Mind Space Company

Mind Space Company MINDSpace is a full service garden design and installation company, woman-owned by a certified Residential Landscape Designer. Go green with us!

We help our customers develop ecologically-aware outdoor spaces that reflect your lifestyle. We're a certified residential landscape design company providing services in the Greater Chicagoland area. Services include garden consultation, landscape design, landscape maintenance, natural stone and brick hardscape, site preparation and plant education. We design and build our projects ensuring quality control from conception through completion.

A couple of tiny gardens, one north, one south. My design approach is to get as much diversity, texture and seasonal in...
02/16/2025

A couple of tiny gardens, one north, one south. My design approach is to get as much diversity, texture and seasonal interest in a small space as possible without overplanting. It can be a fine balance to strike. The goal (mine) is to create depth perspective so that small space gives the eye a reason to travel through it. I have a small yard and I sacrificed patio space for seating to get deeper plant beds that allow me to feel enveloped. It’s not always about screening the fence, stair, garage wall, neighbor’s yard, alley, you name it. We’re trying to distract from those things, give you something more interesting to see, muffle the sounds of city living, maybe make your postage-stamp sized yard feel at least as big as an envelope.

This is a big project in a small space. The front yard of a condo building on UofC campus is dominated by a massive Lin...
02/16/2025

This is a big project in a small space. The front yard of a condo building on UofC campus is dominated by a massive Linden smack in the center of the space; it’s located on a corner busy with foot traffic, lots of shade from the property’s tree, a large building to the south and mature parkway trees on the narrow street. The yard needs irrigation because this is a condo association with lots of good intentions but no dedicated watering team. Our task was to balance a few divergent ideas about how to handle the design like how densely to plant, lean more ornamental or functional like the previous planting, and how to protect the space from cross cutting foot traffic. Fence, raised edge, hedge? Finally, the tree roots had changed the grade of the yard, lifting the soil and creating a ridge that sloped back toward the building’s foundation.
The plant palette is shade tolerant with just a few sun species along the south sidewalk and the north property line. As so many did last summer, the customer had a few problems with getting the watering right. We installed a soaker hose system (piped irrigation would have meant churning through too many tree roots), keeping it away from the tree in an effort to slow down its production of new feeder roots to give the new plants a head start. A gravel gutter handles any water at the foundation and the stone edge (hopefully) discourages the dogs and the corner-cutters.

Time for a project post. This one is a late season project, finished in November (climate change, still mostly a curse,...
01/15/2025

Time for a project post. This one is a late season project, finished in November (climate change, still mostly a curse, less often a string of mild late fall days works out), due to waiting on the final piece of a substantial building renovation, a 2-level deck, to be installed. The project is located on the far NW side of Chicago in a brick bungalow belt neighborhood on a standard Chicago lot with a property line on the alley. Front lawns in the neighborhood are small and unfenced, well tended and respected by dog walkers, bike & scooter riders and pedestrians. There is very little lawn edge damage along the sidewalks so kudos to the humans who respect the property of the other humans they live among and understand the role of sidewalks. My customers weren’t interested in breaking the ‘lawn code’ by replacing it with an alternative groundcover or removing it altogether and fully planting the yard but they did want to jazz it up a bit and I obliged with wider mixed shrub borders. The rear yard was a different matter and the owners were ready for an “adult yard” to go with the big reno. The deck got carried away with itself and encroached on my plan but we readjusted and carried on. The yard is small enough to be intimate but spacious enough to accommodate multiple uses: a generous winding path featuring gravel joints and stone banding, raised vegetable beds, wire structures for flowering vines, a small grilling area, string lights, native plants to host pollinators and bird life, and a strong trellis for mom’s honeysuckle vine (which was as tangled as my hair can get). Whew! Sounds crowded but it works. A challenging area was the narrow strip of soil between the tall wood fence along the alley and the deck. I had to make assumptions about the light exposure in the summer but I think I have the plant mix right. We’ll see in a few months. Their steel containers will provide enclosure and color on the expansive deck which was built pretty close to that alley fence. Doing a project that late in the season makes sourcing plants a treasure hunt. Still OK to plant, soil wise (we put the lawns in out of sequence because they are more weather sensitive than other plant materials) and I know they’re available but it requires a lot of traveling to assemble the right plants because nobody’s fully stocked and every plant seems to be in a different place. But I like the challenge and Fabian LOVES to be in the truck with me for long periods of time ( I offer a hot lunch when necessary) so we drive all over Chicagoland and load up. I found a lovely little Acer griseum (my personal fav small tree) perfectly sized for the front yard that I’m eager to see leafed out. I hope you enjoy the photos. The last picture shows the weather the day after we finished up.

01/02/2025

What a project-packed year 2024 was. We worked in your front, rear & side yards. On your front porches and rear decks. We discovered, dug up and (hopefully) destroyed white grubs by the spades-ful in traditional turf lawns, ground covers and no-mow Eco-lawns. We dug drains in clay soils, begged some of you to water more often and begged some of you to PLEASE stop watering so often. One day I’ll sit down and calculate how many yards of soil amendment we worked into the ground but I know for sure we added about 30 yards back into 1 large project and took away countless yards of compacted, debris filled soil from that same project. I canceled and shortened work days more often for heat than for rain again this year, not surprising since the hottest year on record was 2024, supplanting 2023 as the title holder. Yes, the world is still going in the wrong direction on that front. Although there has to be something between being too hot and way too frigid like what we worked through in early December, predictable extended weather patterns are elusive and challenging to accommodate even when using a broad plant palette.
We don’t put plastic into the environment so no artificial ‘turf’ or rubber mulch installations but we do replace failing or hard to manage lawn areas with natural stone, herbaceous and woody plants, and sustainable wood mulch. There’s never just one answer, but if finding the right one were easy and always obvious, it wouldn’t be called “work”, right?
You’ll see photos of 2024’s projects posted over the next couple of months as I rest up and plan for the coming season. If you (or a neighbor) want your space designed for enjoyment in 2025, the time for that starts in January, not June, so send me an email.
Stay tuned!

Just realized that I never posted the big reveal of our South Shore Drive project so I’m going to get that done THIS yea...
12/31/2024

Just realized that I never posted the big reveal of our South Shore Drive project so I’m going to get that done THIS year with a few hours to spare. That fabric got covered with degenerated (AKA rotted) red granite and those empty spaces planted with native plants and native cultivars (including those Prickly Pear cactus). Here’s how the final gravel garden project turned out.
With this footnote: the squirrels tried every which way to dig up the cactus and eat the paddles. I went back and replanted the tiny uprooted plants after about 10 days. We went back again mid December and laid down cut evergreen boughs over the perennials and the Diervilla (Bush honeysuckle) shrubs, which also showed evidence of animal damage, likely rabbit chewing. Hope that does the trick over winter.

Midweek holidays always confuse me and I lose track of the days but wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year. It’s b...
12/30/2024

Midweek holidays always confuse me and I lose track of the days but wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year. It’s been our pleasure to help you realize your garden visions and it makes me feel purposeful to have created more beneficial green spaces in a city that’s in a world that’s way too hot (yep, 2024 is the new ‘hottest-year-on-record”). I appreciate you allowing me to design your spaces so that they please your eye, and serve the earth and its creatures. Have a wonderful winter and be well. We’ll see you in the spring. Don’t forget to feed the birds!

I wonder what’s going on here along S. South Shore Drive?? Prickly pear cactus!?? Do they grow here?It’s a gravel gard...
11/06/2024

I wonder what’s going on here along S. South Shore Drive?? Prickly pear cactus!?? Do they grow here?
It’s a gravel garden! To replace the Eco-lawn that had been performing very well but was regularly subjected to applications of horticultural vinegar. That product is a ‘kill all’ and it did kill all the lawn. So in the spirit of peaceful co-existence the decision was made to eliminate the lawn and replace it with up to 50% gardens set in red degenerate granite and boulders. Mature trees (Cornus florida, Nyssa) remained as well as the strictly native perennial garden next to the house. All of the new plants are native and native cultivars including shrubs, perennials, grasses and cacti. It should become a bird and pollinator hot spot given its proximity to the lakefront at Rainbow Beach.
The gravel is wide enough to serve as a path: for maintenance tasks and to get you off the concrete walkway and into the garden spaces. The client insisted on the cactus to prove they can get them to grow. Squirrels had been a problem in past attempts and, with no hesitation, a few days later when I dropped another plant all of the cactus plants looked as though they were set into little moats. The squirrels dug around them to try and dislodge the plants while avoiding the spines. I replanted them and haven’t had an update. Is there anything those damn things won’t try to eat??!
I’m eager to see how the gardens develop. There are a couple of Rhus copallina (Shining Sumac) that I hope will colonize in a less sunny area to hide the fence separating the rear yard.
Over time this garden should become a modified xeriscape and a good example of how a garden can feel “gardeny” using strategically placed planted pockets within hardscape. The main space is approx 12’ wide by 35’+. Not shown is an Amsonia planted in the gravel at the south end where the neighbors grass is to enclose that end of the space and keep the eye trained on where the action is. It was a fun experience. I’ll keep you all posted. By the way, the Cornus florida (dogwood tree) was a freebie bare root sapling from an Arbor Day group a few years ago. At over 9’ tall and some pruning to shape, now it’s quite the specimen.

“What can I do with my narrow-ish side yard that also has to serve as a passage between the front and rear doors? It’s ...
03/16/2024

“What can I do with my narrow-ish side yard that also has to serve as a passage between the front and rear doors? It’s also where all the meters are.”
Well, you can make that trip down the side of the house less boring by turning the space into a garden! If your space is long enough it may have different sun exposures at either end. You can take advantage of that by creating a shade garden at one end that transitions into the sunnier space. Practically, you have to get from one end to the other so running an offset path down the center achieves that while creating planting spaces of varying sizes and heights along its spine, minimizing the ‘bowling alley’ effect of a narrow space. In this example, brick landings at either end frame the garden and limit your eye movement, thus shortening the feel of the space. And those busy walls? They’re not as noticeable in the presence of the visual distraction of plant color and texture. Unpleasant views don’t always have to be camouflaged, drawing your attention away from them is a good tactic.

This is why you under plant a garden. Start with a good design focused on compatible plants, use healthy plants locally...
02/15/2024

This is why you under plant a garden. Start with a good design focused on compatible plants, use healthy plants locally grown if possible, amend the soil and leave plenty of spaces for good air circulation and room to grow. Commit to taking care of your new garden for the first season, don’t go on vacation the day after it’s planted and you’ll be set up for garden success. If you plant it (correctly), it WILL grow! Rabbit and rodent pressures not withstanding. This small front yard was planted in May 2023, filled in by September! That’s customer dedication.

This is an upgrade project for a townhome association in the Hyde Park neighborhood. The homes are arranged around a ce...
02/15/2024

This is an upgrade project for a townhome association in the Hyde Park neighborhood. The homes are arranged around a centralized common outdoor space with shared activities including sports courts, paths and some mature landscaping. This area started out as a circular paved patio where residents gather for quiet activity. We built the broken circle seat wall and cleaned the existing pavers. There may be a fire pit added in the future.

If stone were a salad ingredient bluestone would be kale. Even though I personally think kale is a dish best served HOT...
02/03/2024

If stone were a salad ingredient bluestone would be kale. Even though I personally think kale is a dish best served HOT, the correlation is the overuse of bluestone as a hardscape material even when it isn’t always the best material choice for your hardscape project. Kale is used in every dish now. It’s in your salad and smoothie, on your sandwich, wrapped around your wrap, under the avocado on your toast and stuffed inside your hand pie. But it’s sometimes out of place and doesn’t always compliment the other ingredients in the dish. Why is kale a pizza topping?
Bluestone (domestic) is sourced from the eastern US, along the seaboard mostly. Its coloration is primarily shades of smoky blue with grey shadings. There is a color variation called ‘full range’ that expresses the colors of the minerals contained within the mountain. The shades range from oranges to blues to rusty ochres, all within the same slab. It’s considered less desirable than evenly colored ‘blue’ bluestone which is the most expensive coloration. But I love it for the wide ranging colorful movement expressed in each slab. If you’re considering a hardscape project please take some time to discuss stone options with your designer. There’s a wide, wide, wonderful world of stone options that can converse more easily with the cladding of your building, can add color to your landscape and impart texture to the palette. The pictures shown here are examples of different stones, including bluestone installations, that are regularly available in this area, if not all domestically/regionally sourced. In general, regionally, the center of America produces limestone types which are softer and porous, harder granites and shales come from the east, red tinged stone is quarried out west. Add in the surface treatment options (natural cleft, sanded, honed, thermaled, polished) and you have a plethora of choices. So belly up to the salad bar. But don’t start with the kale.

Pictures of the Hyde Park project before and in progress. We started demo the week before Thanksgiving, started buildin...
01/25/2024

Pictures of the Hyde Park project before and in progress. We started demo the week before Thanksgiving, started building & planting 1st week of December.

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4465 S Berkeley Avenue
Chicago, IL
60653

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Our Story

Lately our tag line has become “Climate change is real and rapid.” Believing fully these words, we design landscapes, large and small, in the ground or container, to support life other than that of the plants. Our installations are designed to attract the natural world to your space: birds, butterflies, and bugs, and support their needs without ignoring yours or detracting from the beauty of your garden. We believe firmly that when in your garden you should experience the natural world, feel the environment and not mistake your real space for a picture of a space. Nature is perfect in her imperfections, she is interesting because of her imperfections. There’s room for us all in the garden and we’re better off for it.

We want to help you get “into” your garden. That’s the real tag line.