DESIGN IN BLOOM
Elegance blossoms when an interior designer turns her attention to the great outdoors.By Laura Pinegar
When Marjorie Mohr’s clients visit her immaculately decorated Fishers home, the exquisite antique furnishings aren’t the first attention-grabber. Nor are the rug-swathed floors or the tasseled drapes or the myriad European accents. No, when she opens the door to welcome her clients—and other first-time guests—their eyes fix on the dramatic formal garden gracefully framed by the three sets of French doors that line the living room’s back wall. The visitors pay little heed to interior embellishments as they scurry through the airy foyer and grand living room to catch a better view of the garden.
Mohr doesn’t mind. The garden is as much a testament to her creative flair and well-honed principles of composition, color, and texture as the rest of the home. Formal and refined, it’s also a natural extension of Mohr’s European-traditional tastes.
The house’s U-shaped floorplan “has an automatic courtyard,” says Mohr. When she and her husband moved into the Fishers home in 2004, the veteran interior designer teamed with Jim Altum of Litchfield Landscape to transform the space from a wooded lot into a formal sanctuary inspired by French and Italian gardens. Mohr shared her wish list with Altum: a rectangular pond, a fountain, a palette of soft pinks and yellows, crushed limestone paths, and a way to incorporate a grand pergola Mohr had purchased from Litchfield’s display at the Indiana Flower & Patio Show the previous year. And Altum paid attention. “He has a great eye for design, and he listens,” says Mohr.
That irresistible tug toward the garden that visitors feel? It’s all a matter of good design, says Altum. “We had a really strong axis from the front door out to the garden,” he says. “It draws you to the outdoors, extending the living area.” He and Mohr capitalized on the sightline from inside by thoughtfully placing key focal points in clear view. Immediately upon entering the house, visitors take in an ethereal vista: First, the rectangular koi pond outlined with pachysandra, accented by a gentle spray of water from a built-in fountain;then a larger, tiered fountain flanked by vertical spires of arborvitae. All around, perennials burst with shades of pink and yellow. Should the visitors step outside, they’d also glimpse a wisteria-laden pergola.
The thick stand of spruce trees along the back of the property creates a living “fourth wall” that encloses the garden. To ensure that the trees had the right proportions, Altum hand-selected them from wholesale nurseries rather than take a gamble by ordering them sight unseen. He chose mature plants, an increasingly common practice in professional landscaping for giving the impression that a garden, although new, has been in place for years. “That first summer, nobody could believe it had just been installed,” Mohr recalls.
Inside the garden, however, larger trees are used sparingly. Pleasingly, most of the space gets full sun, meaning Mohr isn’t limited in the variety of perennials she can plant. Phlox, black-eyed Susan, and lilies provide an airiness that keeps this formal garden from feeling too buttoned-up. The tidy boxwood parterres, climbing roses, and ivy lend an Old World feel, as do the antiqueaccessories Mohr added.
Maintenance is fairly simple. Aside from regular watering, Mohr often deadheads spent flowers to encourage continual blooming. Twice yearly, Litchfield’s maintenance crew performs an allover “spruce-up,” which includes mulching the beds and trimming the arborvitae and boxwood to maintain their shape.
On warm days, Mohr throws open the French doors, permitting the soothing sounds of the fountain and the soft breezes to come inside. More often, though, she is outdoors, whether enjoying a solo lunch or hosting lively family get-togethers.
The garden hums with the activity of wildlife, as well. “The hummingbirds are just everywhere,” says Mohr. Red foxes, raccoons, and blue herons are also frequent visitors, venturing beyond the undeveloped acres of Conner Prairie, which sits adjacent to the property. Mohr has even spotted an indigo bunting, a vibrant-blue bird that’s rarely seen in developed areas.
But even when she isn’t sharing the space with four-footed or flying creatures, Mohr finds that the garden’s enchantments are ample. “It’s the calming part of my life,” she says. “It’s the one place I can be where I don’t think about anything else.”
For a complete list of resources, see the Summer 2008 issue of Indianapolis Monthly Home, on sale at these locations.
