motivation
With a busy schedule, it's too easy to use the same tools repeatedly in project designs. Yes, you can mitigate the repetition to a certain extent by using those tools differently each time, but the fact remains that many of us tend to design over and over again with the same plants, hardscape materials and structural approaches because it's what we know and trust. But let's face it: Most clients don't want exactly what someone else has; instead, they want one element from this garden and a special plant from that one. From a design perspective, selecting new plants every time is
In the premiere issue of WaterShapes in February 1999, Brian Van Bower's first "Aqua Culture" column invoked the name of winemaker Robert Mondavi, calling him a role model for watershapers everywhere. It was a partly surprising place to start a new column, given the fact that Mondavi is neither a contractor, engineer or designer, but Bower, a wine connoisseur as well as a trailblazing watershaper, made a good case for seeing Mondavi's career as a lens through which we might better understand our own. At the time, I didn't completely appreciate the connection between Mondavi and the watershaping trades, but I decided a bit later to pick up the book, Harvests of Joy, and spend some time with it. Prepared by Mondavi with writer Paul Chutkow, the 364-page book was published in 1998 by Harcourt Brace. I know that this is quite a departure from
