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?

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 -

I have sometimes commented in this blog about how many of the best projects I have ever encountered were the results of someone doing it all by themselves. Some homeowner projects are, frankly, breathtakingly beautiful. I felt honored to be there and I am being serious. There is just something about the amount of love and careful attention one who is invested in his own place can deliver which even the best professionals will never approach. I stand in awe of these people, to this moment. No just equal with, but in awe. They are the World’s best.

At the same time, I have seen some amazingly bad work, too. It is hard to keep the laughter in check, now and then, but good manners insist. Sometimes, when I am called in by an exasperated owner or by someone who has bought a place beset with the efforts of the person who preceded them, I arrive with a pretty good sized grin. They know I know they know I know why they called, or something like that.   And, being completely honest, the amount of work required to repair or re-do a yard’s landscaping or a paver project can be more – not less – expensive than to start from just plain dirt.

It pays to do it right. It pays in ways which are very value-adding and rewarding. But landscaping – and even gardening, especially at the start up – are very physically and mentally challenging. I am not trying to mystify anyone about what we do because it really isn’t that hard, in many ways, at least mentally. But there is a physical component which is extremely demanding.

The Physical Part

I have had people work for me who developed tendinitis the very first day which took a month or more to get over. The repetitive nature of the work and all the heavy lifting demands an awful lot. In short, be smart. Most larger DIY projects would be aided greatly by the helping labor of some high school or college kids or by someone who needs the work. These people are not hard to find. Be smart. Use help, in the first place.

In the second place, plan. Plan ahead and know why. It never hurt to consult with someone professional, by the way. I have overseen many DIY projects for a small consulting fee, beers or even for nothing. I don’t drive a hard bargain. But that’s just me.

DIY Resources

One of my favorite DIY resources to recommend to people is a place called DIY Guides.  I’ve been following it a while now. Mike runs an interesting and diverse site which covers just about everything there is to do with DIY projects, but I especially liked his takes on landscaping. The thing is, there are professional ways to approach things which are do-able and ultimately very necessary. We don’t do these things for our health. He tends to include them thus he has my respect.

This Blog

Reading in this blog in my posts on installations should provide an excellent background on many aspects and especially the “why’s”. I like to give this out because issues like preparation, when ignored, can lead to so many unforseen problems. In many cases, I strove to supply not only the why’s but also the how-to’s by illustrating what we do on our own projects. We do take things to a sort of extreme, but then we get paid for that. Our prep is generally always a bit more than good.

Please browse the category listings dealing with Installations if you have questions about our approach. I have been asked many times about DIY projects and I honestly still believe knowledge is as important as the physical part.

Do-it-yourselfers are a love of mine, in the end. I like seeing the pride of someone who does it right and finishes with a proud and deserving sense of accomplishment. What we do is not the most important thing in the world but it sure can make life more interesting and enjoyable in the aesthetic sense. It can also make a guy feel right proud. That is very cool.

(click all pictures to enlarge)

This group of nuts is enjoying themselves while their poor hard-working landscapers continue flailing away in the efforts to make them this happy year-round. There were always kids around us during this project and the truth is they made it more fun. Likable and almost always helpful, at worst they did their damage at night after we had left. We knew what we were heading into, however, since most of the guys working with me had kids of their own, as did I. Let me say right now, kids rock. As long as we don’t crush any, they can play along any time. A definite kid-friendly crew there.

This project is stuck back in the Ponderosa Pines along the route between Reno and Lake Tahoe, an upscale neighborhood tucked back into the hills. Relaxed and pretty friendly – with some notable exceptions – the ‘hood was home to bank managers and contractors, architects and doctors who seemingly “arrived” with places like these. At least, that was our purpose as the landscapers – to give a dream home some fleshed-out sensibility. It was a high-budget effort for a contractor who had done very well indeed.

While the above picture shows things upon opening it up – it was the first day of swimming – those below here give a better illustration of what we encountered when the pool work itself was almost complete – done by others – and when we began our own work in more earnest.

We also had an element complicating matters which showed up at the worst time, lol:

Life at 7,000 feet above sea level! It could snow almost any time, particularly in Spring. The fact was, in Fall, you waited until the first one, then went back to town and forgot about the area for 5 months, barring an unseasonable Winter. Summers, gratefully, the weather could be 5-10 degrees cooler than a hot Reno, Nevada where folks were dealing with 100 degree weather. Add the shade and you have the perfect mid year project.

We had helped at various stages to get the the pool underway, including the initial excavations, using a monster excavator or two. This sucker was going to be 11′ deep at the deep end, owing to the extreme possibility that the “Tree House” being erected would get someone diving in from virtually ‘high dive’ climes.

Looking closely, boulders can been seen strewn around the upper edges of the swimming pool. These were not ‘afterthoughts’ whatsoever. They were obviously always in the plan but they reqired more than just your average “Plop a rock in place” effort. These babies are cemented in place to prevent eventual cracking of the pool by weight and settling. Not only that, but we attached substantial angle iron braces to the boulders themselves as a sort of “staking”, to embed them in the native soil. The ground underneath was compacted thoroughly prior even to that. Thus we had the boulders which were penetrated and secured to the thick angle iron bracing, then set in cement. All this was done prior to the acceptance of the soils by the swimming pool contractor upon commencing his own work. Here’s a reasonable picture of one or two of the granite boulders, weighing in at about 5 tons. The big one there was the largest, weighing in at about 5 tons. This is not your every day pebble!

I’ll continue this next time. This, much like the Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon, remains one of the most challenging and fascinating projects I ever worked on.

We had always been around during the construction of the pool,  The pool-makers would call and ask for back filling, once things became settled in the ground itself.  We paid a lot of attention to the future and the last foot or so of back-filling was devoted to putting in gravel and base material.  With the budget we had, this place will outlast the house by a century or so.  It could well be one of the most compacted surfaces I ever installed. I am positive it is in the 99 percentile of compaction.

So we began installing pavers around the pool.  We attended to drainage issues and found it necessary to install the drain shown protruding in the picture above.  The pavers we used were Belgarde’s “Bergerac” Pavers, an expensive but gorgeously-antiqued model, set in a random pattern.  They were also an additional inch thick!  These big beauties came in at 3 1/4″ thick, providing a huge challenge for not only our cutting apparatii (gas-powered table saw with a diamond blade) but also requiring substantial grinding for the wild number of curves.  Talk about labor intensive!

Obviously, we had other issues, such as a fire pit shown in the bottom picture.  The necessity to hand-shape curving pavers was especially intense when around boulders, as can be seen above.  The irregularities don’t seem so drastic when the boulders first get placed.  But, wow, they get intense when the finishing starts.

I am thinking the project lasted almost 2 months.  There was a lot going on in general – a water feature which was designed to appear to be supply the pool water from the front yard and a 130 foot creek, originating at a waterfall out front.  We tried to make the area behind the falls by the spa appear to be a bridge just to enhance this idea. 

At any rate, it was intense but as we neared completion and began planting, we started to see things coming together nicely.

Typical of this blog, owing to my usual tendency to take multitudinous pictures ‘in progress’, I am having some trouble finding the final pictures taken of this pool project. I often take pictures for legal and educational reasons, the truth is.  I like proving the work was done appropriately.  It has less to do with suspicious motives or anything else, although in the event of contestations, the record is right there.  I just feel the clients feel better served knowing some of the history put into what they see. It also serves me extremely well in this blog because people can get a much better sense of what actually goes into a landscaping project.  When I tell clients to “Expect Beirut”, lol, I need a reason.  I do indeed mention that landscaping is just about 80% preparation and 20% finishing.  That’s the God’s truth, the fact is.

The picture above has to do for now.  It being wet illustrates the overall look when we finally put a bright sealer on top of the pavers, giving it a permanent “wet look”.

A little more perspective along the side:

When I find (grrrrrrr) the others, I will update this.  It looked fabulous, planted and sealed. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.  There was a party opening it officially to the neighborhood, friends and family which was a challenge to survive.  I made it and slept over that night, lol.

There is more than one way to take an existing cement patio and lay in the more attractive brick pavers over the top of it. Naturally, there is simply replacing it – tearing out and dumping the old and reconstituting a base, then installing the new. This can be superior, especially since the old cement can break and heave if weather conditions get nasty enough. The one below I feature elsewhere here, but it gives the picture of removal and what is required.

However, with an old cement patio properly installed and with it intact and still serving its purpose, a makeover can be accomplished in one of two ways, which I specifically list below this next picture.

A new home might take an immediate upgrade by applying new pavers over the existing, somewhat boring cement surface. This is an after-the-fact look at just that in a newer home. Notice, if you enlarge the picture, we also cut a circle into the standard pattern at the doorway, to make the entry more inviting and to provide interest:

1. Pavers can be glued down right onto the cement, which is what the above was. The current adhesives for the job are astoundingly durable and are simple to apply. There are glues now which can be applied while the surface is wet – in fact, they require it. Thus a thorough washing (which is always required prior to the application of glue) can see one working to install the new pavers immediately. As well, there are any number of glues which can be applied with the help of a grouting gun and which come in tubes. These are best applied to the clean and dried surface, being water-aversive if anything.

2.  One can also lay in some gravel much the same as a new construction, perhaps a sand layer over that, in order to achieve the same result. The primary difficulty here is in the veneer and the later compacting. Where the gravel/sand layer is extremely thin over the top of the old cement, the bouncing effect of the compactor can actually break the pavers in that there is so little cushion below. It therefore requires a quick and uniquely powerful touch and we only get one try. Take a look and you’ll see what I mean:

We went from this:

To this next phase after a huge cleanup. Notice how thin the relative thickness is of the material we lay the pavers on. You can see better by noticing the scuffed part, exposing the original cement patio:

In the end, we ended up with some clean lines and a pretty renovated patio area, complete with yet another “bubble rock”:

The water running through and over the rock made a gorgeous small trickling sound – very soothing for this extremely quiet neighborhood. It was a satisfying project but it was challenging, in spite of the apparent simplicity. It was anything but.

Here is a variety of more standard pavers from the “tumbled” editions below in the prior post. These have some definite benefits over the tumbled variety especially when sealed with a “wet” looking sealer. The glossy appearance gives them a glossy sheen which really brings out color.

They start out much like in the picture below. Once installed and “grouted” with dry sand swept between the cracks, we then wash them off and apply this sealer for the above look. In fact, the first picture is a similar brick color as the one below. We actually opted not to seal the one below for reasons of budget and the overall effect, inasmuch as it is not the main driveway. But for anyone who might be interested, we generally do begin where we can establish a straight line, then work out from there during construction.

Here are a few more examples of non-tumbled pavers and their finished look:

Here’s a before an after look at a set of pavers we finished with the same sealant material, giving a glossier look as opposed to where we began.

I just love this “Bishop’s Hat” pattern of bricks. This is call “Cream and Tan” which seems to typify it very well indeed:

Others, the first one sealed with a semi gloss treatment, then those after, without sealant at all: