Tropical garden brings a mix of foliage, textures and vegetation

When they bought this house in Barra da Tijuca (RJ) , the couple, modern businessmen and rock lovers, with musician children, carried out a renovation on their own (the wife is an architect by training) to imprint the taste and identity of the family, which is very involved with modern and contemporary art. As the external area was quite destroyed and lacking maintenance, with lots of mixed vegetation and no style, the residents decided to commission a project from landscape architect Maira Duarte (from the Horto Girassol office and CASACOR Rio ), who thought it best to eliminate the previous landscaping and rebuild everything from scratch. “I was recommended to these clients by a friend who lives in Orlando. The change was incredible from the beginning, because they wanted something very different from what was already there. A more tropical landscaping, with varied vegetation and facing the inside of the house , which wouldn’t draw attention from the outside, because they travel a lot,” she says. The homeowners' wish list didn't stop there. They also asked for a vegetable garden , and for the landscaping to be not only diverse, but also dense, striking and with splashes of color, making the house more fun. Finally, they requested vertical gardens on the walls to bring coziness and a little zen corner, with aromatic species , creating a perfect setting to encourage the family's connection with nature.

According to Maira, the overall design mixed different species of tropical plants, as is the case in nature, and sought to highlight the nobility of imperial palm trees . Inside, the landscaper used many bromeliads in different forms – on the floor, in basins, and on the stems of the palm trees . “Since the client is very connected to energy fields, we used imperial bromeliads at the entrance door to attract good energy and ward off the evil eye,” she says. The landscaping also features an automatic irrigation system , controlled by a Bluetooth app, which allows you to control the amount of water according to the species, sunlight and seasons. “This technology is extremely important, especially in the case of vertical gardens, and gives residents complete freedom to travel for as long as they want,” Maira emphasizes. “Every landscaping project has the great challenge of adding identity to the architecture. In my opinion, it is the final touch to the construction, important for expressing and establishing a style. In this case, our greatest challenge was to bring a lot of volume and variation to corner and passage gardens,” concludes Maira.