A Delaware County homeowner was able to take an empty space in their yard and turn it into a gardener’s paradise, thanks to some help from Bryn Mawr-based Gardner/Fox Associates and Glen Mills-based Stoney Bank Nurseries, writes Kristen Schott for Philadelphia Magazine.

“It was a blank canvas,” said Jeff Brinton, head of the residential design department for Gardner/ Fox Associates.

The wife had become a Penn State master gardener and wanted to create an outdoor sanctuary.

The couple picked a semi-custom greenhouse by Hartley Botanic and had Gardner/Fox build out the flooring and masonry patio in natural cleft flagstone.

The short walls around the edges of the patio also provide natural seating areas.

Stoney Brook Nurseries created the landscaping to feel like a formal English garden.

A potting shed is on the side of the greenhouse, positioned to develop visual interest.

“It creates vistas as you sit on the patio and look across the yard,” said Brinton.

The greenhouse design has built-in benches and a thermostat system that opens the glass panels to let heat out during warmer months.

The natural-cleft flagstone flooring slopes downward toward a central trough for water drainage.

Read more about this lovely backyard gardener’s paradise in Philadelphia Magazine.