labyrinth Garden
Greenwood Village, CO
5+ Acres
Dakin has been working with the owners of this site realize their dream of cultivating a rich and meaningful landscape around their home. Because of their deep engagement with their land and garden, the landscape has guided the entire design process, from architecture to civil engineering to landscape design.
All architecture on site is oriented toward the garden, a park-like, multi-use environment that includes a walking labyrinth, restored prairie, a Japanese garden, an orchard, vegetable beds, berry brambles, a croquet lawn and a charred wood outdoor shower. Dakin pays special attention to materials at every turn, selecting an antique sugar bowl for the outdoor fire pit, antique Japanese roof tiles to create blue edging, and stepping stones imported from India. In addition to its diversity of garden types, this permacultural paradise is home to chickens, ducks, and bees. A complex irrigation system was designed to draw alternately from wells and cisterns.
Dakin has also had the privilege of creating an arboretum of diverse and rare trees that she based on Olmsted’s design for Central Park. Trees were selected to display a variety of seasonally shifting delights: spring blooms, fall berries, winter branch structure. Mature trees onsite were preserved and sometimes moved to new locations. When the owners came to Dakin with the desire to create plaques to label the trees in the arboretum, she worked with a designer to create a mark that would represent the family name, yet remain quiet and classical. Dakin took inspiration from 19th Century French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix’s animal drawings, creating a custom plaque featuring a lion.
