plants
As I've suggested a couple times in the brief texts that have introduced the videos in this series on the spring cleaning of ponds, the process we pursue at Pond Digger Waterscape Design & Construction (Yucaipa, Calif.) is filled with opportunities - for minor adjustments, for new additions or, in this particular case, for completely changing directions and rethinking which forms of wildlife should occupy the ecosystem. Frankly, I doubt the
The way I see it, the substantial amount of time and energy involved in a good, annual pond cleaning is definitely well spent. For one thing, it gives us at The Pond Digger Waterscape Design & Construction a chance to address any issues the homeowner may have noticed with the way the pond operates - everything from practical concerns about splashing in certain areas, for example, through to aesthetic
With the huge pond and a moat that wraps itself around the house, it's a variety of watershaping you'd ordinarily associate with a medieval French castle. But actually, it's part of a contemporary estate in Brentwood, Calif., in the backyard of a couple with an amazing desire for an aquatic kingdom they could call their own. The couple had recently moved from the eastern United States and decided to take the fullest possible advantage of
On an emotional level, one of the toughest things to do in giving an ecosystem pond a good spring cleaning is thinning out the plants. After all, these plants are a big part of the pond's aesthetic appeal, and reducing them as dramatically as we usually do tends to set the watershape's good looks back a notch or two. But we do so knowing it's a
'Science tells us that the human eye can see about seven million colors and that our minds instinctively perceive depth and dimension. This visual capacity,' noted Stephanie Rose at the outset of her Natural Companions column in April 2006, 'enables most of us to move around without bumping into things, some of us to swing at and somehow hit a golf ball and, in the case of a beautiful garden (we can hope), all of us sense
Some projects are just more enjoyable than others - and this was one of the fun ones. We were called to a property in Bridgehampton, N.J., where the homeowner had amassed a large collection of ducks, geese and other birds (including some peacocks). The creatures occupied a large area in the big backyard - but a washtub had been
I live on the eastern-most fringe of the west side of Los Angeles, a neighborhood with an eclectic urban concoction of mixed nationalities and wide-ranging aesthetics - including a lack thereof. This hilly East Hollywood region has views of the downtown skyline and cars lined up regularly at four-way stop signs deployed in an effort to minimize the number of streetlights we must navigate to get from our homes to nearby Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards. In short, we are bursting at the seams with
As a garden designer, I've often heard about wonderful English gardens, historic British designers and specific design styles that have radiated from England through the years. I've studied books, seen wonderful profiles in magazines and searched the web for photographs and descriptions, but in recent years, the modern miracles of frequent-flier miles and house swapping have enabled me to experience these truly marvelous gardens for myself. My family and I, in fact, have visited England ten times since our first trip there in 1999. Each trip has given me the opportunity to visit amazing and inspiring gardens in different areas of the country - an education in design that I have fully integrated into my garden-design practice with Blue Hill Design in northern California. For their part, the English people are very welcoming - and especially, it seems, to gardeners: Gardening hosts on television are major celebrities, garden shows draw enormous crowds in a country where everyone
