Landscape, Plants, Hardscape & Decks
Most of my clients don't know a Pittosporum from a Loropetalum - nor would I expect them to. Unfortunately, however, this often leaves me to describe plants to them, a process that often makes me feel like I'm reenacting that television commercial where the homeowner tries to mimic the creature seen crawling across the kitchen floor for an exterminator: I'll stand there with my arms up or out, attempting to look like the botanical specimen I'm suggesting for use in their garden. One of the easiest groups of plants to describe in this or any other way is a collection I call the strappy-leaf plants. I didn't make up the term, and I'm sure many of you have also used it yourselves to describe plants with foliage that looks like straps - generally long strips that emerge from a central clump and arc up, sometimes flopping over to create
Most of my clients don't know a Pittosporum from a Loropetalum - nor would I expect them to. Unfortunately, however, this often leaves me to describe plants to them, a process that often makes me feel like I'm reenacting that television commercial where the homeowner tries to mimic the creature seen crawling across the kitchen floor for an exterminator: I'll stand there with my arms up or out, attempting to look like the botanical specimen I'm suggesting for use in their garden. One of the easiest groups of plants to describe in this or any other way is a collection I call the strappy-leaf plants. I didn't make up the term, and I'm sure many of you have also used it yourselves to describe plants with foliage that looks like straps - generally long strips that emerge from a central clump and arc up, sometimes flopping over to create
Bridges have been important to humanity for thousands of years. They've provided avenues of travel between disconnected spaces and have, as a result, been critical to commerce, settlement, warfare, travel and even poetry and literature. To this day, they are iconic in certain cities or regions (think Paris or New York), and there has always been a distinctly romantic air that accompanies their obvious utility. My relationship with bridges in general (and with wooden bridges in particular) began during my childhood near Nebraska's Niobrara River. The big, load-bearing structures crafted to span that river in the late-19th and early-20th centuries absolutely fascinated me. I'd spend hours climbing on those old structures and was amazed by the way they creaked as their tension and compression members supported truly formidable weights. At the same time, I came to value the presence of
Bridges have been important to humanity for thousands of years. They've provided avenues of travel between disconnected spaces and have, as a result, been critical to commerce, settlement, warfare, travel and even poetry and literature. To this day, they are iconic in certain cities or regions (think Paris or New York), and there has always been a distinctly romantic air that accompanies their obvious utility. My relationship with bridges in general (and with wooden bridges in particular) began during my childhood near Nebraska's Niobrara River. The big, load-bearing structures crafted to span that river in the late-19th and early-20th centuries absolutely fascinated me. I'd spend hours climbing on those old structures and was amazed by the way they creaked as their tension and compression members supported truly formidable weights. At the same time, I came to value the presence of
Although we think of them together as activities in the world of exterior design, watershaping and landscaping have some significant distinctions. The watershapers who design and build pools, spas, fountains and waterfeatures, for instance, fully intend them to be structurally static and unchanging (a firm hope, anyway, especially in earthquake country) once they are completed. By contrast, the landscape professionals who design and install the gardens, trees and plants that may surround a watershape work with dynamic, constantly changing materials. What this means is that perfection is a much more elusive quality for landscape professionals by comparison to watershapers. Indeed, for us on the green side, achieving the kind of perfection one often
Although we think of them together as activities in the world of exterior design, watershaping and landscaping have some significant distinctions. The watershapers who design and build pools, spas, fountains and waterfeatures, for instance, fully intend them to be structurally static and unchanging (a firm hope, anyway, especially in earthquake country) once they are completed. By contrast, the landscape professionals who design and install the gardens, trees and plants that may surround a watershape work with dynamic, constantly changing materials. What this means is that perfection is a much more elusive quality for landscape professionals by comparison to watershapers. Indeed, for us on the green side, achieving the kind of perfection one often
Like most everything in life, "Natural Companions" has evolved through the years. When I first started writing this column in 1999, I focused primarily on topics related to combining plants and watershapes and wrote a lot about surrounding hard structures with greenery in sensible and sustainable ways. As the New Year approaches, I've been thinking about how things have changed with the column and where it's now heading. I distinctly recall having the sense about four years ago that
Natural stone is certainly the most time-honored of all building materials. From the pyramids of Egypt to the temples and civic buildings of ancient Greece and Rome; from the palaces and villas of the Renaissance to the most contemporary structures of our modern era, we see a material forged within the earth for millions of years that has been painstakingly quarried and shaped into myriad forms both functional and decorative. Even with the advent of cementitious components and a range of other manufactured substitutes, stone remains the material of choice in a great many applications. In fact, the range of natural stone materials available to designers and builders expands almost daily in response to the specific demands of watershapers and other designers and contractors - and there's no end in sight. Our company, tr stone, is a U.S. distribution facility owned and operated by one of the world's largest stone producers, Tureks, based in Afyon, Turkey. The best thing about the marketplace from the perspective of designers and builders is that high-quality stone is now available from a wide range of domestic and foreign sources in a number of distinctive
It's that time of year when our thoughts begin turning to the beautiful colors of the fall - and the subsequent bareness of winter. Whether you're in the coldest northern reaches or enjoy the relative warmth of the Sunbelt, we all are aware that fall is a transition to a time when the annuals will fade once and for all and the deciduous plants will drop their leaves. But I propose that it doesn't have to be so - or at least that we can minimize the seasonal holes in our gardens through thoughtful use of evergreen trees and shrubs. These are the most abundant of all plant types, after all, and the bones of
As an artist, I tend to look at the world with an eye to "distinction" - that is, what makes certain objects stand out, what makes them appear round, what makes them catch my eye, what makes me notice them. By contrast, most "civilians" notice overall appearances. If they're in a garden, for example, they will enjoy the sea of shapes and colors and will generally respond to a particular plant or design element only if it really stands out in some way. Knowing this, I like to play in my garden designs with elements of visual control and on finding ways to direct what the viewer will look at first, then second and so on. In lots of my gardens, I use trees to capture this sort of attention. Even uninspired observers will take note of
