Pine Bluff -- Dunklin Longmeadow Garden

From 1955 until their deaths in 2007 Elisabeth and George H. Dunklin were involved with the nurturing of this garden in the Longmeadow area of Pine Bluff. Siting their Lucien Dent-designed home on a rise beyond a small wooded creek, they also planned a circle drive to cross the creek in two places behind existing trees. Landscape architect J. Duke Moody designed the garden to enhance the home and to reflect the owners' desire for a walled garden with a fountain as well as space for entertaining. The u-shaped home encloses a brick terrace, which is offset by somewhat formally placed shrubs and garden statuary. The terrace offers a view of a rectangle of lawn and a playing fountain beyond. The creek bisects two distinct lawns leading up to the front entrance. Foundation planting features large English boxwood, pruned to keep a graceful "cauliflower" shape, across the front of the house. A tennis court and a large, open lawn stretch to the west of the north-facing house, while to the east a smaller lawn ends in a thick growth of trees along the rocky creek.