Having recently left New York City, the clients were excited about outdoor space of their own. They wanted a colorful, texture filled garden with non-toxic plants for their young child and dog to play in. Previous owners had built a stone terrace and maintained the lawn, but aside from that, the garden was a blank canvas. One of the main challenges to address was giving dimension to a quite narrow and long space. Curved herbaceous beds and oversized evergreen forms were used to gently divide the space. An existing timber fence on either side was stained to a dark grey, both to let it fade into the background and to give the planting a neutral background against which it could come alive. A raised bed against the house gives the clients’ child a space in which to experiment with sowing annuals and digging in the dirt while keeping the view to the garden undisturbed.