Prairie Ponds and Pools

Denver, CO

This 17-acre site in south Denver offered generous space for multiple uses: kitchen food and flower beds, natural prairie, reflecting pool, pond and rain gardens. The property was previously home to a founder of the Denver Botanical Garden, and was thus planted with many rare and beautiful trees. When a new home was designed, the architects took care to preserve and design around some of the most important trees on the site. We decided to relocate some others. The sweeping site provided an opportunity to create paths between “rooms" of the garden. Multiple levels offer views to and from the water features.


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.

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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.


Modern Homestead

Boulder, CO
5+ Acres

This landscape design melds contemporary architecture with the pasturelands beyond to create a homestead for modern living. Preserving existing amenities onsite, including ponds fed by historic irrigation ditches, stately trees, acres of pastureland for the owner’s livestock, and a magnificent view of the Front Range to the west, this landscape draws inspiration from the surrounding high-altitude prairie and its agricultural heritage. This drought-tolerant ecosystem of native and naturalized grasses and forbes mirrors prairie beyond. Native trees were planted and existing water features were enhanced with new stonework. A small orchard was added by the barn and a flower garden explodes with blooms in the Spring, providing a backdrop for family gatherings.


Equestrian Flower Farm

Nicasio, CA
77 Acres

This 77-acre horse estate is an ongoing project. The Nicasio river runs through the property, affording it scenic and varied topography: open ridge lines, forested areas and space for the owners to ride and board horses. Dakin has worked with the owner to design an organic flower farm growing zinnias, dahlias and other annual flowers that the owner sells at local markets and farm stands.

Prarie Boulder Garden

Boulder, CO
5+ Acres

This terraced rock garden sits on a large property with small areas of intensive use. The clients had imported over 900 tons of rock (some weighing over 13 tons) from Wyoming, so the garden was designed around the setting of these stones. Dakin engaged with nationally renowned Japanese garden designer Sadafumi Uchiyama for expertise and inspiration in the art rock placement. Resulting features included a three-tiered waterfall, pathways and rock placements that would create microcosms of interest and harmony within a large site. The garden explodes with the color from blooming groundcovers and boulder-hugging shrubs.


Michigan Garden

Boulder, CO

Having settled in a semi-arid Rocky Mountain location, the client wished to create a haven that would harken back to the farms and gardens of her Michigan childhood. Because the lot was large, the goal was to keep maintenance to a minimum and focus on a small, gem-like kitchen garden that was fenced from the hungry deer who pass through the wildlife corridor on which the property is located. While the majority of the space is simply planted with low-maintenance trees, shrubs and flowering perennials, the tool shed and fenced garden were considered with utmost care and provide important viewsheds from the house. Raised beds were made with stone from the same stone-mason who had worked on the house, and the shed was designed to be an armature for climbing vines. Complex water issues onsite required an irrigation system that switches between city water and ditch water. The end result is a Great Lakes paradise adapted for the climate of the Rockies.


Canyon House

ElDorado Springs, CO
1+ Acres

The garden for this contemporary estate (with music studio) includes a complex of trellises, sculpted screens and gates as well as a labyrinth and climate-adapted plantings. Like many of Dakin’s projects, it expanded as the owners expanded their estate. Permaculture and ancient Chinese garden philosophies are used to maximize the utility of each design element in relation to the overall aesthetics and ecology of the site. Paths double as drainage streams and knit adjoining lots together. Geometry and formal elements harmonize with the softness and color of flowers and grasses. Landscaping creates a bridge between lodge-like architecture and the backdrop of the mountains beyond.


Elkstone High-Altitude Permaculture Garden

Steamboat Springs, CO
50+ Acres

This demonstration garden, located 6,732 feet above sea level, was a way for the client to connect and give back to the surrounding agricultural community of Steamboat Springs. The challenge was to design a high-altitude food garden in a harsh climate. In collaboration with Evo Catalyst, architect Michael Thompson, and permaculture guru Jerome Osentowski, a working farm was created, cultivating heirloom apple and pear trees as well as climate-adapted berries, bush cherries, ground cherries, raspberries and blueberries. An innovative passive solar, climate battery greenhouse houses 20 varieties of lemons and limes. A cottage industry is run from the ranch house, producing preserves, flower essences and creating employment opportunities in this remote community. The permaculture approach to this project dictated that design decisions be made to serve both human desires and the needs of non-human organisms and soils on the site.

The latest addition to this project was the design of raised and in-ground beds made of local Colorado sandstone. Beds abound with flowers, vegetables and fruits. They have paths between them and places for people to gather and sit. We had the opportunity to work with the exquisitely skilled stone masons of Rising Star to create lasting garden infrastructure that served both human and plant needs, providing a clear entry experience for visitors and making the garden easier to maintain.

Elkstone Farm Website >>


AREA

Kumbo, Cameroon

K. Dakin Design has been engaged by  AREA, the African Research & Exchange Academy, to plan and create the site for an exchange program and residency for local and international students. AREA sits on 300 acres in the verdant hills of Kumbo, Nso, in the North West Region of Cameroon. Founded by Dr. Ajume Wingo, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Values & Social Policy University of Colorado, Boulder, AREA is dedicated to supporting a corps of young artists, writers, entrepreneurs and civic leaders to build a grand city of caring that transcends our myopic individualities and collective identities.