Like most DC North neighborhoods, Columbia Heights has undergone significant changes in the past 10 years. Developers have constructed residential buildings, new businesses of all sizes have opened, and grand old homes from the early-20th century have been carefully restored to their heyday.

Despite these extensive renovations, Columbia Heights has maintained its diversity; Fairmont Street is a great example of this. To Fairmont’s west, the public housing of the 14th street corridor exists, and to its east, Fairmont dead-ends on the Howard University campus.

Fairmont’s sprawling row homes, such as the one at 1211 – a column-framed, front-porch row house of 17-year resident Athena Angelos and her husband, Kevin Carroll – are set back on hillsides. Kevin says the home and neighborhood have always been a perfect fit for a self-described “hippie free spirit.”

For several years, the couple worked on their tiered front garden, but demanding professional lives and equally full personal commitments made them constant victims of the garden that got away. Each year their dream garden seemed to be swallowed up by Mother Nature’s relentless weeds. They needed help.

After assessing the past six years of failed attempts at garden nirvana, Athena decided to hire a professional who could keep the bohemian chic of their garden, yet improve and smooth out the eclectic edges.

From the outset, the couple wanted a natural garden that embraced the hillside. Grass and its many difficulties was not an option. Athena was looking for something “eclectic, funky and fun, yet earth-friendly.”

She wanted to surprise her husband, who was away during the renovation, and her neighbor across the street. “I realized that my neighbor had a view of my weedy garden every time he sat on his porch, and this had never been my intention. So since our neighbor endured our garden for the last six years, the renovation was for my husband, my neighbor and my block.”

Athena and Kevin’s garden included many symbolic and structurally useful items. Stones collected on outings had been brought home to reside in the garden. Two architectural sconces had been found and brought back to help keep the soil on their hillside. Pieces of marble, slate and granite were piled precariously to keep erosion at bay. Plants were scattered and tossed throughout the hillside. And the rear of their garden had been invaded by prolific Four O Clocks and a wonderful yet unruly rose.

Athena wanted to keep her earth-friendly organic garden yet clean up the tiers. She wanted structure and overall flow without the staid predictability of so many formal designs. Her vision also included a patio area where she and Kevin could enjoy their weekends together.

The Installation
Her designer listened and met the challenge. All of the stones and the wood were removed from the garden, but important plants were saved. The garden’s terrace was made over with a dry, stacked field stone, and the couple’s most prominent stones were incorporated into the design. The upper tier was leveled, and a random snapped-edge flagstone patio was installed. The existing plants were given badly needed haircuts. The rose was tamed, and the Four O Clocks were thinned by three-fourths.

The Plants
The garden’s southern exposure required plants that could tolerate the relentless summer sun. The designer installed hardy gardenia, baths pink dianthus, ajuga, sedum, flowering sage, lilies, daylilies, mondo grass, creeping thyme and coleus. The existing garden plants were worked into the new design, and the overall design was intentionally kept free-flowing.

Athena is now certain the garden will mature into her hippie, free-spirited dream.