ARTICLES Archives - Page 246 of 315

A Novel Approach

Every once in a while, I find it useful to read something purely for inspiration. Especially as the busy season heats up, I truly enjoy the thought of stepping away from the grind and getting lost in the pages of a good book. Most recently, I picked up Ayn Rand's classic, The Fountainhead (Penguin Books, 1994), and found not only a terrifically entertaining story, but one that I also see as useful on the professional front because of its many insights into issues of creativity, design and personal integrity. Let me start by saying that I'm not offering this unusual entry as an endorsement of Rand's controversial philosophy. There are plenty of ideas presented in this long, 700-plus-page book that don't align with the way I see things, and I have no intention here of commenting on Rand's "objectivism" in any way. To me, the core of the story is

Knowing Your Range

In last month's "Detail," I discussed the beginning stages of a new project that has my partner Kevin Fleming and me pretty excited. At this point, the pool's been shot and we're moving along at a good pace. I'll pick up that project again in upcoming issues, but I've brought it up briefly here to launch into a discussion about something in our industry that mystifies me almost on a daily basis. So far, the work we've done on the oceanfront renovation project has been focused on a relatively narrow band of design considerations having to do with the watershape and its associated structures. This focus is

Completing projects on time can be tough enough, but actually accelerating the work to fit within a schedule takes extraordinary focus, says landscape contractor Pat Kirk. It’s a challenge he faced in this extremely high-end project, where the need to finish in five months instead of the original eight months forced his team to work at fever pitch – with no sacrifice in quality.

In Due Time

Contractors of all types are notorious for setting impossible-to-keep schedules, thereby disappointing clients and damaging their own credibility in the process. Sometimes, however, situations arise that require landshapers to shrink their established installation timetables, a necessity that will turn up the heat on even the most accomplished of contractors. For the project profiled in these pages, my clients had something come up that (from their perspective, anyway) necessitated completion of the project much earlier than anyone thought: They were expecting a baby and insisted that our delivery date should happen before theirs. The challenge we faced with the new timetable - just five months rather than the planned eight - was huge: It required truly constant interaction and communication with the clients and sub-contractors as well as intensive coordinating and expediting of a mind-boggling number of simultaneous processes - enough to drive us all crazy from time to time, but ultimately a

It may be true that clear water is a hallmark of success for most watershapes, but in the world of naturalistic watergardening, there’s often an unstated tolerance for green or murky water. That’s a shame, says master watergardener Anthony Archer Wills, who argues that crystal-clear water in streams and ponds enables watershapers to add extra dimensions to their projects in the form of complete underwater landscapes.

Simple Transparency

Think of it: Just below the surface of our ponds and streams is a wonderful potential for beauty, an amazing opportunity to open observers' eyes to an entire submerged "landscape" made possible by virtue of completely clear water. I like to picture it as an "underwater garden," which is why, to me, water clarity is an essential component of my ponds and streams. Too often, however, I run into settings in which it simply has not been a priority for the designer or installer. I'm further distressed when the subsurface views I treat as key design elements are left partially or wholly unconsidered. I think back to my family's trips to the seashore, where we would spend hours observing rocky tidal pools. Peering into the water and seeing a world of oceanic plants and animals at close proximity was a profound source of fascination and excitement. It is for me still – and, I believe, for most other people as well. What I see in tide pools is a perfectly balanced, utterly natural underwater garden filled with beautiful stone colors, textures weathered by the action of the waves and tides and a plethora of pebbles and sand mixed with bits of seashell. It is here that we may

Designing landscapes, says Richard Scott, is very much like painting a portrait: In both cases, you compose shapes, values and colors to make a beautiful work of art. In the first of a series on the nature of color and using it to create landscapes your clients will love, he begins with the fundamentals -- a basic vocabulary that will help you (and your clients) understand color.

Designing with Color

My clients' eyes light up when they first discuss color. They describe intense images of saturated reds, violets, and blues. The more color we can pack in, the better. No one yet has asked me for a garden awash in neutral grays. But what do they really want? As a landshaper, am I delivering the best service by designing a landscape overflowing with pure, vivid colors? As the hired expert, how am I to produce a landscape design that evokes the feeling they really want? That end result - the feeling, or emotional response, that the client gets from the garden - will not necessarily be achieved by placing bright colors everywhere. What we want is a garden that sings, not screams, with color. Of course to design this kind of garden, we designers must understand color ourselves. There is, unfortunately, an abundance of misunderstanding and misinformation on the subject. Let's aim at a more thoughtful understanding of color by approaching it in a logical, sequential manner. Let's explore how color really works, and how to design with color to form compositions that produce the feeling your clients

For years, says surfacing expert Bruce Ferguson, permeable pavements have been seen as a solution to several environmental problems faced by urban spaces. Pervious concrete is one of these materials, and he’s convinced that it has the potential to revolutionize landscape design by easing water infiltration into the soil and reducing the need for stormwater-control facilities.

Concrete with a Difference

Think about what happens when rainwater falls on an impervious surface in a big outdoor parking lot studded by the occasional tree: The water dampens the surface, which instantly becomes saturated. Only a minute percentage of water that penetrates the trees' canopies to reach their curb-bound planters becomes available to the trees' roots. The rest almost immediately starts flowing to drain grates or perimeter drainage details and is lost to a stormwater-collection system. The trees are helped only marginally by the life-giving rain, and the water

Established trees often sustain irreparable damage during construction projects as a result of soil compaction, root damage and/or drought. Protecting valuable specimens from these problems is easy, however, if landshapers and other contractors understand trees’ characteristics and their roots’ function – and apply some simple measures to ensure their safety.

Rooting Out Problems

In an ideal world, tree roots would never be disturbed and decks, hardscape, structures and plantings would all avoid impinging on a mature tree's space. Too few job sites, however, work that way: In our world of shrinking spaces, homeowners want as much useable space as possible, and this often entails building over and around tree roots. In the process, contractors all too often cut through roots to accommodate footings and other structural elements and generally ignore trees and their needs for the duration of the construction project. As is also often the case, arborists are brought in to remedy problems only after irreparable damage to a tree becomes evident. This is true despite the fact that trees generally serve as the anchors of our landscape designs and that most of us know that we should them with significant deference when designing landscapes and beginning construction. Typically, however, protecting a tree and its roots is a low priority for most general contractors and architects - and even some

Quiet Efficiency

Recent times have seen the introduction to the pool/spa industry of a new breed of hydraulic pumps that use what is known as 'variable frequency drive' technology. Here, watershaper, hydraulics expert and Genesis 3 co-founder Skip Phillips describes why he believes these devices, which have been used successfully for years in other industries that demand hydraulic efficiency, represent the future for pools, spas and other watershapes. For all the progress made in recent years to change the nature of the game, to this day I still see situations in which pumps, filters and other system components for pools, spas and other watershapes have, hydraulically speaking, been completely

Naturally Art

Just as nature inspires art, I believe that art can inspire landscape professionals to "paint" themes and moods into gardens. Claude Monet's work is a striking example of this unconventional relationship between art and landscaping, a connection explored fabulously in Monet the Gardener (Universe Publishing, 2002), a collaboration between Sydney Eddison, who writes and lectures on gardens; and Robert Gordon, a leading authority on French Impressionism. Together, they delve into Monet's obsession with his famous garden at Giverny, describing his fixation on flowers and the struggles he had in creating his lily pond. Included are letters from Monet, members of his family, journalists and writers from the late 1800s, all of them chronicling the artist's choices among

Watershaper Michael Nantz has designed and installed projects across a wide range of styles, budgets and overall levels of complexity. Among the most challenging and ultimately satisfying of all those designs, he says, are those that unfold in the yards of clients who want to make significant personal statements – but in very small spaces. Here, we take a look at two such projects, both of which prompted him to summon up all of his creativity.

Space Savers

Working in constrained spaces is entirely different from tackling projects that unfold in pastures where the only boundary might be a distant mountain or an ocean view. Indeed, in small areas that may be defined by fencing or walls or adjacent structures, the constrained field of view offers substantial aesthetic challenges to the designer in that every detail, each focal point, all material and color selections and every visual transition will be seen, basically forever, at very close range. When you're working small spaces, in other words, there's literally not much room for error. In this smaller context, each and every decision watershapers and clients make will subsequently be in direct view, and it's likely that each detail will take on special significance for the clients, positive or negative, as they live with the watershape over time. And on many occasions, what we're asked to start with as designers leaves much to be desired, including spaces already vexed by sensations of confinement, closeness or downright claustrophobia. To illustrate what I mean, let's take a look at two projects I recently completed in smallish yards for clients who wanted to