A Fellow Designer's Garden — Kevin Chambers, Portland

I'd been following Kevin Chambers on Instagram for a while, and then he posted a series of photos saying he was feeling good about how the garden was looking — maybe time for an open garden. I knew I had to see it in person.

Kevin runs Chambers Landscape, a design-build business here in the Pacific Northwest, and this is his own backyard: a modern Mediterranean-Pacific Northwest garden built the same way he designs for clients, but with room to test, fail, and start over.

We talk through his material choices — decomposed granite versus gravel, the mocha-stained fence — his low-maintenance philosophy of touching most plants only once a year, and the arbor, shower, pond, and patios he built himself. Along the way: Sesleria, Eryngium, Teucrium, an evergreen screen of wax myrtle and Cupressus, a no-irrigation lawn alternative called Fleur de Lawn, and many more climate-adapted plants.

For more plants that fit this palette, browse eGardenGo's low-water Pacific Northwest picks.

If you liked the way Kevin uses columnar plants for privacy and structure, my Tall and Narrow video covers the same idea in my own garden.