Gate Keepers Homeowners Add An Attractive Touch To Their Yards With These Unique Garden Entrances
Landscape designers call garden gates the front doors of yards. Both entrance and exit, gates make a statement about what lies inside. Whimsical gates promise more fun beyond. Sturdy gates make bold boundary statements.
“When well-designed as a handsome piece of garden furnishing, these apertures add to the atmosphere, whether they provide a way through, an invitation to explore, or just a tantalizing glimpse of the garden,” writes designer Robin Williams in his book “Garden Design: How To Be Your Own Landscape Architect.”
“Like the door to your house, a gate is a focal point of the design,” Williams writes.
“Gates or arbors or pergolas are entrances,” says Ken Struckmeyer, a Washington State University professor in landscape architecture. “The key to design is to have a place to enter.”
Struckmeyer has five gates at his Pullman yard. “With the one in front, I am trying to keep the dogs in and provide a sense of entry. In the back yard, the gates and arbors are used to indicate that you are going from one area to another. Gates are a nice announcement, a transition.”
He wired all of his gates and arbors for low-level lighting. The lights serve double duty as security and landscape accents at night.
Some utilitarian gates are simply a way to get through a fence; gate and fence often come as a package. At the other end of the spectrum are gates crafted by artists.
Spokane artist Kay O’Rourke teams with Craig Brudnicki to create garden gates that are also works of art. O’Rourke does the design; Brudnicki builds and installs the gate or arbor.
Tom Angel and Chris Dill liked their first O’Rourke-Brudnicki creation so much, they commissioned a second. “We wanted a cat in the design because we have a cat and our neighbor likes sunflowers so we had sunflowers put on the side facing that neighbor,” says Dill. O’Rourke added bird nests and plants as well.
Tracy Christensen chose a more lighthearted statement for their home on Wandermere Golf Course in North Spokane. “We don’t live in a fancy home,” Christensen says, “but it’s a home with a lot of personality. My garden gate reflects the whimsical side of me.”
A heart is cut into the arch at the top of the gate, allowing a view of a winding path through lilacs and fruit trees. “It brings a smile to anyone’s face who passes though it,” she says.
Jeanne Batson’s late husband Harry built the massive gate for their Millwood home almost five decades ago. He took the design from the gate at Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley pictured in Sunset Magazine, says Batson.
An airplane mechanic, her husband crafted the gate from 4-by-4s and iron that he turned into curlicues. Now, the gate serves mainly to keep Chin, Batson’s 4-year-old chow, confined to the back yard.