ABOUT Lilyvilla Gardens
In 2003, Lauren Hall-Behrens founded Lilyvilla Gardens. Located in Portland, Oregon, Lilyvilla Gardens is a design studio specializing in landscape and garden design for homeowners and small business owners to extend their living and working environments into the outdoors. Our clients typically want outdoor spaces that beautify views from the house and are used for relaxing, entertaining, growing food and attracting wildlife.
Signatures of Lilyvilla Gardens are unique transitions of space within the garden, modern use of hardscape materials ranging from mild steel to re-purposed fir, custom furniture and structures as well as bold yet simple plant combinations that are lower-maintenance and water-wise. We begin the design process by actively listening to our clients, assessing the garden site and developing an overall concept, an idea or mental picture, which becomes the essence of the design. This conceptual model drives the design which is then transformed into a custom garden that reflects the client’s personality, lifestyle and fits the context of the home and natural surroundings.
ABOUT Lauren
Lauren began studying her environment as a young, quiet child. Playing games of visual acuity and memory such as noting the fonts, color and graphics on business signs while riding past them, designing and re-arranging her elementary school principal’s office and drawing countless blueprints for her dream house. Lauren was fortunate to have a mother who exposed her to some of the best museums and galleries which became the framework for her visual education. Lauren’s grandmother exposed her to the plant world through trips to nurseries, her greenhouse full of semi-tropicals and travels to Mexico. After many years, a liberal arts degree studying psychology and art, work in sales and the trades, Lauren discovered the field of Landscape Design. Daunted by the task of learning Latin but passionate about plants and creating spaces that nurture and inspire people, she read every book, magazine and journal she laid her hands on. First she planted a vegetable garden, then enrolled in the Master Gardener Program, then the Landscape Design Certificate program at PCC. In 2001, she found a mentor with whom she apprenticed until she completed her Landscape Design Certificate in 2003.
ASSOCIATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS
HPSO -Hardy Plant Society of Oregon, Board of Directors 2005-2009
ANLD -Association of Northwest Landscape Designers
Friends of Portland Community Gardens
Portland Japanese Garden
PICA - Portland Institute of Contemporary Art
