Imagine your perfect summer get-together in an ideal setting. Mine is a long wooden table in Umbria, Italy, filled with lifelong friends, floral ceramics and a hedge of fuchsia bougainvillea rising from a bluestone gravel terrace. Or, maybe it’s a metal garden table for two under a shady weeping willow in Scotland. There’s a feeling that goes with that image. Now, picture it — and feel it — in your backyard.
Landscape, interior and textile design experts say it’s totally possible — within Plant Hardiness Zone limits — to create your ideal outdoor entertaining environment that serves your lifestyle and reveals your aesthetic, with a bit of fantasy thrown in. It’s about integrating the tablescape within the landscape and bringing a vision to life, literally.
Photography by Matthew Williams
To start, be honest with yourself. “What’s your story?” is the first question landscape and lighting designer Art Luna asks his clients, followed by, “How do you like to entertain? How do you want it to feel?” He then helps tell that story with jasmine and roses that remind the client of their grandmother’s house, or orange trees in planter boxes from Morocco, perhaps a French tile table, or a crepe myrtle reminiscent of cherry blossoms in Kyoto, Japan. It’s very much about the person who lives there — such as Luna’s friend and client, designer Lisa Eisner, for whom he created a garden in Bel Air, California. “Lisa is a jeweler, so she jewels up the trees with lanterns,” says Luna. “Her chairs are maroon with green apple piping, and her entertaining room has a sunken fireplace with a giant orange velvet sofa. She loves orange; that’s personal to her, so it works.”
Be a realist, too, says Los Angeles–based designer Tim Clarke. “Think about the time of day you like to be outside and what your real life is all about, so you can create a space that supports that,” he says, whether it’s an intimate morning coffee ritual or a dinner for 12 guests.
Begin by fashioning a “room” in nature. Experts suggest creating walls out of greenery, such as a hedge, and an outdoor ceiling with something high, such as a pergola made of bamboo reeds, a hanging pendant light or an umbrella. A simple way to define a space on the “floor” is with an outdoor carpet.
Photography provided by Tim Clarke
Scale is important. “Nature is bigger than you, but you want to feel nestled inside of it,” says Luna, which is why he likes tall fruit trees in planters near a dining table. Think of the outdoor plants as furniture; you would never furnish an indoor dining room with small stools and tables, so why do that outside? Part of the challenge with outdoor entertaining is feeling cozy, hence the nestling in. “Carve out little nooks and crannies in a garden,” Luna suggests. “I love to create little places people can go.”
One of the joys of indoor/outdoor living is blurring the line between the two. A way to do that is to treat the outdoor space as you would the indoor entertaining area. “Don’t use plastic just because you are outside,” Clarke says. “Use what coordinates with the interior room adjacent to the outdoor space, so it’s seamless. Instead of trying to sit on hard metal furniture, why not take your indoor dining room chairs outside?” You can bring them back inside after the party. Performance fabrics can be used on upholstered furniture outside, just as outdoor fabrics can be used to upholster an indoor sofa. These versatile materials can also be used as napkins and tablecloths; they withstand the elements and don’t feel like pool cushions. Designers like George Smith and B&B Italia now feature exterior furniture lines with outdoor upholstery.
Think location, location, location. When recreating your dreamy Lake Como tablescape, consider your setting. “I design spaces in Connecticut completely different than in Sun Valley, Idaho, or Santa Fe, New Mexico,” says interior and textile designer Schuyler Samperton. At her own home in Litchfield, Connecticut, she prefers a wild look over a manicured one, given the natural surroundings of her home. “We got rid of the structural planters with shaped boxwoods and put in huge hydrangeas that open to a field beyond,” she says. “I really took advantage of how wild the shrubbery was,” adding that their yard was full of surprises when they moved in: “Things were constantly popping up that we could use in arrangements, from decades-old lilac trees to wild lilies.”
Photography provided by Art Luna Studio
Samperton says she has always gravitated toward a different era in terms of florals, preferring lilacs and peonies, any sort of garden rose, and hollyhocks and foxgloves — some of which appear in her textile designs of large, unbound florals and wildlife in saturated pinks, greens and turquoise. Carrying that wild and whimsical feeling onto her table integrates the flowers, dishes and linens with the environment to form a holistic statement. “The whole point of our outdoor table was to make it feel relaxed and loose, like its environment,” she says. Samperton also suggests foraging in the yard for flowering branches, leaves and fruit that can be featured in a tablescape.
Think about the senses, too. “Lighting is everything,” says Luna. “Avoid LED lights at all costs. Go for candles or an oil lamp.” Don’t discount the ambient smells or sounds either. Clarke warns against overpowering music in the garden, especially because this area has a sound of its own. “Maybe the music source is far away,” he says, “so it’s just a hint of sound, and more about the conversation.”
When you imagine your dream setting, try to carry the relaxed-in-nature feeling of that orecchiette lunch in Umbria or cocktail in Croatia into your own venue. Even if your inspiration came from Instagram or Pinterest, the idea is that flowering hedges, linen napkins and hand-painted plates can transport you to magical places, even while in your own backyard.
Get top tips for making an outdoor space feel inviting and comfortable from design pros.
