Amazing Space: A Loring Heights garden

Home and Garden

Amazing Space: A Loring Heights garden

Bill Brown has worked tirelessly with partner Dana McPherson to create a garden in the Loring Heights home, purchased the home in 1976. See photos of the garden, which boasts many garden rooms, a koi pond, and an endless array of plants.

When Bill Brown purchased this Loring Heights home in 1976, the garden had little more than grass. With partner Dana McPherson, Brown has spent years creating this elevated pathway alongside the home, filling it with perennials, trees and seasonal color. A babbling brook winds from the right side of the pathway under a stone bridge and into a koi pond.

McPherson keeps a photo album of the garden's progress through the years. This pathway is filled with tulips in the spring and annual color in the summer.

McPherson (left) says the couple's garden is a shared labor of love. "I'm the planter, he's the weeder," McPherson said. The couple own Platinum Seminars, teaching travel agents about luxury vacation options. Brown and McPherson regularly bring back items from their world travels like chandeliers and antique urns.

To keep hungry cranes from snatching the koi, the couple has placed stone replicas at the pond's edge. Garden sculptures like this angel can be found throughout the property.

McPherson placed this angel garden ornament atop a granite fountain. The result, he jokes, is the world's smallest bidet. This garden art overlooks Eon decking made from recycled plastics, part of the couple's efforts to use earth-friendly materials in their garden and home.

This spirit house was brought back from a recent trip to Phuket, Thailand, McPherson said. In keeping with custom, the couple places fruit or flowers in the house as an offering to the earth. This whimsical act reflects the couple's gardening approach. "We're working with Mother Nature," McPherson said. "Not against her."

These French doors lead from the couple's living room to the garden. McPherson explained he wants the spaces to blend effortlessly. By using lots of glass and mirrors, the spaces are continually reflected at different angles.

The couple uses their light-filled conservatory year-round for entertaining, as well as to house their more than 100 orchids and tropical plants in the winter months. McPherson's father applied authentic Venetian plaster to the conservatory, built eight years ago. "We dine out here all the time," McPherson said. "That's why it's a conservatory, not a greenhouse."

Sunlight warms the conservatory from all sides. In addition to heat from the sun, the couple heats the space in the winter to keep delicate plants alive.

Martini glasses are always at the ready inside this garden space. The tabletop statue and chandelier are among the treasures McPherson and Brown have found over the years.

You can never have too many chandeliers, McPherson explained. The couple has countless chandeliers of both the antique and new variety.

McPherson built this birdhouse in the likeness of the IBM building, he said.

McPherson's father sided the conservatory in authentic Venetian plaster. From this angle, you can see the back of the couple's home.

After adding a walk-in closet to the home, McPherson installed this living roof of sedum to add an eco-friendly texture to the roofline.

At the highest point in the garden, these lard candles burn. "You don't touch them," McPherson warned, explaining that the sticky lard is difficult to remove.

The couple brought back this urn from Belgium and believe it was made in the late 1800s. McPherson, ever resourceful, treats new plinths with shoe polish to give them an antique look.

This birdhouse was damaged by a sprinkler gone awry, McPherson explained, so his father rebuilt the piece using rot-resistant plastic. It hangs in the entrance garden of the home, which was co-designed by friend and gardening author, Tara Dillard.

Just outside the gated property, McPherson and Brown maintain this potage garden where they grow flowers, herbs and fruit such as apples, kiwi, figs and peaches.

These figs are among the fruits McPherson grows in this street-side space. The couple was able to expand their garden two years ago when the neighboring lot became available.

These orange blossoms belong to a pomegranate bush.

McPherson, who completed the outdoor water use registration program offered by the Georgia Urban Agriculture Council, said the garden is largely self-sustainable. It has to be, he explained, because the couple travels several months out of the year.

"The best thing about this garden is that anybody can have it. It's not a checkbook garden -- we do everything ourselves," McPherson said.

Lilies are among the flowers McPherson mixed with herbs and fruit in this garden.

This iron and crystal gate leads from the potage garden into the backyard space, which features an arbor and outdoor seating area, as well as a Pompeii brick pizza oven.

This garden mirror reflects a portrait in iron composite of a young man's head by Atlanta artist Martin Dawe. The sculpture measures nearly three feet tall and wide. McPherson said the piece looks like him or Brown in their youth. Because of the sculpture's serene expression -- with head slightly tilted toward the sky -- the couple appropriately dubbed him "Bliss."

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When Bill Brown purchased this Loring Heights home in 1976, the garden had little more than grass. With partner Dana McPherson, Brown has spent years creating this elevated pathway alongside the home, filling it with perennials, trees and seasonal color. A babbling brook winds from the right side of the pathway under a stone bridge and into a koi pond.

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