About Garden Picasso: Green Infrastructure & Design Studio
Rain in Decatur does not soak in so much as run — off roofs, down driveways, over red Piedmont clay, and eventually into South Fork Peachtree Creek. Garden Picasso: Green Infrastructure & Design Studio draws yards that hold some of that water instead of shipping it downstream: rain gardens, regraded swales, drainage that keeps a side yard from turning to soup, and beds planted with natives that can take both the flood and the August drought. The design comes first, fitted to the real slope and light of the property, and then the ordinary upkeep that keeps it looking intentional — mowing, mulching, bed edging, pruning. The pleasure is a landscape that works twice: composed to look at, and steady in a storm. Decatur supplies plenty of storms to test it.