Steve Snedeker’s Landscaping and Gardening Blog

(click images to enlarge – they get bigger if you click again – most of them)

This is the front yard of the project in question. Those exceptionally healthy-looking Ponderosa Pines tell us we are quite a bit above Reno, Nevada. In fact, it is well on the route to Lake Tahoe via the highway which tops the hill about 15 miles later at 9,900 feet above sea level.

This clients were an older couple who were based both in San Diego and Reno. The man of the house had an extremely active interest in the landscape. He also had his “wish list” of items – he wanted a nice, roaring water feature off his back deck, a walkway bisecting the back yard with turnabouts/patios at each end and – he was adamant – a vineyard. He also wanted a gas-fed fire pit in one of the patios. The goal was to “complete” the total yard. Our interest therefore was pretty much completely out back where he often entertained and sat and considered ponderous thoughts like “Will Steve drink another wine?”   Great guy, generous but really involved. Anyway, so we went to work. We paved our way to the back yard with an access road and carried all you see 100′ to the “back 20″.

Pictures of this project pick up from the point of construction of the waterfall set at the back of his thin but 150 feet wide back yard. The falls sets up the running water in the creek and it is a rambunctious one, running a good rate of water with some serious sound qualities. From the raised deck above, I rate the sound factor as a home run. It is throaty and deep, but not overwhelming so no one has to raise a voice to be heard. I sort of regret not taking earlier pictures, but it should be fairly obvious that we did our typical build. Liner underneath and rocks placed to give as naturalistic a picture as possible. I also wanted the river course itself to be deep, so I excavated more than usual. I was interested in hiding underwater lighting under the water at various points and the raised level of observation would compromise that. It made for an interesting depth which somehow seemed more real than many others, as if formed from a true chasm.

Work also proceeded at other locations while we constructed the falls and creek.

As is obvious, it began getting cold. We were on the verge of Winter when we got underway and it did not disappoint. Just the same, planting in these conditions is still fine. At the very end is our “vineyard”. It also shows an antique wagon tucked in behind that we picked up at some second hand dealer and carted back to the job site on a trailer. It was pricey but it was effective. It gave an Old West sort of ambiance to the overall project which we later exploited with a wagon wheel or two in the landscape. The grape plants, by the way, grew from the day we put them in. Grapes really do have a remarkable growth rate when happy and – the fact is – they get happy in some pretty bad soils. Grapes are a landscaper’s friend, in my opinion. That is a reliable plant. These were green grapes, climatically suited for the Reno alkaline soils as well as the hard-freezing climate conditions. They simply thrived here. There was a monster crop at the end of the first year.

Here’s a late season look at the vineyard and the wagon on a dark November day as we hustle to try and get the stamped concrete walk in place. The flags and paint represent the excavations to come.

We begin excavating and calling for cement. It takes a couple of days to get everything set up just right. The excavated material, by the way, will be used to set a bearm to the creekward side of the walkway-to-be.

We got blessed by great and surprising amounts of sunshine for the period of the project and there were smiles all around. I remember worrying about some weather front which missed us. The set up took an extra day. There’s more work here than it appears!

Finally, we got it poured and our walkway was now completed.

We re-graded and smoothed out the bearms and planted some more plants, but we basically took off for the Winter after most of this. The next time we came back was about 3 months later.

Here’s a shot of one of the wagon wheels along with a wide angle look at the creek and the final basin (where the pump is) itself:

However, we did get a marvelously sunny day to get some pics before leaving.

When Spring rolled around, we were suddenly able to finish things. We had grass to lay, mulch to put in, more lighting to tweak, fertilizing on the mind, salvaging a couple of Winter-damaged plants – the usual Springtime stuff. We put in the grass in short order:

Things were very much taking shape now. We were on a definite finishing roll.

My buddy and work mate Raoul and I stand somewhat triumphantly over our “slain dragon”. This is the finished look at the source of the creek and the noise.

Another shot and one I feature in this blog a few other places. It’s a particular favorite because I think it reflects my sensibility about the “depth issue” of the creek as a slow moving but still-substantial artifice, as natural as we could make it. Yup, that is another wagon wheel!

A look at the Main Patio, at the opposite end of the property from the vineyard and wagon. This one has that gas-fed fire pit in the center, yet still has room for tables and chairs. Yes, I had some fun with the boulders, as usual. The “cut” between the boulders in the distance essentially drains the property in the event of overdoes of precipitation. It has a small rock creek dry bed of some real gorgeous river rocks. Plus, it works!

This was a design and build home run, one of my favorite ever projects. Not only were the people great but they allowed some license and were proud of the overall accomplishment. They also had a stash of incredibly good wine. Oh wait – I said that.

Anyway, here’s what it looked like in Autumn – and, yes, we did plant for it. Thise spectacular maples are by design. Down at the end are the grapes after one year. What’d I tell you?

Landscaping at the lunatic fringe of wealth, like carpeting at the lunatic fringe of wealth, or any other contracting trade, is its own class. Whereas it is a most heavenly possibility to help relieve these people from their overburdened wallets and bank accounts, the results can be disappointing, sad to say. Let’s just leave it at the point that not every encounter with the Uber-Wealthy is a positive experience. In fact, it’s about 50-50, the truth is.

I will absolutely not name names in my blog, other than referring to conversations of a casual or humorous nature. But I can tell of stories where people were strikingly miserable who were wealthy into the hundreds of millions and even billions. They’re people too! They need landscaping and all that stuff. Let’s just say – on a personal level – in many cases people get predictably suspicious of others when they have a lot. There is something to the adage that plenty yields some paranoia. Sometimes, a whole dam lot of it. In some cases, it becomes a threat to your own security. The rich play by their own sets of rules. In fact, many is the time that they make them up!

Anyway, rather than continue this line, knowing nothing we can say will change things that much, just know that merely working for impressive people with “beyond-impressive” homes is not some automatic entree to becoming rich one’s self. You can also go broke working for them – and almost just as easy. Sometimes – through no real fault of your own.

Here’s the third most expensive home in the US: (weighing in at a mere $100 million)

Here’s the pool! That’s marble, by the way.

Now, I admit, that was something of a freak show. In one case, it may well have been the most nervous time I ever spent landscaping. We literally had to transport ourselves in a huge excavator, complete with about an 8 ton boulder in our grasp, for placing in a water feature I regret to say I have no pictures of. The slightest rock or article in the way as we crept inside could have tipped the machine enough to scar the walls – or worse, of course – of the granite facing, there was that little tolerance. In fact, we graded and raked towards a perfect finish underneath, just so we could get that monster machine between the walls without incident. It was a white knuckle experience, right off the get go. In fact, as interesting as this project might seem to an outsider, it was a small version of Hell in many ways, there were so many eyes, including the owners – on us at all times. Nor did we last – lol, there were a total of 5 different companies who worked on the project, jettisoned one after another like players on a chessboard. Some projects are not worth the trouble, frankly. And that’s a tough lesson.

Now here’s a mere 17 million dollar home. Now we’re slumming!! Actually, this homeowner was in the dumps at various times for reasons which were his own, lol. I confess, I never really cared for the dude. He once referred to it as a “dump”. Go figure. Fortunately, we were contracted by the builder, rather than the owner, so we almost got paid completely! Oh – I almost forgot – it’s rare to get all your money with many of the more miserable of these types. What really makes that odd is the generation of higher prices to begin with for the proactive contractor, familiar with their ways. I once literally gave a rebate to a client in this category of wealth because he paid his bill in full. I’m not kidding, either. It may well have been the best few bucks I ever spent too. He sent more people my way than I had time to do.

So here’s what $450,000 worth of landscaping will get you: (bear in mind the more open areas were filled with perennial and annual plants and some very gorgeous lamps and lighting which were articles of beauty on their own at about $250 a piece, copper tulips, in fact, with blooms for lights, all multicolored. It is typical of this site that my pictures are made either during construction or soon – like real soon – after completion. We then move on.)

That waterfall there is a two part deal, branching out at the top and going in both directions. Here is the other side of it:

From the street, here is a longer range view:

Nor were these the only water features! We installed this one up by the front door.

It’s rather hard to make out owing to the fact that our drip irrigation  sprayers were on at the time. Those Aspens, by the way, were our additions. 30′ feet high, it was a mighty tight fit putting them in so close to the house. They each weighed a couple of tons and were placed by a monstrous hydraulic tree spade, along with some Noble and White Firs we placed at other locations nearby.

Anyway, here is what the little water feature looked like in process. From this:

To this, then the finished product above. What was funny was that we decided to toss this in as a “toss-in”:

It had one humongous rear patio of stamped concrete:

The stone work was a triumph, however. These walls really add to the overall ambiance terrifically:

The driveway was an interesting mix of brick pavers and stamped concrete.

I really enjoyed the brick work on this project. It worked out outstandingly. Note the Firs in the picture above. Those we also planted, same with the Aspens. Here is a look at the large trees we inserted before we worked on the pavers. One is before we finished the project and the other is after. Of perhaps even more interest is a look at the wild numbers of electrical wiring, pipes and the general traffic in underground services, shown only slightly in the picture just below. Wiring for lights was inserted at the same time as the irrigation piping, irrigation wiring, electrical for the pumps running the water feature (220V) and even power for the heat tape and security gate which goes under the brick driveway:

Stressful at times, yet often resulting in sublime satisfaction for purely selfish reasons as an artisan and tradesman, projects such as these are what we literally die for.

I have a few of these cataloged and I await some pictures from my brother which include other outrageous projects, all of which mixed pleasure and pain in ample amounts – and in every conceivable way.

I’m recirculating this post from over a year ago, as well as making substantial changes to it. The density of posts now – and their length – means many of these get lost in the packaging of the entire blog. This is a post about boulders and big rocks – and the joys and intensity of placing them. I hope no one minds……..

Much of what I blog about refers very specifically to what I know. It gives me a certain freedom of expression within these landscaping parameters that I don’t have when speculating on matters I may think about but which I have not, in fact, done. Politics, for example, while I spend ample time considering the greatness of some famous politicians and the lying weasel aspects of others, are a pastime and not something I am utterly competent to speak of. Like most of us, I can complain  a lot! I do that pretty well, the fact is, just not in here.

But I do know rocks. By golly, I know rocks like a lover knows the curve of a spine or the taste of familiar  lips. But rocks are family too! I have such a long term relationship with rocks, stones, gravel and rock mulch, when I get to Heaven I am positive they will put me in a celestial excavator and dump some titanic load of fractured Glacial Schist for me to make stuff out of.

Yesssssss!! ………………………….. “Hey, is that all you got?” 

“I thought this was Heaven, Man!”

The not very secret fact is, I would be more than delighted. Placing rocks – the art of integrating boulders into a landscape and providing an almost immediate sense of permanency – to me is perhaps the finest form of artistic expression landscaping allows. The intensity of placing rocks lies in their permanence. As one adds boulders into the primitive beginnings to an eventual landscape, the heart always beats a little faster. I always get the feeling of “setting the stage” for everything that follows – plants, paving, the envisioned walkways. It therefore becomes something more than just a few rocks in the ground. These become the spine of the body of work. You tend to think in planes – geometrics. For example, many of my landscape rock placements have flat tops on them, hopefully virtually parallel with the ground itself. This gives yet another plane aspect to what will eventually rear up so vertical in the person of plants and constructions. In fact, it never seems enough. I want every rock to be that plane.

(Left Click all images to enlarge)

Interestingly, in denser concentrations such as the “rockery” retaining system below, they can be used as virtual steps to climb and deal with plants or just to make one’s way up the hillside.

Dropping a rock into place follows some very standard guidelines – typically, you want about a third of it underground. This to insure they don’t roll over and ruin the siding or worse, but also to embed itself so that eventual erosion and winds don’t expose the bottom. Nothing looks less permanent than some gigantic marble in your front yard or patio. Boulders like the ones below – your water-formed, circular and soft-lined river rocks – form a gentle presence stuck into a landscape. I use them here as seat rocks surrounding a fire pit and they serve that function well. The mellow curves and solid appearance of such well-formed boulders makes them an entirely welcome addition, blending as they do with the gentle curves of any landscape. They have a sensual style, nearly anthropomorphic, resembling things like clouds in the sky, rich for imaginations and for their gentle acceptance.

Used economically, they can anchor a landscape with permanence and form and provide lines which break up the monotony of paving or otherwise simple constructions.

These rounded rocks, showing the effects of centuries of wear and tear – of rolling around on river bottoms and being pummelled relentlessly by rushing water – seem so innocent and placid when in place. But then, all rocks do this, don’t they? We look at a rock and we see our innate vestigal human image of something totally permanent. (Unless, of course, we are geologists.) We see rivers and we see creeks when we see these rounded items -

Or more placid settings where the pools formed over centuries are bordered by such well-worn stones -

But not all rocks are equal! These cute little round boulders are great for the gentle among us. But there are other stones whose very form challenges us, in the most riveting and jarring artistic ways -

These may also be anthropomorphic in their own rights…………what do we make of that hulking beast above? Some daemonic Chinese stone that wakes up at night to prowl our ‘hoods, made to order to scare little kids into making sure they go back to bed?

Or we can go contemplative like those tricky Japanese who always mess with us like -

Or something like this big fellow, wise beyond it’s ancient years, standing alone and all-seeing among the plants he watches over, yet still able to evince a wonder at its teetering presence?

Rocks speak to us if we care to listen. They come in a pretty stunningly wide variety and they can be placed in remarkable ways by the enterprising landscaper. Some, we put together in combination’s to simply attract attention, almost always in 3’s – (click this one twice to see the water coming out of the medium guy here)

Some we bore holes into – all the way down their length – in order to have them perform a water dance while looking gorgeous as is their wont -

And some we just plaster together to see what happens -

We hang them off stuff, just because they are good-looking -

And still others beg us to do weird things with. They plea for an arrangement where they can show off best and give us humans some wonder in our boring lives -

Working with rocks and boulders has always been one of the true treats of my trade. I am sure it’s obvious I enjoy working with them and the very obvious truth, as well, is that I like operating machines that move them around! NO – let me rephrase that – I LOVE operating those machines! Honestly, there is something more than a little appealing about arranging these behemoths in a morning and have a client come home and see 30 huge boulders set in place. For example, we did this (at least the rocks) in about one day – he was pretty shocked.

But aside from my personal inclinations, rocks themselves are a marvelous adjunct to any landscaping enterprise. They can provide lines that interrupt or they can supply lines in a landscape that emphasize a certain quality of horizontal or even vertical planes. Oh – almost forgot – they can also provide seats! These are particularly interesting inasmuch as they store heat during sunlit days. It takes hours for them to cool down, too. It makes sitting on them during cool evenings yet another experience entirely. I have often said “Warm butts, warm hearts!”   Well, OK, but I said it a few times.

In short…………………Rocks rock!

Patios are places to relax and enjoy the warmer air. We entertain there and we invite others to share our environments with food and drink and nice sights. I have a strong bias – and always have – towards using brick pavers and stamped concrete in my patios. I also love stone but I always found the durability issue led me away from using the native stones, at least set in sand. Bricks and cement rarely break down. I overbuild the bases of these things, beyond doubt, but the results have been universally stable which, to me, means much.

click any image to enlarge

There is also this – I prefer that the design of the patio be as pleasing as possible, by all means. But at the same time, I also prefer to know that the developments around the edges and background be equally important – if not far more so. Elements of night lighting, visible features such as waterfalls, gorgeous blooming plants, the many and various points of interest a landscaper and the gardener can provide occupy every bit as much priority in design for me.

In some ways, I guess I’m paranoid about eventually losing integrity of the bases of my constructions more than anything. Add that I have done so many driveways and fire lanes in large commercial projects and you get someone who values stability over just about anything. I suppose it is my own particular training and that experience of watching things over time more than anything that lends to biases towards surfaces. Issues of drainage, compaction, underlying strength are huge for me. But I also enjoy the notion that spills and accidents which regularly occur can be dealt with merely by replacing the bricks themselves instead of reinventing the wheel trying to find matching natural stone pieces, then worrying about their fits when dealing with some fairly obscene accidents and discolorations. In the end, no doubt, I have become a brick guy, with a definite nod towards poured stamped concrete. With all the new patterns, colors and textures, it just seems like the best product.

I feature this patio below elsewhere and it is otherwise not particularly noteworthy, in terms of creativity, but it illustrates well my sense of how I prefer putting them together and my sense, upon leaving, that this place will stay very much the way it began – with ample range for improvement and augmentation around the edges. I really do believe a surface is just the start.

In a patio such as this there was very little sloping tolerance allowing for drainage. It is also plain huge. The homeowner himself installed much of the piping (and we had to make a few “adjustments”) owing to such a small slope. We also figured out the best possible way of dealing with keeping the water from the occasional torrential downpour and Reno’s snowfalls away from the house, away from the pool and devise a way to make all that go away.

We arrived at the “Channel Drain”, coursing across the patio, as the ideal solution. Complexities such as this are why brick pavers are such a delight to work with as well. They lend themselves to such tricks by being segmented and adjustable at the onset. The remainder of the project, on the back sides, could simply be diverted into beds and away from both pool and house.

Nor are bricks the only cement solution. Large slabs can be artfully arranged as well, even split such as the ones below and filled in with Thyme and aromatic herbs whose smells light up when crushed by foot traffic and who don’t even mind.

Who wouldn’t enjoy a foot-massaging surface such as the pathway construction from Portland’s Chinese Garden below? Detailed and fascinating stone – or pebble – work such as this one show what is possible if one has the time and inclination for the installation. I actually did run across a few where homeowners have done something similar to this. They were an entire Summer’s work and they were amazing.

Imagine an entire patio of these:

Small, intimate places beg for sharp-looking and fascinating surfaces. Larger ones tend to relate to a theme which struggles to see the relevance of a surface dominating the view or even the local scenery.

Since so many of my cinstructions have tended towards the “large”, I guess it should be understandable I would prefer some heavyweight base for the patio, driveway and sidewalk surfaces to lay on.

  Some of these are lots of work, too!

Like Forrest Gump said. “I’m tired now. I think I’ll quit.”

I have found the design and installation of patios to be one of the more challenging and rewarding aspects of landscaping. Designed to provide privacy, intimacy and beauty, there are few more delightful presences in a landscape than a well-conceived patio. Few items in any landscape carry such personal impact and complexity. When one considers the amount of time homeowners might find themselves spending outdoors – and, let’s be clear – many of these folks have literally never faced that choice before, it becomes  a “dream landscape”  for their very home and life and therefore more than a bit special.    Many of these folks are newly-retired or will be, many are younger folks than that, but who have dreamed of a garden and wondrous patio and back yard. But the majority I have worked with – with some billionaire exceptions – are “just folks” who have achieved much.

I always depend on some feedback in design, is what I am saying. Asking clients what they really want is the shortest line to satisfaction. Interpretation is huge, also, so I always try and mine the wealth of ideas of the person paying the bill.  In the end, once a design is close to completed, there is another factor as well………. I literally plan, sometimes, for them to discover something they had no dream might happen. There are these very  cool projects where client gratitude can literally be off the charts. Truly, even those installing these landscapes often look at them when they’re done and go: “Wow!”

The elements to consider at the beginnings are vast. Structure, shape, color, texture – all come under intense scrutiny and all are way too available. People, including myself, often get confused simply owing to the increasingly wide variety of suface choices.

SURFACES

(click images to enlarge)

Wildly different surfaces can constitute a floor of a patio and these bring a strange and now-exotic range of choices. One can now choose from plain poured-in-place cement, to a more extravagantly-colored finish like the mottled and primitive-looking color of the patio above.  A furthur example of a great Stamped Concrete surface, colored and textured by professionals:

Or one can have fresh cement  sprinkled with “seeding” and exposed rock color in a cool monolithic sort of presence called “exposed aggregate”, as in the picture below.

One can opt for brick pavers, sandstone and other fabulously gorgeous stones acting as the floor – complete with riotous and hidden secrets from everyone’s private back yards, such as your very own personal swamp!

Here is some stone, cut and fit like a puzzle yet nice and flat and congruent with the overall theme.

Or the secret supply of “Infinity”, with this bizarre pool designed to simply disappear and the court yard around it:

From extravagant to purely functional, so many different things are possible. Circles inside of squares!

Placid, rough-hewn “tumbled pavers” supply an antiqued look to a freshly-paved patio.

Fed from a walkway encircling this grand home, this patio is sufficiently enclosed to feel nice and private yet wide open to a mountain view at the same time, to the West. In a sense, it is possible to “have it all”, from relatively small rocks spewing the trickling sound of water to vast magnificence during the day.

It has a rather “Big Brother” set of boulders at the other end of the patio.

And a look from above, the patio situated to the lower right in this picture, behind the wall -

All patios can be instructive as we take items from each which we find appealing to ourselves. These hold much intellectual and intuitive curiosity as we begin selecting our own particular wish lists. This is all good -

Separating elements is an integral part of the prettiest landscape designs. Thus edging materials  double as not only aesthetic but also as functional elements. Designs as simple as the laid-in rock edging in the picture below separate the walkway materials – compacted gravel – from the enriched and lush soil of the beds of this fine small herb and flower garden in Portland, Oregon. The thing is they also look good.

Garden Edging

(click images to enlarge)

That one was actually a tough project to make work. The designer asked us to create edges which were nearly perfect – along with the plane of the top edge – which, while not a big deal on the face of it, making it work with the materials at hand required a lot of manual hammer chipping, then fitting – all of this with materials which were all wildly different sizes. Looking at the step stones at the foot of the bench in the picture above is a reasonable gander at the materials we had to work with. The other aspect is how deeply-planted the edgings were. Let’s just say these edges are not going anywhere for a while.

Naturally, lawn edges are what people often refer to when thinking of edging and edging materials. Later, below, I will show the world of “edgings” is far and above merely lawn edging, but a look at lawns is instructive and probably the reason most people would be most interested in the category in general.

Lawn Edging

In order to fully appreciate lawn edging, one is benefitted most by considering the alternative. By not having lawn edging, what we are left with in most laterally-growinggrass lawns are the rhizomes that the develop which  spread routinely. Thus comes the need to consistently address the edges in order to render them under some sort of control. I have dealt, cursing and swearing, with these matters, from a strictly maintenance aspect. The near-weekly need to edge and weed at the same time is a chore that generates a lot of business and focus for such “unedged” lawns. It also  requires an expenditure of labor that – frankly – no one wants, from the homeowner to the personnel who consistently need to get on their knees and pull out the offending rhizomes and spreading grass. Applications of herbicides then becomes an appealing solution – perhaps the least productive answer to anyone’s long term health – of garden and persons.

For example, imagine how much easier to maintain this lawn below, compared to the one following it:

Beautiful as it is, the gardeners spend abundant time here managing the edges of this pretty little lawn:

And even this otherwise gorgeous landscape sees the upper edges in need of work and constant definition:

The price of this extruded cement edging is about $3.00-$3.50 a lineal foot. What we have above is a stretch of about 75 feet. Thus, on a project the owners paid upwards of $25K for, they opted to omit this $225 worth of pricing when including it would have given them something more along these lines and meant countless hours less fuss:

These particular edgings are widely-used out West in the US. They do require some preparation in order to be completely terrific. Indeed, much the same as paving, the better the surface below, the better able it will be to take on the wheels of lawnmowers and weather. These aspects are best laid prior to installation of the grass, in my experience, but it is always possible to retro-fit them to conform to existing areas as well. We always have gone the extra length in order to assure ourselves of a good sub base. To reach a level like the one below, just being sodded for its first time, are some essential steps:

The preparation – well done – deals with each foot of this small cement barrier having been compacted solidly, usually with a mix of sand, soil and even gravel underneath. From that point on, it is possible then to fill in the elements which will surround the barrier.

Nor does this S-shaped concrete edging always give the most ideal edge. Below is what was once the Model Home in a pretty large subdivision. We were asked to install a water feature – not too distracting or noisy – with a small bridgework to be installed spanning its narrows. The owners were insistent on having some lawn there as well and I think we made it work delightfully well. Notice the flat top to this lawn edging, something less apparent, yet still separative and in the same hue as the other concrete around it:

Other Edgings

Otherwise, edging materials supply separation for things such as paving bricks:

They can also be of materials other than concrete, steel, for example:

Slim and sturdy, once established they stay in place for long years, separating elements of this Portland, Oregon lawn and garden in various unobtrusive ways:

Plastic Edgings

Plastic edging is actually a fairly exciting and newer development and is, by far, cheaper than the alternatives listed above. I suppose I should have mentioned these first, but then, had I done that, there would have been much less showing off. I personally consider that a fate worse than death itself.

And here we get into who’s a gardener and who’s not. Edging, in many ways, is best seen and not heard. Separation is the game and plastic’s essential nature allows it to bend and conform easily with the edges we desire. Here, for example, is a project done by a landscape architect friend of mine, Ofer El Hashahar, who I feature in another post just a few ago. His website in in my blogroll, in fact. This is a UK project, full of color and definition and all dependent upon plastic lawn and garden edging.

They work magnificently. If the end goal is a lawn which we can take pride in and which requires less maintenance, then we reach a point where we wonder what we can spend and work from there. Obviously, the wonders of cement edging allow us to tone the color of the edging if we desire, giving us an extremely elegant and even enhancing aesthetic dimension to edgings. Needless to say, the funky sort of natural stone look is as nice in many ways but is severely unable to handle the lawn edge challenge of supporting wheel traffic without the mower bouncing and the stones deforming. Steel, for anyone who has used it, is an enormously tricky material to work with and its cost is surprisngly close to that of extruded cement.

Plastic edging, when installed correctly can be a wonderful product, reasonably easy to install and often making designers out of the most normal of people!

It’s so easy, in fact, even a landscaper can do it!

Of course, he may need just the right equipment for the job. After all, my motto has always been to work smarter, not harder. Oh yes, and “No job too big or too small!:

(this one enlarges real nicely!)

It’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.

Walls in any landscape can perform more than one single purpose. Sometimes, as in this picture below, they separate elements of a landscape and add a certain orderliness which would not be there without those demarcations. As a predictable and handy side effect, they also are fabulous places to sit when “plagued with” overflow party-goers. These particular blocks and their caps have a rustic look which well-matched the informal ranch-style home of the owners. Their neighbors were fairly distant and the environment was wide open and range-like just outside their fence. Something more formal would look exceptionally out of place.

Note also the business of the lighting which we provided access for by drilling downwards and pulling the necessary wiring from the house. Along with railings, iron work and any number of possible additions, the lighting here adds a value-added and experience-enhancing element. The totally adjustable rate of light made for romantic or well-lit evenings, good for watching stars or for some more focused work.

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Other purposes for walls – and probably without doubt the most common – deal with terrain and grade changes. Steeply-sloped land causes some problems, not the least of which is the probability of erosion and the subsequent messes after torrential rains. Most of the prefabricated wall systems are designed to withstand the hydrostatic pressure which builds behind the walls when things get wet. A saturated soil still feels the gravitational pull of the water inside the earth and that water still acts like a river – everything wants to run downhill. This implies pressure, simply put. In fact, it implies one heck of a lot of pressure. Nothing, in the end, quite matches the power of water in its urge to break through to release.

We therefore work with this fact in every construction. In the rainy environments I have lived in, such as Portland and Vancouver, BC, the task  in many ways is easier, actually. Unlike Reno, the rain is predictable, even in the amounts – lots! Reno, meanwhile, can wait 7 months between rainfalls. Then you often get snow and rain – in order! All of that badly-needed precipitation is generally packed into about 3-4 months of time – Winter. And even then in strong deliveries. What is first involved, then, in any wall system, is the base.  Secondly, is the drainage. But we start at the bottom. If it is not sturdy and perfect, the entire edifice is not sound. And, yes, they will most certainly collapse.

Here’s typically what we begin with:

The initial excavation includes all the computations we arrived at in the design process. Where the drain pipes go, what to do with the water, how high the wall will be, all that. It’s always something else watching it knit together.

Once the wall is excavated, we bring in base rock, very similar to how we lay pavers. Where the blocks will go will have nearly a foot of base material to provide that sturdy foundation. Actually, we do this on all our wall constructions, no matter the material. Even large rocks, we like putting in a compacted base underneath. We will pound the loose ground under a construction until it is rock hard, then back fill or lay in the material. Even railroad tie retaining walls require the same. This picture is a small part of a quarter mile’s worth of double and triple stacked walls in Vancouver. Under each one of them, we added gravel and compacted it like crazy. Now 23 years from the time it was installed, it has not moved an inch.

The draining of the walls is probably number on on the Importance Index. Even a dry climate gets rain – and sometimes then, they are torrential. It can make life weirder.

Here’s an example of how we drain even small walls which have hills and thus wandering water building pressure behind it:

Here is an example of drainage, right from the first. This will be a walled enclosure to hold a spa/hot tub. It will sit nicely into the hillside, providing privacy and some muted sound. The fabric-covered pipes will tuck in around the base of this wall at an angle that conducts the water away. From the top of the wall, we put a foot-wide gravel-filled trench close to the wall itself. This allows the water to drip down into the pipes and then get carried away. Since we also installed a paver patio on this project, we managed to trench ourselves and guarantee a proper course for the water by putting solid pipe underneath.

In stages:

Here is what it resulted in:

The wide array of rocks, concrete products and wood materials available for wall-making is pretty impressive. In most cases, the materials can be specified to match the desired ambiance of an overall project. From an aesthetic perspective, this is a total plus – I mean  just having that range of possibilities. But from a practical perspective, there are only a few “right” ways to build them.

Prepare the base well. Drain the walls. Take the water away or watch them fall down.

Remember the first picture up there of excavating? Here’s what it looks like almost done:

(pardon the incomplete look, by the way – the tarps, the bags of mortar – I have always had the methodology of completing work and then moving on. It’s only recently that I have considered I might want later looks at completed projects. I thus prove my standing as a contractor, lol. Not only can I be predictably late, I also forget where I’ve been!)    Oh, and here is why this owner wanted that wall with few plants. Below is the view from his patio:

Another angle for this 270 degree vista of Reno and the distant mountains, looking South – he had a rare lot. An average house which he gussied up nicely inside, but one heck of a cool lot:

The neighbor to this project got into the act as well, lengthening the stay and complicating things in the best ways and so we ended up doing them as well. It actually made it easier because the neighbor had a great place to evacuate all the water. But we extended things and made stairs and a sort of a natural  finish by continuing the wall on the inside and outside. The curving wall at the end wraps around the neighbor’s property, complete with his own set of stairs.

In case you wondered about the copper-colored tiles, they were actually water features themselves. Quite attractive and quiet, they supplied the virtual sheet we and the owner were looking for, all controlled from the house. With the lights embedded into the pavers and some nice underwater lights in the reservoirs of the cascades, this made a totally warm and impressive patio, fabulous for parties. Here’s what it looks like when running:

All our walls are way too interesting to do. For some reason, I get a real kick out of wall-building. For example, this becomes the picture following:

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The above is a small cluster of 3  Sequoiadendron giganteum ‘Pendulums’.  We call them, more commonly, Weeping Sequoia’s.  They are hard by a local bank in Portland, of all things, and I have always appreciated them, hugely. Pruned so that human traffic can go and more freely visit their disastrous bank accounts – with some exceptions – they make an even more unique scene.

I have always been intrigued by plants and their various evolutions. I realize I share this with pretty much the entire breathing world, but their study and the events which have helped all plants to evolve into their current forms are just an amazingly democratic process, with contributions from the widest variety of people imaginable. Naturally, there has always been intent with many of these developments, but there has also been other factors – such as the capitalization on genetic accidents, for example. I was once told that certain variegated plants were remnants of such accidents. Whether this is true or not doesn’t really matter, either, because, in some cases at least this is definitely a viable path which found its way to our gardens. Here’s another look at our Giant Lurking Ghosts:

And another: (from the street)

Weeping varieties of trees are no surprise to anyone. We have all seen weeping cherries, weeping birches and the likes. But my discovery of weeping conifers gave me a perfect opportunity to match permanent color with certain other design characteristics. For example, I almost invariably use a Weeping Atlantic Cedar near all my water features, and in particular around grade changes and falls. I just find the visual aspect of “weeping” well matches the motion and direction of the water and the terrain itself:

Another: (the red nursery tag is now gone from this one, )

I find the sweeping weeping effects can alter the perception of a plane, visually. Not only does their unusual shape grab attention in the first place, but the perception of motion gets created – or enhanced. The illusion of motion amid the static floral and rockery effects  is the single most interesting effect in landscaping, to my way of thinking. Futuristic and sense-evoking, a good-looking weeping tree in the right place deepens and arouses the imagination. Below here is another example, on a smaller level, of a cascading effect with these Vancouver Gold Broom plants cascading at the base of this Japanese Maple, seemingly into the water.

This little Weeping Blue Atlantic Cedar “starter kit” (below) has developed more than nicely as a blue background for these “bubble rocks” on a corner of a patio. In fact it’s  another significant element of color-matching, with deep greens and blue colors with water effects together, providing yet more depth and congruence. The motion of the cascading water is that of gravity-driven water, matching with the genetic disposition of a plant whose direction matches the inclination.

Here is something simple, but still effective, in a patio water feature, this one a Weeping Cherry:

All in all, I am obviously a huge admirer of this particular effect in garden and landscape design. I can’t get enough of these gorgeous plants, to be truthful. I’m even planning on a part 2 of “weeping stuff”.

So – with the creek pretty much 80% done, we begin running the water to check the electrical and pump systems and to finish all the detail work in the crevasses and in hiding the liner.  We also run the water to clear it, of course. The first passes of water collect all the dust and grime from the initial construction phases- all the dust from feet and from spills and from the rocks themselves. Naturally, someone  washes off the rocks as well at the same initial phase of the cleaning. We’ll leave it running for just a bit and then grab the end of the hose we saw inserted inside at the top for providing the initial flow and basically empty out all the water, completely, sending it somewhere that can take it all. We’ll refill it with the automatic fill apparatus we installed and work away elsewhere while it clears itself. We’ll repeat this step more than once, looking for that clear water.

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Here we can see the water’s still running pretty murky, as we will also see in a lower photo. About this time, generally speaking, we are ready – believe it or not – to start planting the plants and running lighting wire for the outdoor lighting system. You can see our ‘12-2′ low voltage lighting cable (above) which we ran to a light under that small falls there. Some wires were also sent through the creek, between the rocks and over to the other side for uplighting trees with.

We also began adding the decomposed granite which compacts well and which will provide the traffic surfaces for the horseshoe pit, seen below leading off from the upper patio area. As well, we are adding “D.G.” to the pathways on the upper hillside which we carved out. We are pretty much at the compacting stage at this juncture. We will pack them, then get them wet and they tend to crust over nicely. In time, they make a perfect bottom.

Drainage Issue: It is a tedious chore, getting the grade just right, making sure rainwater and irrigation water all are directed away from the house to somewhere relevant that can conduct it then disperse it – in this home’s case – out to the front street, believe it or not. That’s a long way and we made small sorts of rock-filled creek beds to do this with. These end up being an added feature, in the end, adding an aesthetic touch to a very functional consideration and necessity. In the picture below, at the very top, you can make out a small creek bed we installed for this purpose. Basically, half the lawn and lower section goes directly to there.

Time to start planting! Bear in mind, as exciting as this gets for me, I always see the future in what I put in the ground. Frankly, a newly-planted landscape can look pretty doggone barren when just finished, and especially one this large. I posted a picture below all this that shows us a look at this landscaping 3 years later. Suffice to say, you won’t believe the change. Yes, it is the same place.

OK, so on with the planting and the Green part of the gig:

It’s looking a bit more orderly out there now, don’t you think?

Hey!  Here’s the sod! (below) The sod comes on pallets of about 550 square feet each, with about 65 rolls per pallet or so. We lay these suckers one at a time, just like a carpet. While it is an exceedingly reliable “plant”, the grass, since it occupies so much space, is a huge development towards finishing. It makes everyone’s day, honestly. Grass is the one finishing operation that really brings it all together and points the way downhill. There is much to be done yet, but there is something “final” about seeing the green grass outside after staring at dust and mud for a month or so.

Here, we are adding the final pieces, getting ready to trim the edges, roll it all down firmly, then give it its first dose of good watering. We will adjust the sprinklers perfectly at this time and set the clock for a test of it as well. Right now, Hugo is adjusting the radio, a constant need (!) while sodding as everyone must know! We had some good dance music going on for much of this, I remember. Yes, some of it was Mexican on demand, but I got my time in with some good R & B, too. Sam and Dave and James Brown can do a lot for motivation!

Here’s a look from above. What a difference a day makes!

The two colors of the grass were merely different crops, cut at different times. I warned them of this possibility and that it meant zero, in the end. Inasmuch as the grass comes essentially fertilized, it takes about two-three days for the green to really start setting in.

Our remaining work is all “finishing” at this stage. I term applying the irrigation to all the plants as “finishing”, although classically, it’s still construction. But one thing we can get accomplished while setting up the drip irrigation lines and running the appropriately sized pipes and emitters to the trees and plants is that we bury the lines, then rake the dirt - in other words, we finish those areas. This project would not need mulching until some future date, owing to the expense – it was one of the ways we budgeted things – and it turned out delightfully. We were able to use a pre-emergent herbicide for the first two years and weeds just never got any purchase at all. Jeff and Denise were also able to add plants wherever they wanted quite a bit easier than by dealing with a mulch cover.

Here, below, Romero is adding the emitters to the “main line”, a 3/4″ drip line that he sends a bit of smaller pipe off of with an emitter which regulates the amount of water delivered to the plants roots per hour. The coiled pipe seen in the picture above is this 3/4″ pipe. It goes to every single plant on the property, run off a valve in a timed release. Drip irrigation is the single greatest achievement in landscape technology in my recent history. It applies the water exactly where it goes – to the roots – and does not evaporate in the air or cause wasteful watering which is endemic with spray systems. For those who wonder, that’s a Weeping Larch tree beside Romero there, a favorite plant of mine. The Larch is one of only two deciduous conifers in the world. They look amazing in the Spring, when they ‘re-needle’, in a soft green that gets greener. The weeping characteristic I have always found terrific around water features. “Weepers” are a Steve characteristic.

We also did work on the upper paths, naturally, but in every respect relating to finishing, starting with the top - running the irrigation up there and then bringing it around, we were always working our way out.

Here’s the patio area. The grass is greening up as promised and the line is about to be buried.

Time for the all-important Road Testing” of the horseshoe pit. Jeff was not going to be easy to please, and especially with his Father-in-Law as competition. I gave them a break and didn’t compete with them. They got a break without knowing it, lucky stiffs.

He liked it!  Well, we were just about finished. Please note the scrawny and tiny little plants all set there looking so lonely and forlorn. Then please look at the picture at the very bottom, 3 short years later.

Meanwhile, guess where our next project was!

Here you go, three years later! Different?

Here’s another look at the more mature place:

In the end, I stood next to Denise as I collected the final check and we had a moment to assess everything – the relations, the progress, the push and pull sometimes, all in respectful ways – and we shared one of the best moments I ever had as a contractor. We hugged briefly, and she spoke of all the guys she would miss (It’s an excellent, proud, professional and nice crew) and how the action would be so slow now for her hyped-up young red heads and how they’d miss seeing us. (It did take a full month to do.). I looked at her and I quietly asked: “Denise, do you like it?”

Denise started sobbing. “God, Steve, I l-l-l-ove it!” she said, tearfully. I looked at her and was just awed. I was dumbstruck, I swear. She was telling the truth and we had shared the deepst sort of history and warmth together in just that moment. I was embarrassed, because I had put a lot into it, myself, and I began tearing up a little myself. Honestly, who wouldn’t??

It was just the best dang thing I ever heard. I’ll cherish that one moment forever. Love you, Denise!

This post is of a project we undertook in 2004 – in the Spring – for a great couple, Jeff and Denise, and their young red headed kids who were not even arguably cuter than buttons. They were a feature every day, the little guys, and who were, not surprisingly, fascinated by their daily Big Show out back of huge machinery and big fellows moving dirt and rocks all around.

(Incidentally, for those of you to whom this looks familiar – it should. This was posted just about a year ago in this blog. With me moving this week to Kentucky, all bets are off for at least a week on adding new posts. I may add one Tuesday, but I leave early Wednesday. New people show up a lot who may or may not have browsed through this now-fairly-large blog. This is for them.)

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What 4 year old in his right mind would not dig (pardon the pun) this set up?? Huge and gnarly, all these humongous toys kept them entranced as long as they were awake. Below, for example, is what it looks like when you get 20 yards of topsoil delivered to your house just a few feet from your favorite back window!

This picture is us digging those tiny (not!) channels for irrigation pipes. Hey, you use what you have!

The Story

The home was pretty much Jeff and Denise’s “dream home”. After getting the inside of their place whipped into shape, they then focused outdoors, naturally enough. They had a full acre out back and they wanted to maximize what they could get out of it. They provided me with a laundry list of things they wanted which read something like this:

1.) A running water feature with a creek and small pond. 2.) A platform and an electrical (220V) supply near the water feature for setting up a spa away from the house. 3.) A nice big irrigated lawn with a surrounding pathway for the kids and their trikes and – eventually – bikes and motorized transportation. 4.)A horseshoe pit straight out the back. 5.) A play area for the kids. 6.) Some pathways on the rear hillside. 7.) An upper level patio, very informal, bedded in Decomposed Granite.

They were looking for ways to squeeze the budget which would still allow them to get all the goodies they wanted. The list was long and challenging but I immediately saw the potential in the overall landscape. We would take advantage hugely of the hillsides surrounding the East and Rear sides of the property, using it for our creek and the spa placement. Providing pathways would be easy and interesting and would cut through the landscape in a winding way. Jeff and Denise and I huddled and came up with a reasonable budget. Helpful – no that is an understatement – what swung the deal in favor of total possibility  was that Jeff could provide all the machinery we would need. What also helped were his connections regarding trucking and rock suppliers – there being some excavations nearby that had the marvelous rocks you see throughout the property. That brought the budget down so far that suddenly it was all as doable as it could be. So we shook hands and took off on our grand landscaping experiment. It would be fun, especially inasmuch as Denise was at home with the boys and offered her opinions daily and in an unobtrusive and truly cooperative fashion. In the end, she has as much to do with the ultimate look as anyone. I consulted with her often, and as often at my request. She was always a treat, honestly.

Anyway, we began and, once we finished the irrigation issues, and after burying the pipes and backfilling them, we were ready to entertain deliveries of both rocks and soil, both in the 200 yard range as totals. So, here they came:

Once delivered, staging became an increasingly knotty problem. In the picture above you can see us placing rocks in their eventual resting places with the smaller excavator placing them and the larger one picking and separating them just after their arrival. They tended to come in 3 sizes, from humongous 2-3 ton slabs, to medium sized ones from 500-1,000 pounds, to smaller, one man sized rocks. It is actually somewhat tedious at this stage, in a way, although the placing of permanent fixtures is always bracing and challenging. You can never get bored with supplying something permanent for a client – the appearance and selection will be there for ever. Some heavy duty cosmetics here. So, anyway, things began taking some shape.  In this picture, both the “upper level patio” and the horseshoe pit have been outlined in boulder placement.

Yes, there is still one huge pile of rocks down there. That is for some detail work as well as almost entirely dedicated to the water feature, which is being scratched out in the picture below. We typically excavate the channel which the water and all acoutrements will follow, then add the liner and, of course, the rocks defining it last.

And there you have your standard-average scooped out water course. Next, we make the water feature, starting at the top:

Adding rocks on top of liner is always the single most nerve-wracking part of any large job. One false move with that machine and the rock – and especially this type of “fractured rock”  – can poke holes in the liner, the worst possible result. So we operate gingerly to say the least and we also use other pieces of the liner wedged between the new rocks and the liner to protect the all-important liner itself, providing a measure of security as we worked.

The excavators we like using for these events are amazing tools. You act like a jeweler or watch smith or something placing one and two-ton boulders as precisely as possible in place. Plus, you always get helpful advice, lol.

Looks like Chaos, don’t it??    Note also another wonderful development which is the very durable flexible pipe we use as the source. This one was a 4 inch pipe and made the project ten times more do able..

Now just add cement and we’re finally getting somewhere!

So that yields to this:

Next post, we add plants, grass and finish all the paths and stuff. I think you can see the madness all actually had some later-crystallizing plan to it. Thousands did not!  Had to say it.