pond
All too often, the purchasers of a home (new or old) find a garden space stripped of any natural feel. Large lot or small, they sense no "connection" to the land - only a bleak space devoid of vegetation or any sort of overhead canopy and lacking the finishing touches that draw them out of the confines of the home to enjoy what usually represents the majority of their real estate. From my perspective, the best way to generate this connection to the land is through the creation of ponds, streams and waterfalls in these backyard settings. Such features bring a more natural look and feel to residential garden spaces and instill a sense of connectedness. And whether customers pick up this sense consciously or subconsciously does not matter: What matters is that they somehow know it, that they feel it. Plantings are a big part of this picture, but I lean heavily on watershapes to create connections because of
Some projects grab you right from the start, and this was definitely one of those cases. As the principals at Herzog Development Corp. explained in our initial meeting, their new development was to be a "golf course community with a rustic feel, but refined." To embody that refinement, Don Herzog and his son, Daryl, wanted some sort of elaborate waterfeature - something that would break the monotony of the stark, flat terrain of northeast Dallas County and welcome
To my way of thinking, one of the most fundamental considerations in any landscape design has to do with understanding how the major elements blend visually with each other and their immediate surroundings. When that design includes water - be it a pond, stream, fountain, pool or spa - the key to effective visual blending depends to an overwhelming degree on how you define the internal boundaries within the design. This is so because of a couple of crucial visual concepts: First, we all know that
