A Bar Mitzvah Garden Gives a Family New Perspective

The Jewish Exponent
Mazel Tov Special Supplement
March 24, 2005

Kim Sokoloff captures memories. A professional photographer, Sokoloff uses his talent with the camera to record important family celebrations like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. So when the Sokoloffs’s son Sam became Bar Mitzvah last October, many photographs were taken. But the family has more than pictures to remind them of this significant family event. They have Sam’s Bar Mitzvah garden, an exquisite Japanese-inspired sanctuary in the front of their Elkins Park home, created for them by Brad Baker, owner of Baker Creative, Inc. in Wyncote.

The Sokoloffs’s main motivation for planting the garden was to make their home look both beautiful and welcoming for the Bar Mitzvah weekend. Although the formal celebrations surrounding Sam’s Bar Mitzvah were held elsewhere, the Sokoloffs hosted a family Shabbat dinner, a small gathering of the immediate family and some special out-of-town guests, at the start of the Bar Mitzvah weekend. The Sokoloffs also expected family and friends to drop by throughout the weekend.

“We wanted the walkway to look welcoming,” explains Terry Sokoloff. “We wanted to put our nicest welcome mat out, especially for guests at such a happy time.”

But the Sokoloffs wanted more than just a nice looking yard for that one weekend. They wanted to create an outdoor living space that integrated the interior and exterior of their home and enhanced their family life. And they wanted a lasting reminder of this very special family celebration.

Significant family events, particularly those symbolizing a new stage in a family’s life (a Bar Mitzvah, graduation or wedding), often provide the impetus for major home and landscape renovations. Even if they don’t hold the main celebrations at home, families entertain more around these events, perhaps hosting pre-event dinners or post-celebration brunches, and they want their homes to shine. Many families also see these renovations as an opportunity to update the interior and exterior of their homes to reflect their families’ changing needs and desires.

For the Sokoloffs, the main focus was the entrance to their home. The walkway from the curb was relatively new, but the yard to the right of the walkway was an overgrown patch of grass, weeds, and out-of-control day lilies. The remnants of a flagstone path had sunk into the soil and become covered with grass. The space was enclosed by an overgrown shrubs, azaleas, mahonia, rhododendron and – in Terry’s own words – “some pathetic looking rose bushes.”

The entrance to the house was hidden behind a large mock-orange tree, the branches of which obstructed the front door and created a cave-like entry. The tree’s foliage also blocked the Sokoloffs’ view of the garden from their kitchen window. Not that the garden was much to look at.

“It really looked like a jungle,” admits Terry.

When the Sokoloffs were ready to tackle the jungle they called in Baker, a Pennsylvania Certified Horticulturalist and an acquaintance of the family. Kim Sokoloff had photographed Baker’s son’s Bar Mitzvah and had seen Baker’s horticultural work.

Designing the Landscape

Baker, a fit, affable man who confesses he’s more comfortable outside than in, sees himself as a consultant for his landscape clients, combining their ideas and desires with his vision and expertise to create beautiful and functional landscaping that fits not only the clients’ present needs but also their future plans. Whether planning for an event like the Sokoloffs’s Bar Mitzvah or designing projects in the regular course of caring for a client’s landscaping, Baker begins by meeting with his clients and walking around the property. He listens to the clients’ ideas, questions and concerns both for the upcoming event, if there is one, and for the landscape as a whole. He also asks the clients to think about their goals for their home and property. With this information and his own observations, Baker creates a detailed drawing of the property, the proposed projects and their costs.

Baker met with the Sokoloffs in the early summer before Sam’s October Bar Mitzvah. Self-described minimalists (“we don’t even have a painting over our fireplace and we like it that way,” explains Terry) they wanted the exterior of their house to echo the minimalist interior. Terry also wanted the garden to be comfortable and comforting space, a place where she could sit and relax.

The Sokoloffs had very specific ideas about the design of their front yard. They liked the simple, tranquil style of Japanese gardens. They wanted visually interesting boulders and in particular at least one large enough for Terry to sit on. They were also very explicit about the colors they wanted – and didn’t want – in the garden. Inside the entrance to the house, the walls are painted a bright mango color, which Terry describes as both soothing and striking at the same time. The Sokoloffs wanted the boulders in the garden to have similar tones to further tie the interior and the exterior together. They choose earth tones, as well as blues and purples, for the plants, and were adamant that there be no bright pinks or reds. And since both Terry and Kim love to cook, they also wanted edibles and herbs in the garden.

Creating Sam’s Bar Mitzvah Garden

Baker created the garden in three stages. First, he tamed the jungle, removing the grass, weeds and other undesirable plants.

“You spray lots of Roundup and then you wait for everything to die,” he explains with a laugh. Baker left the mature shrubs to frame the garden and define the space.

Next, he shaped the basic garden, installing the plants and natural elements that are constant in the garden from season to season, and from year to year.

In designing the space, Baker considered the views from every angle: from the street, walking up the walkway, standing at the front door, and even looking out the kitchen window. He placed boulders in various shapes and sizes – at least two big enough for Terry to sit on – throughout the space to create the look of a natural rock outcropping and to draw the eye through the garden and into the landscape beyond. The glorious earth tones of the boulders echo the colors inside the house, in the plants, in the brick walkway and in the flagstones, which were leveled and rearranged to create a path that meanders through and around the garden.

Around the flagstones and boulders Baker planted perennials with a traditional Japanese look: nandina, hanoki cypress, Japanese mountain grass, tree peonies and camellia. He selected these plants not only for their style, but also because they bloom at different times throughout the year. Many of them also change color or shape (losing blooms and developing visually interesting seed pods), giving the garden a different look with every season. Baker also arranged the plants and boulders to create topographical interest, changes in height visible from different angles, something the space originally lacked.

The herbs and edibles – lavender, thyme and basil, among others – were placed at the center front of the garden to take advantage of the only spot in the garden sunny enough for them. The scents of the plants, the herbs, particularly the lavender, the laurel bushes and sarcacocca, also figured prominently in Baker’s design of the garden. He structured the space so that the prevailing wind would carry the scents of the plants in bloom up the walkway and to the front door.

Baker incorporated some of the existing elements of landscaping into the Japanese-influenced garden. The Sokoloffs worried that the mock-orange tree overshadowing the entrance to the house would have to be removed. Instead, Baker pruned the tree and mature shrubs at the front of the house to create a more open and airy look. The branches also frame the view of the garden from the kitchen window.

Baker completed this second stage of the garden at the end of the summer, giving the Sokoloffs time to enjoy the space before the Bar Mitzvah. At first, the simple, austere design of the garden seemed almost too minimalist, especially to Kim, who suggested that perhaps they needed more plants to fill in the space. The Sokoloffs decided to experience the landscape for a while and soon came to appreciate the serenity of the garden. For Terry, the garden became a haven of calm and tranquility, where she could retreat from the Bar Mitzvah planning, which she describes as one of the most hectic and stressful times in her family’s life.

Dressing Up the Garden for the Bar Mitzvah

In October, just before Sam’s Bar Mitzvah, Baker planted fall annuals to add color and “dress up” the garden. Various shades of yellow figured prominently in the perennial plants, so Baker added blue and purple pansies, deep green and purple kale, and yellow mums. He accented the garden and the walkway at the corner of the house with urns and planters filled with kale and herbs, grouped together with small pumpkins.

For the Bar Mitzvah weekend, Baker also added temporary lighting -- rope lights in the mock-orange tree and uplighting in the garden – to offset the darkness of the entry way, to create shadow play on the wall of the house, and to highlight the architectural qualities of one of the more unusual boulders in the garden.

A Lasting Reminder of Sam’s Bar Mitzvah

The Sokoloffs are thrilled with their landscaping, which they call Sam’s Bar Mitzvah garden. Terry loves the aura of calm, like a buffer zone of tranquility, around her home.

“It has completely transformed the way we walk up to our house,” she says. “My blood pressure goes down when I drive up. Sam’s Garden is good for my health!”

Terry often takes her cats for outings in Sam’s Bar Mitzvah Garden, where the cats (who usually live indoors) like to sit on her lap and enjoy the fresh air.

And what does Sam think about “his” garden?

“Kids aren’t big on quiet contemplation,” Terry says with a laugh. “So he doesn’t use the garden the same way that I do. But he understands, from a 13 year old’s point of view, that fixing up the garden for his Bar Mitzvah was a priority. He knew that it was a special time for our family.”

“We only have one son,” she continues. “We were only going to have one Bar Mitzvah. The garden was a wonderful splurge, something that we’ll have for years, to remember Sam’s Bar Mitzvah by. Every time we look outside, we have a memory.”