Billy and Michael’s Dry Garden

This front garden renovation on 10th Street NW in Logan Circle began with a clear challenge — an overgrown space dominated by a beautiful but isolated Japanese maple, diseased shrubs, no defined path, and no visual connection to the street.

The design response is structural and sculptural. At the heart of the garden is a hand-placed river stone feature in a sweeping yin/yang-inspired form — two curved bands of graduated rounded stones that spiral inward toward a shared center. The space between the curves will be planted with drought-tolerant flowering perennials in contrasting colors, chosen together with the clients during a nursery visit. The stone feature transitions directly into a series of large natural flagstone steps that rise toward the Japanese maple, creating a single unified gesture from the sidewalk to the tree.

The full plant palette is drought tolerant and selected for the garden’s mixed light conditions — part sun near the street, deeper shade beneath the maple canopy. A trench drain system captures roof runoff and channels it passively into the planted areas over time. Garden uplighting will highlight the maple and key plantings after dark. Along the narrow entry bed, a tall vertical screen of privet or Sky Pencil Japanese Holly will create definition and privacy at the property edge.