Flora Grubb: What makes a landscape award-worthy

From a lacy shawl of Japanese maples shading a Berkeley hillside to bold colors painting a Tiburon slope, beauty is in the eyes of the judges -- and now of the voting public -- for this year's Considered Design Awards.

The nationwide online competition is sponsored by Remodelista.com and Gardenista.com to celebrate stunning home-interior and garden designs by professionals as well as do-it-yourselfers.

The sites' editors received hundreds of entries in 17 categories for this second annual event. They opted to spread the judging around the country, seeking out a "roster of design-world luminaries" for the task.

One of the Bay Area finalists in the 2014 Considered Design Awards contest from Gardenista.com is this stunning hillside of color in Tiburon, designed by Arterra Landscape Architects. ( Michele Lee Willson )

In the Bay Area, they tapped Flora Grubb, garden designer and owner of San Francisco's chic Flora Grubb Gardens, to tackle the best professional landscape category.

We caught up with Grubb at the nursery -- an oasis in the industrial Bayview district -- to talk about what makes for an award-worthy garden, whether created by a professional or homeowner.

When we arrived, she was poring over photos to whittle down 29 entries in her category to five finalists, with the winner to be selected by the public in online balloting.

"It's tough to judge because they're all so impressive," Grubb said. "These are beautiful gardens at what could be considered estates. It's not going to be easy."

She did manage to narrow it to five, however, selecting three Bay Area landscapes among the finalists -- a modern Pacific Heights setting designed by Terremoto in San Francisco; a colorful hillside in Tiburon by Arterra Landscape Architects; and a calming "outdoor room" by Mary Barensfeld Architecture for a home in Berkeley. (See more on these gardens in an accompanying article.)

Public voting in all categories remains open through Aug. 8, and winners will be posted on the Remodelista and Gardenista sites Aug. 9.

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Flora Grubb: What makes a landscape award-worthy