Tour a Designer’s Gardens in the North Carolina Mountains

Garden at a Glance
Who lives here: Landscape designer Jay Sifford, who designed the landscape and installed the plants
Location: Near West Jefferson, North Carolina
Size: 1.4 acres
House design: Architect Jim Owen of DIGSdesign

Site

Here are Sifford’s boots and the two most important criteria on his wish list during his search for a property. “No. 1, it had to have lots of rhododendrons, and No. 2, it had to have a stream with rapids,” he says. This steeply sloped lot was just the place. Traveling through the Appalachian Mountains, he came upon a pub in West Jefferson and stopped to have lunch. “The people were so friendly, and I thought, ‘This is me. This is my home,’” he says.

“This was the first property I saw. The Realtor didn’t think I’d like it because it had two bogs. Unless you’re a crazy garden designer like me, you probably don’t want bogs,” he says. “I fell in love with the rhododendrons and the stream. I open up my windows at night, and the sound of the rapids puts me to sleep.” He’s named his property Rhodwood.

Work with a landscape designer

While researching local vernacular styles, he found that even though he hadn’t spied one recently, dogtrot houses had a history in the Appalachian region. A dogtrot house is composed of two separate cabins built side by side, connected by a breezeway. The name comes from the idea that when a dog was “too hot to trot,” it could find a cool, shady spot in the breezeway. Today, modernists are drawn to the straightforward and honest structure of these homes as well as the passive cooling provided by the breezeway.

The breezeway also serves as a connection between the front and back landscapes, which can be quite different. “By mountain standards, the front part of my lot is considered flat,” Sifford says. The house sits at the edge of this relatively flat area and straddles a steep slope. He decided the front yard would be his meadow garden.

Learn more about dogtrot houses

Owens clad the exterior in 1-by-6-inch vertical cedar siding with a black stain. The roof is standing-seam metal. “You see a lot of black barns in Appalachia. They help the tobacco cure better,” Sifford says of the color choice. “And I love the backdrop black provides for all of the colors in the garden.”

Shop for outdoor lighting

This is the view from the dogtrot up toward the road during the fall. Sifford is keeping his project page on Houzz updated with new photos as the meadow garden continues to fill and change with the seasons, so this story shows the garden during different times of year.

This part of the property had to be cleared for a septic field. Sifford took it as an opportunity to create the meadow garden. Sometimes he jokingly calls it “the septic garden.” Even so, something septic never looked so good. “I looked at this garden as a big canvas for color and texture,” he says. He was careful to avoid plants with far-reaching roots, to protect the septic system.

The designer choreographed plants in an array of colors that change with the seasons. The meadow garden has junipers and pines that provide hues of green year-round. Perennials add lots of purples, pinks and yellows in spring and summer. There’s a wide range of foliage that goes from light green to burgundy to brown through spring, summer and fall. And a mix of grasses adds softness and movement until the snow falls. Plants like redtwig dogwood (Cornus sericea) and coral bark Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’) provide winter interest and stand out against the black walls and the white snow covering the ground. Sifford has provided a thorough plant list for the meadow garden divided into categories.

Major players: Fountain grass (Pennisetum orientale ‘Karley Rose’), ornamental onion (Allium ‘Millenium’), tickseed (Coreopsis verticillata ‘Zagreb’), sage (Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’), blazing star (Liatris spicata), blunt mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum), shore juniper (Juniperus conferta ‘Golden Pacific’), Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Denim ’n Lace’), feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’) and ‘Black Pearl’ coral bells (Heuchera hybrid)

Punctuation and rhythm: Weeping white spruce (Picea glauca ‘Pendula’), prostrate blue spruce (Picea pungens ‘Prostrata’), mugo pine (Pinus mugo ‘Valley Cushion’), barberry (Berberis thunbergii ‘Golden Rocket’) and Black Tower elderberry (Sambucus nigra ‘Eiffel 1’)

Browse Adirondack chairs in the Houzz Shop

Find a local deck and patio specialist

Check out more photos of the home’s interiors

To navigate the slope, Sifford installed steps that wind down to the bogs and the stream.

Sculpture: “Outstretched Arms” by Timboel, Phillips Collection

“Coming here stimulates my creativity,” he says. “I find I both lose myself and find myself here. I’m always a better person for it. The plants and land have taught me so much.”