Southern Creations Landscaping has been selected to join the exclusive team behind our Southern Living Custom Builder Program Showcase Home at The Grove. Southern Creations has served middle Tennessee for 30 years, creating and maintaining distinctive landscapes irrigation systems, lighting, and drainage systems, retaining walls, water features, and natural stone designs.
William “Butch” Hamby feel in love with landscape design in high school, and turned that passion into a career when he began Southern Creations Landscaping in 1987. Hamby’s immense passion for nature coupled with his extensive knowledge of Middle Tennessee’s native plant horticulture made him the perfect addition to our Southern Living Showcase Team.
When tasked with creating a sustainable landscape plan, the priority was to create a traditional palette to match the traditional cottage home architecture.
“The existing landscape is beautiful with a lot of natural boulders, heavily wooded, and rolling terrain.” Hamby says, “We wanted the front to be clean, somewhat formal with a very detailed appearance.” One example of this is the clipped hedges along the front of the home with seasonal color perennials. Southern Creations will also be incorporating evergreens for texture, such as various Boxwood varieties for foundation plantings.
“Coral Bell perennials will add both color and interest,” Hamby explained. “The Twilight variety has burgundy foliage with gray veining for adding deep color in shaded areas. Butter Rum Coral Bells, which have a lighter more pink hue, will add a nice contrast.”
“One key area we are focusing on in the front landscape area will be the approach to the home’s front porch. To the right of the porch, tucked right beside the house, will be a private sitting area with a formal 3-tier water feature that will include a lot of showy perennials to add an element of surprise behind the more structured boxwoods,” Hamby revealed.
The homesite has a lot of mature, native trees so the focus will be on adding shrubs and understory trees for visual interest. Hamby and his team at Southern Creations have selected plants for the front landscape that will include several varieties of hydrangeas. One such variety, White Light, has graceful, arching branches that take shade very well. Expect to see Camellias, which are known for their seasonal blooms and interesting waxy foliage and Indian Hawthorne, Spring Serenade. This hardy shrub has a white bloom that works well with the main landscape pallet of green and white with pastel accents.
The team at Southern Creations plans on letting the Middle Tennessee landscape shine through in the design of the back of the house which has a rolling topography with a lot of interesting boulders, some with nice moss accents. These will be used for creating destinations places throughout the back yard. Look to see these boulders utilized to terrace the terrain, while others are to be clustered to create a fire pit and one boulder that is perfectly shaped will be used to create a water feature.
“With multiple porches overlooking the backyard, our objective was to keep the landscape simple, yet interesting. The destination areas are designed to entice you to go explore, walk or simply sit and appreciate the magnificent natural surroundings.” Hamby said
The landscape of our Southern Living Showcase Home demonstrates a marriage between the unforgettable majesty of the Middle Tennessee landscape and the timeless beauty that is synonymous with Southern Living. Stay tuned for the next blog in the series where we continue our discussion with the team behind our Showcase home, reveal more special features and share behind the scenes photos.