This woodsy coastal Maine landscape seems as if it has been this way for decades, but a couple of years back it was devastated by construction harm at its borders and insects and Hurricane Hanna. The understory was gone, leaving the property exposed to the components and immediately eroding.
Landscape architect Matthew Cunningham gave the initial stage of renewal a leap start by fixing erosion issues and planting native pioneer species. Here are the remarkable results, lauded by the house’s next-door neighbor, the National Park Service at Acadia National Park.
Landscape at a Glance
Location: Southeast Harbor, Maine
Size: The home is 3 acres complete; the new backyard is roughly 11/2 acres.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
The house consists of 2 main parts: The Tea House dates to the early 1900s and is not winterized; The Fox House, built in 2007, is winterized. During the construction of The Fox House, trees around the forest border were damaged or eliminated, which left others at the inside vulnerable to wind. After many came through Hurricane Hanna, runoff water and wind eroded the website at an accelerated pace.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Cunningham grew up in Maine and is eloquent in the design vocabulary of rugged granite balls, moss-covered boulders, pine paths, evergreen forests and sublime jagged coasts. For the website he pictured an Acadian garden full of tucked-away places where people could appreciate solitude and views, working within a greater landscape that could cure the property and start the process of succession anew.
Utilizing indigenous plants and leftover granite from a nearby quarry, and even covering stones with moss by hand, he cured the environmental issues while developing a network of paths and terraces for enjoying the environment.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
A patio overlooking Somes Sound “is like an outdoor stone area rug on the lawn,” Cunningham says.
Paper birch trees include color and help stabilize the ground. Although he picked many pioneer species which can grow in poor soils, Cunningham also brought in fresh soils and technical landscaping fabrics to stop erosion.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
The landscape is back in such good shape that many of the first citizens have returned to the habitat. This mama fox was curious enough during the construction process to venture near enough to steal all employees’ leather gloves during the night.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
A sequence of smaller outdoor rooms reflects the character of Acadia National Park.
Locally quarried granite slabs are a frequent element in Maine landscapes. Cunningham bought these leftovers from a merchant with all the rights to some closed quarry at Frankfort, Maine. “They’ve been sitting around for years and are encrusted in lichen, which provides them a patina,” he says.
The team hand tucked moss in between the joints to increase the elderly feel. This moss comes from dried sheets; you tuck it in place and then water, which makes it expand. Soon the spores take hold of their new environment.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
“Hay-scented fern covers the house like a cloth,” Cunningham says. All the fresh plants help stabilize the website.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Bunchberry is frequently seen softening forest floors in Maine.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Additional plantings include ferns, bayberry, sheep laurel, viburnum, blueberry and fothergilla.
A lot of these plants also provide food sources for many critters that have returned to the website, such as red squirrels, deer, fox, chipmunks and many bird species.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
The plants also must be durable enough to stand up to deer. People who come by for a snack depart the Annabelle hydrangeas alone.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
In one particular spot, Cunningham incorporated a 9-foot slab of granite to some dry-laid fieldstone wall touching the noise.
The plan provides you a clearer idea of the flow pattern and relationship of the house to the border of the noise.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
A few of the paths serve numerous functions. Cunningham did some significant grading to maintain runoff waters from eroding the property; the mountain to the left directs the water into a trench at the road. It then percolates into large pipes and drainage basins.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Minimal retaining walls help the house look nestled into the slope. Ferns soften the borders of the fence and make it seem to vanish in the earth.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
The kitchen leads out with this stone terrace.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Large granite slabs extend the terrace out toward other outdoor rooms.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Two can keep an eye out for bald eagles from this overlook.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Unmanicured design fits the home’s rugged park-chalet aesthetic.
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC
The house is once more tucked into a sublime coastal wood’s edge, where a natural cycle of series is starting the forest anew. With Cunnigham’s aid, the homeowner has produced a legacy for generations of her family to enjoy seeing the forest transform around them.
More: Permit Nature Inspire Your Own Landscape — Ideas for a Woodland Garden