The front garden design of this Rosedale home posed a unique set of challenges: creating a foreground for the house that functions as a veil of privacy while working within the area’s heritage designation. Renovations to this Edwardian property had created an open and vast modern interior that could be seen clearly through the large glass doors at the front and rear of the home. Although this transparency connects both areas of the house and admits a great deal of sunlight, it left the interior of the home exposed. Rosedale’s heritage landscape designation required that the axial walk to the front door be maintained. Rather than having a simplified symmetry, the project posits a balanced, informal arrangement of trees and grasses that serves to mask the transparency of the home while also creating a visual foreground that draws one’s eye away from the interior view of the residence. The ensemble pairs multi-stemmed Birch trees, green-leaved Smoke trees, Japanese Maples and receding layers of tall grasses. Framing this raised bed is a steel edge—out of which the backlit street number was cut. The existing stone wall remains in the background but is now topped with black granite – the same granite used for the entry path and stairs.