Gardens, Pools & Spas
Courtyard de Fleurs
Flowers … are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. – Ralph Waldo emerson
BY
Lucyann Boston
PHOTOGRAPHY
Michael Jacob

“I love to see how beautiful the garden is when it all comes together.”
– Tom Manche


Hosta plants and stepping stones lead the way to the English Tudor-style home.


A flagstone patio is the centerpiece in the English shade garden.




Tom used pinks and purples as his color scheme this year on his terrace deck. Geraniums and begonias spotlight the space aside a unique earthy fountain. A small palm lends a tropical feel to the space.

Interior designer Tom Manche is an expert at enhancing and maximizing space. At his own University City home, he put his impressive, “hands-on” talents to work – transforming his urban backyard into a lush English shade garden. Surrounded on three sides by attractive brick residences and resting on the crest of a hill, Tom’s challenge was establishing a private, shady retreat on both the deck that extends off his dining room and in the yard below. “You have to be very creative when you have space that sits above everybody else’s space,” says Tom.

With little to work with but a few mature trees, Tom started at the rear of the yard seven years ago, planting a leafy screen of shade-tolerant evergreen viburnum and oakleaf hydrangea. During the next few years he built out the shrub border, centering the garden three years ago with a free-form flagstone patio. Against his original backdrop he put in azaleas, boxwood, hydrangeas, daylilies, ferns, hosta, coral bells, creeping Jenny and ajuga, all of which return each year and are enhanced with brightly colored annuals, primarily begonias and impatiens. Statuary, arbors and trellises add to the space and provide vertical impact, as do French blue ceramic pots filled with palms and bright ‘Angel Wing’ and ‘Dragon Wing’ begonias. Tom is a great fan of the begonias. They “don’t die in our hot, humid climate and just bloom and bloom and bloom,” he explains.

A stairway covered with ivy, Virginia creeper and climbing hydrangea leads upward from what is almost a sunken garden to the deck off the dining room, where Tom has repeated his use of French blue ceramic pots, tall, feathery palms, and bright flora combinations. The pots and palms provide color and screening, resulting in a private oasis for outdoor dining and entertaining that allows for a stunning view into the garden below.

For the major changes in his garden, Tom worked with landscaper Abigail Ullmann to site and plant trees and shrubs. The day-to-day maintenance he manages on his own, and he’s developed some tricks to achieve a lush look in a minimum amount of time.

“I use a bulb planter to create a good-size hole when I plant annuals and I always add Osmocote (time-release plant food) to each hole,” he says. “To fill my pots, I start with hanging baskets that are already full. As the season goes on, they will grow even larger. I’m really good about deadheading. I like a manicured look when I have parties.”

The time he devotes to his garden Tom finds, “very, very relaxing.”   He says, “When I’m digging in the garden, my mind’s not on business, and I love to see how beautiful it is when it all comes together.”