Zen garden

The Yvonne Tocquigny and Tom Fornoff garden, featured on this weekend’s Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Tour,  evokes a sense of serenity as you stroll through its simple combinations of grasses, vines and water features.

Simple yet strategic views draw you into the garden with a series of gates, paths and courtyards.

The beautiful gray-green hues of Dichondra, Silver Ponyfoot, create a gentle contrast for the other lime and grass-greens of the garden.

The entry courtyard includes this simple, Zen-like water feature, surrounded by strappy crinum leaves and fine gravel.

The garden was full of berkley sedge – providing a caress of beautiful texture throughout the vignettes.

 More contrasts with the berkley sedge – younger, smaller plants, and the silver ponyfoot.

The garden is also full of a variety of trellises – like this metal and wood one, set out 8-10 inches from the wall.  It supports the rosebush, but it’s also an artistic focal point on its own.

 Beautiful lanterns were mounted right onto the wood and metal trellis.

 More contrasts surround this inviting bench — both in textures and in hues of green, and a Japanese Maple thrown in for a pop of color.

 The water feature in the back courtyard has an old-world charm, and is surrounded by simple plantings of t=ferns and irises and papyrus.  Ferns also dot the decomposed granite pathway, growing up out of the ground at our feet.

Another trellis creates a wall of plant art to add to the sculpture of the courtyard.

Peering into the fountain through the fronds of the papyrus creates another combination of contrasting hues of green.