Oregon Home | 21 Denmark and Italy’s Puglia region, and his background as a food person who loves growing things.” The challenge? How to create an overall design plan that met their needs for a fun and functional outdoor living space, a living meadowscape and a sense of privacy while maintaining a connection to the neighborhood. By then the Wards had become a young family, so they also wanted to create a play space for the kids, install buffers from southern sun and rain, and to accommodate raised vegetable beds. Rydmark is known for her elegant landscapes designed to be lived in and lasting, with every design emerging from curiosity about the natural world and sensitivity to the larger ecologies of sites. “Even a tiny space is full of possibility,” Rydmark says. Kevin, Rydmark shares, is a more involved client than most. As a former chef, he has a deep relationship to growing his own food and a hosting spirit well known in the neighborhood. He grew up in Eastern Pennsylvania and worked landscape jobs throughout high school and college, often on expansive private gardens where the sky was the limit, or on tree farms and organic vegetable farms. “Kevin jumped right in and was deeply involved,” Rydmark says. “He really took the bull by the horns and started running.” The first thing they did was remove the entire front lawn, replacing it with a no-mow pollinator-friendly native meadow with multi-season colors and textures, featuring native wild grasses. Through it, they introduced a meandering cross-path to add some organic lines. “That was a fun contrast to the simple box nature of the home,” Rydmark says. “We put all sorts of beauty all around it.” Rydmark connected with José A. Villegas to build out the Designer Abigail Leonard brought the design forward by placing the outdoor dining area on a diagonal in the property.
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