sudden burst of color or a hidden bench around a corner.

• Calm: A place to pause near water, or under dappled shade.

• Joy: An immersive moment in peak bloom, surrounded by fragrance.

• Connection: A view back toward the greenhouse, or across the lawn to the pergola.

This experience isn’t accidental—it’s the result of intentional design, built with motion, emotion, and memory in mind.

Garden rooms let you choreograph these emotions through space, color, and flow. A garden becomes more than beauty—it becomes a journey.

🌿 Final Thoughts: Start with One Room

You don’t have to redesign your whole garden overnight. Start with one room—a small herb garden near your back door, a gravel path that leads to a bench, or a quiet nook framed by grasses and hydrangeas.

Design it with intention. Give it purpose. Frame it with structure. Plant it with layers that unfold through the seasons.

At 19 Birch Lane, this is how we began. One room became two, then three—each with its own story. Today, our gardens are a living reflection of intentional design, seasonal beauty, and the emotions we want our guests to feel.

And you can do the same—right in your own backyard.