" Let's talk about the overall design of the courtyard. "

" Well, this is a wonderful diamond-shaped design taken from that window."

" Yeah."

" And there's a half-a-diamond for the whole courtyard and then you come to this second wonderful diamond which is another repetition, and in it, we've planted herbs so that people can cook, supply all the restaurants on Martha's Vineyard if necessary."

" So, the garden layout is a series of beds. The first one you see here is this diamond-shaped herb bed."

" It's this diamond-shaped bed."

" What are the others?"

" And this in the Victorian sense, we've miniaturized the little gardens that they would have. This is a rose bed. This is a perennial garden that will have lots of color with wonderful roses climbing up the wall."

" Ah-huh."

" And this is basically a white garden and with maroon, which matches the trim on the window."

" The trim on the house. So----"

" And it's a pink garden to match. No yellow."

" Let's talk about the herb garden because the soil conditions here are such that I know that you've trucked in loom. I mean the material that we've got here on Martha's Vineyard is really almost like a rich beach sand."

" It really is."

" And this is a----"

" We've brought in some good garden soil. This is a sandy loam."

" Ah-huh."

" Which we've got from a farm and it's been screened. It doesn't have any big pebbles or things in it."

" All you need is what? 6 inches or a little more?"

" For the herb bed, I've put in 8 inches. For the perennials, we've put in 12. For the trees, we'll be putting in 18 to 24."

" Okay. So let's talk about the actual herbs you're putting in this bed."

" Well, this bed will be cornered with wonderful lavender, which smells so good and then thyme, which will creep over the edges like this and then we have marvelous basil, and we have parsley and over behind you, we've got some nice chives which will come up every year. We'll stick those in the middle because they spread."

" Of course, my question is can you really fit this much plot"

" Yes."

" material in a 4-foot area?"

" Yes, because a lot of these are gonna die. The parsley for instance won't last."

" Yeah, that's an annual."

" And the basil won't last."

" Yeah."

" The geranium won't last."

" Ah-huh."

" Some of them can be taken in, the rosemary, but it's here for the summer and next summer, you put out more stuff."

" And then for symmetry, kind of each corner will have lavender."

" Each corner has lavender."

" And thyme."

" And the lavender will grow and the thyme will creep over the edges."

" What's this----"

" And soften it."

" doing here?"

" This is an artemisia."

" Ah-huh."

" If this is a white garden, why it makes everything shine in the garden."

" Ah-huh."

" And in order to make this look like a cohesive whole, we've woven the plant material. There's an artemisia here and there's one here and there's some in these beds behind the men and this weaves all the gardens into a cohesive whole visually."

" We'll talk a little bit more about the perennial border back here in a second. Right now, let's check in with Fred Fournier, our hardscape construction expert. So this is a pretty ambitious job, Fred. It's not just a square or a rectangle. How did you get started?"

" Well, Bob, we struck a baseline here. It runs parallel with the house."

" This piece of string. It runs about 50 or 60 feet from one forge to the other."

" That's correct."

" Is it level?"

" Yes, it is."

" So it helps make sure that all the stones are being set down level."

" That's right."

" And what are you working on right now?"

" What we're doing is we struck another line here. This is the 45."

" This one here?"

" That's correct."

" And this kind of defines the triangular shape of the courtyard. "

" I was just getting ready to install this triangulated piece here."

" Yeah, go ahead. Don't let me stop you. You used a rubber mallet to pound them into place, and you don't have to worry too much about the stones breaking?"

" No, not at all. We'll just lightly tap it in. It's a native stone base."

" It's a blue stone we call it up here in New England, and you could see it almost anywhere. The material that you're setting it in to, let's look at it over here. It's not the kind of crusher run I'm used to. It's---- what do you call this?"

" This is a native island stone dust that they produce right here on the island."

" They crush it right here on Martha's Vineyard."

" that's correct."

" And will it compact enough? It looks so sandy. Don't you have to worry about the stones riding around?"

" No, not at all. We worked the subbase. It's done about 3 to 4 inches, and we take all of the rocks out of that."

" Yeah."

" Then we lay 2 to 3 inches of the native island stone dust here."

" Ah-huh."

" And then we just tap these pieces right into it and they firmly set right up."

" Of course, every stone you go along has to be leveled off, right?"

" It's leveled across this way, and it has a slight pitch going down towards the driveway."

" Back towards the driveway. You know, Ruth, this tree that you've got in this triangular planting bed is pretty spectacular."

" Isn't that great? It's a Japanese maple, red maple."

" How tall will it get?"

" It will get to be about 15 or 20 feet, but very slowly and it will provide some shade for that window and make it cool and more comfortable in there."

" And something tells me that this is what you're calling the white garden here because [unk] into the white blossom."

" This is the white garden and again, we're weaving the white plants. We've woven the thyme from in here. We'll bring this back in this bed and the pink garden, and then this wonderful perennial."

" And then this terrific cutting garden. Let's just briefly talk about what goes in here."

" Well, this has all kinds of perennials in it and they're all geared for summer when the house is being used."

" Uh-hmm."

" And we kept it on the pink, white, and red, and you noticed the red nicotiana matches the trim."

" That's beautiful."

" And then this beautiful white daisies."

" The nicotiana, the two mixed in with the red?"

" Yeah. You have to fill them with annuals"

" Yeah."

" as best as you can. But the nicest thing would be this wonderful pink rose called New Dawn, which is a very vigorous climber"

" Yeah."

" that will fill in this whole space, and it matches the trim that we have around on the house."