Landscape, Plants, Hardscape & Decks
With greater force than ever before, water conservation is back on the minds of governments, landscape professionals and property owners these days - and for good reason: The combination of growing demand and recurring periods of drought has sensitized people in many parts of the country to the fact that water isn't an infinite resource. Even this new magazine is part of the dialogue: In the September/October 2006 issue of LandShapes, James Minnich defined the need for landshapers to become more
We live in a multi-dimensional world. Most people understand that space has three dimensions: height, width and depth. But relatively few people look at color in the same way - that is, as a three dimensional phenomenon. Understanding these three dimensions of color can become the key to unlocking your creativity as a designer. We began our study of color in LandShapes' May/June issue ("Designing in Color," click here), where we explored the scientific nature of color and its first dimension - hue, the name of a color (red, yellow, blue, orange, green or violet) - and learned that each hue has a temperature range (from warm to cool). We also learned that all six hues may be organized and better understood through the use of a helpful tool developed by color scientists called the color wheel. We will now continue our study of color by exploring the second and third dimensions of color and then by discussing contrast, analogous and complementary colors and color harmony. This will enable us to begin applying these fundamentals as landshapers and see in practical terms how understanding these fundamentals can help us become better
Integrated pest management - or IPM, as it has become widely known -- is a concept that emerged about 20 years ago when landscape professionals and others involved in the management of plants and the land began incorporating its techniques into their landscape installation and management projects. Unfortunately, however, the concept of pest management is all too often seen as the exclusive province of those engaged in landscape maintenance: As a rule, designers and design/build contractors rarely pay more than lip service to pests in general and give even less attention to considering them as part of an integrated approach. At the risk of being labeled a "tree hugger," I believe it's time for everyone involved in the various landscape professions to embrace IPM. The simple truth is that, as landshapers, we need to pick up on the lessons of our collective experience. As the saying goes, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it - as we have, over and
It has always bothered me a bit that designers tend to restrict their thinking to just the physical area that fits the definition of their design specialty. Landscape designers stick to outdoor spaces and interior designers work on interior ones - and seldom the twain shall meet. To my way of thinking, that's shortsighted - which is just one of the reasons I'm both a landscape designer and an interior designer. I would argue that, when it is appropriate, professionals on both sides of the divide need to open their eyes and work with the visual flow through and between clients' interior and exterior spaces to achieve optimal design results. As landscape professionals, we already accept the importance of the "borrowed view," a wonderful term used to describe the deliberate capturing of other properties' assets by creating living or artificial frameworks that make them an artistic component of our clients' landscapes. If we are good at capturing neighboring views for our landscapes, I'd suggest it's a short step to make certain that we achieve the same sorts of wonderful views between the
As the possibilities of learning more and creating unique gardens take hold, the give and take of landscape design can become a kind of addiction both for designer and client. I have experienced this phenomenon again and again, but only occasionally has it been as pronounced as in the case of the shade garden featured here: It's a wonderful example of how this constant drive to create new and beautiful plant combinations and visual planes can grip any landscape professional. A dedicated gardener, my client
Inspiration - literally, the breath of an idea - can come from any number of sources. While studying the work of 20th-century designer Beatrix Farrand at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., for example, I spotted the planting combination of climbing pillar rose and Wisteria and thought her brilliant for having covered the woody Wisteria stems with rose flowers and
In discussing my role as a "forensic landscaper" a few months back, I expressed my disappointment in the quality of some of the work I was seeing in my local marketplace - and if the e-mail I've been receiving is any indicator, I am not alone in this experience. Indeed, questionable workmanship may be more prevalent that I ever could have imagined. As a result of this revelation, I will be using this space from time to time to demonstrate the fact that failure is often a better teacher than success and that, by exploring the nature and causes of failed projects, we can all come to a better understanding of the principles and practices that lead to good results. Before I begin, however, I'd like once again to salute
Labels are often deceiving: They don't always tell the whole story. In the green industry, for example, most of us identify ourselves as either designers or contractors, but after 18 years of landshaping, it's clear to me that a majority of us are really to varying degrees both designers and contractors. The very best designers understand
When I first entered the watershaping industry in the late 1970s, one of the details to which I took an immediate dislike was the practice of wrapping the tile that covered the walls of raised bond beams around the corner and onto step risers and various other vertical hardscape surfaces found around pools and spas. We've all seen it - Spanish Colonial Revivalist tiles of questionable authenticity, extra-bold in color and used to cover highly visible vertical surfaces. To me, these swaths invariably look out of place and have the effect of drawing attention to features that often don't warrant or benefit from the emphasis. It happens to this day because
When I paint, I constantly play with color on canvas and experiment with various combinations to see what works well and discover what, to my eye, clashes or doesn't seem to mix harmoniously. As a landscape designer, I'm aware of working through the same sort of process when I discuss color with clients - determining their likes and dislikes and narrowing the color palette down to those hues, values and intensities that are most appealing to them. Some aren't even aware until I launch into a discussion with them that they have particular tastes involving the color wheel. In my experience, all these clients lean
