Landscaping addresses the out of doors. It’s true purpose, dating back literally thousands of years, is to provide an interpretive canvas of beauty and form to allow a human to appreciate the combination of Nature and man’s own work. In my experience, landscaping occurs in two precincts:
1.In the towns and social structures we circulate in. Cities have gloried in gorgeous landscapes from Babylon and before that, to Central Park in New York City. It seems Mankind consistently desires something objective and pleasing amid the social whirl. The fountains of Rome and the fabulously whimsical park of Barcelona designed by Antonio Gaudi prove this utter need in a faultlessly direct manner. Chinese Gardens predate European constructions by, literally, thousands of years, providing a canal city likeZuchou whose Vienna-like canals and garden were constructed some 2,500 years ago. This town was constructed with the express purpose of being that “Garden City”.
We look at cities like Toronto, Canada and wonder what they can accomplish in all the cold winter weather and, yet, we see huge efforts by Canadians to please the eye. This plaza was designed as a wave-like sound scape, a computer-interpreted visual representation of music for those strolling there towards events in their downtown Music Center.
Got Gaudi?
This is landscaping at it’s highest development – a unique brand of expression occupying enormous swaths of our social infrastructure whose purpose is simply nothing more than to please the eye and to provide a pleasant and sometimes- interesting place to meet and enjoy life. This simplicity of experience cannot be overstated. In all our modern angst over events political and personal, there remains these monuments to our common need to enjoy ourselves and experience the positive aspects of growing nature and of man’s innate creativity.
The designers and the installers of landscapes believe in this notion. From city planning on the most massive scale, to a homeowner who wants to enjoy his home far from the madding crowd, landscaping provides a release of the troubled mind – its purpose from the get go. I must also admit that it becomes most obvious that our “modern angst” is nothing new. Pleasure has always served as the antidote to pain. The fabulous cathedrals of Europe were constructed during The Plague and during endless warfare. They gave people hope in a vicious world. The dialogue of landscaping is still working on this antipodal level.
2. The Home
Among the first celebrations of a culture who reach a certain level of prosperity has always been the construction of gardens and natural wonders of landscaping. Recent developments have made far more common a more local urge – to decorate our homes. The American Prosperity of the last Century has made a virtual “Every home a castle”, in strict economic terms. It has developed home ownership into a massive project – from gardening to landscaping – by paying far more attention to how we present ourselves (Front Yard Landscaping, driveways and the likes) to how we relax, out in the back yard. Patios, gazebos, garden structures, night lighting, waterfalls and swimming pools have changed the once-utilitarian abodes from a place to sleep to something more. It has also unleashed the creative juices of landscape and garden designers who have provided absolutely breath-taking scenes of utterly private beauty and sometimes strangeness.
Illuminating the night, we find our spaces expanded outdoors, providing virtual “rooms” which proscribe our patios and outdoor environments, and adding depth and mystery to the foregrounds.
The introduction of water is always a thrill as so many folks have opted to see and listen to the pleasant and encompassing sounds of water in their back yards.
Landscaping is succeeding at its primary goal. More and more people are aware of the healthful impact of a rested and relaxed mind, to say nothing of the microclimatic changes a small patch of land can yield around a house. Counter-designed landscapes providing abundant exchanges of healthy gases and moisture are a side benfit and among the more surprising effects that the study of plants and their impact on human beings can yield.
Landscaping is a total field. The elements in any landscape – at their best – include a myriad of trades and diverse levels of expertise, from electrical issues and plumbing to issues involving soil and bacteriology. For a member of the community devoted to providing all this to a client, I have to say that is has always been a learning journey, from the very start to every single day that passes yet. The thrilling accomplishments of those devoted to the landscaping field can take the breath away – and they mean to do just that.
OK. How many readers know of this artist? I’m thinking not many, which is almost too bad.
Me likey Laurie.
Besides, this is my blog. I’m issuing orders in here. No gardening today. Take a few and relax with this odd bird.
She’s still performing, actually. It turns out she was in Tel Aviv this past Summer, touring with Lou Reed. Laurie Anderson was the Underground’s Underground Queen during the 80’s and 90’s. Sometimes obscure, always challenging, she was a performance artist in New York City, operating very much in the background of popular music – a place she essentially stayed for, well, pretty much ever. But she has attracted a wide range of co-performers, from William Burroughs to David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Brian Eno.
I always saw a love of music and beauty in her work, intermixed with challenging modern images. She is lyrical as she can be, melodic to the max, with just a few bumps along the road. Unconventional, gorgeous to look at as a young artist with no cares and extremely talented, Laurie Anderson will delight and make you think at the same time.
When music all seems to be boxed up in prepared ways, it’s refreshing to see naked talent, playing around on the edges of propriety and convention. We need people like Laurie Anderson, whether we like it – or know it – or not. Here’s “Gravity’s Angel”:
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 -
Ah, now here is a favorite topic! My very favorite!
Innovations in landscape construction technology have brought about an entire industry’s flowering. Say what you will about gorgeous designs configured with wondernew computer programs, all splashy and easy to read, forced on poor landscapers by Draconian architects whose tolerance for ignorance is often quite small. Personalities can be nearly predictable. Ungrateful bastids. Who do they believe paved the way for such exotic things?
I’m mostly kidding, but I often like to ‘pick back’. It’s a fault. Let’s just call it a cheap form of revenge and leave it there. I’m good with that. I’ve met some unbelievably fascinating LA’s, so I’m being a hard case with cause. And some humor. Harry Haggard, are you listening?
Those “on the ground” know. This is not especially cast out because I have some bone to pick with anyone in the industry whatsoever, from designer to client. In the end, many are those in the Landscape Architecture field who appreciate modern innovations and what they can accomplish. My point is this – the advent of field innovations in figuring things out – on the installation end – has lowered prices and has made what was formerly impossible, far more possible. Indeed, I am convinced these innovations have opened doors which had no dream of access prior to their discovery.
Here, for example, from a video from a business I have worked around for years, from Portland to Seattle to Reno – and especially Ren0 – Parsons Rock Walls – is what is possible. Note the machine that does pretty much 100% of the work, with its knuckling fittings and how it moves a virtual 360 degrees while carrying 6,000 pound boulders. These guys actually do perform great work, by the way. Their legacy is all over the cities mentioned – extremely hard to miss. The clip is long and it is a bit of pimping for them, but it gets interesting, machine-wise. Which is the point.
These innovations in hydraulic coupling and rotating technology have lowered the price of wall-building astoundingly and – for sure – made even their very usage far more attainable.
We once had the front yards of 45 homes to landscape in northern British Columbia. It was going to require adding about 1,500 yards of soil, owing to the entirety of the existing land being Glacial Schist. We owned a back hoe with a rear “dipper” or bucket. But, lordy, how to level it all? Since the housing project was contracted by the Canadian National Rail Company and coming as it was on rail cars, stopped to tilt and dump next to our homes, we had a few advantages. We put our heads together with a welder friend and here’s about the closest proximity to what we arrived at:
Except ours was 6″ x 6″ bar, 16 feet wide (!) and had small cylindrical and rounded 1″ spikes on the bottom at 4 inch intervals to stir the soil as it graded. And no bucket – we adapted it so that it would attach directly to the boom itself. (Recent innovations, by the way, in “knuckling”, like above, provide an even more appealing rotating possibility, now up to a full 360 degrees.)
Other innovations just fly off the top of one’s head:
Sod Cutters – now 4 wheel drive and no longer those precarious machines which were incredibly heavy and which broke backs from those trying to steer them over uneven ground.
Laser technology now acquaints us with construction levels which can be operated by one person. To try and locate a half inch increment in a 100′ long plane can be done by pushing a button and walking to hold up a stick which returns the signal and beeps solidly when level. So easy a Cave Man can do it! These same lasers are now attached to graders and informed automatically when to gouge or fill to make a perfect plane. Don’t tell anyone, but modern exhibitions have unmanned graders and even bulldozers producing perfect earth work with the help of lasers.
Placing brick pavers has become a bizarre bag of tricks. At the Hong Kong airport, whose runways are entirely composed of brick pavers – and we are talking square miles and hectares – the machine of choice looked like this:
This one takes an entire layer of bricks, holds them together nice and tightly, and lays them down, approximately 50 at a time. Imagine the savings and also imagine the new possibilities implicit in being able to attack huge tracts in mere days instead of months.
The scale of landscaping is somewhere substantially smaller than, say, road building. Yet so many of the same principles apply. Increasing innovations made by sharp in-the-field installers have made steady increments in lessening prices and creating opportunities for newer waves in design. Water pumps alone have virtually revolutionized “pondless” waterfall systems and the newer and perhaps most interesting take-off – Bubble Rocks. The newer pumps’ durability is frankly off the charts.
Indeed, one of the most thrilling developments in landscaping – at least concerning “Hardscapes” – concerns the development of better and more versatile Diamond Blades and edges. The afore-mentioned “Bubble Rocks” are all bored by cylindrical plungers who bore their ways downward through fascinating and gorgeous stones and which allows water to be pumped up through them. For any aficionado of the real color of rock – this is a decided thrill.
My personal favorite machines are fairly obvious ones. In no hierarchy whatsoever, I absolutely adore the skid steer (or Bobcat as has become a near-common name) machine. I have loaded and carried 10,000 yards of soil on one job alone with one of these. Here’s one at work without me in the cab – a rare occurrence.
Secondly, the Excavator – and in particular the modern miniature – the Mini Excavator – are both shown in this picture where they played an irreplaceable role -
The world of machines has reduced the time it takes to make a landscape from the dirt up. Having said that, it has also enabled newer ideas to emerge from a strictly designing aspect. This synergy is essential in understanding why I feel Landscaping as an art is entering – or has entered over the last 20 years – a completely new flowering of possibility and of artistic expression.
From new innovations in lighting and transformer technology, pioneered by my good friends at Unique Lighting (who, I might add also developed their own techniques from field work and who were curious enough to apply this knowledge to actual artistic style) -
To the swimming pool-makers, who incorporate paving into the overall ambiance by utilizing the newest breed of modern adhesives and waterproofing-
All these things combine to make this world even fuller with wonders and which represent the artisitic and craftsmanship achievements and potentials of a fascinating combination of talent, dedicated to a principle of improving our lives.
Now and then I get a hankering for blooms. Especially now as I sit and see the advent of real Winter outside, I am already hurting for my apparently-constant need to see blooms on flowers, trees and shrubs. One of my greatest pleasures in landscaping has always been watching plants develop successfully, especially in some of the more insane climates I have had to deal with, rife as they have been with either sun problems (both too much and too little) or soil dilemma’s the size of – well – Nevada.
The Rhododendron was the plant that launched my career, to be truthful. Seeing it gave me the electric sense of what was possible in moving Nature around just a little for optimal Eye Candy.
(click on images to enlarge. Twice for some for the real close look)
Let’s face it. It doe not take a rocket surgeon to know what is drop dead gorgeous.
Blooms are that rarest element of all our endeavors in landscaping – we feature them for sheer pleasure for us humans. Say what you want about cement patios and ponds, waterfalls and fire pits – a person can feel more than successful with a few plants and maybe some hanging baskets as long as they bloom and do so for long enough to wake up and know they’ll be faithfully and resplendently waiting for another sniff and picture. All we as landscapers and gardeners do is enable them.
No matter how plain weird they may be:
My personal tastes have moved with me within those climates. In Nevada, I happened into Natives which utterly blew my mind. Penstemons became a passion.
Evening Primrose satisfied like few other plants, bursting out at night as they do, then disappearing by lunch
I got to where I would mass them together, just to produce a semi-riot of color
Just because I could.
No one complained. Not a one.
I miss blooms. I miss the roses of Summer already.
I miss the shrub roses I have planted like they were as common as grass
We use blooms to surprise us and please us. Sometimes it works like nobody’s business.
I have been curious about other people and their discovery of blogging in general. I know that blogging is considered a very healthy thing to do by the American Psychiatric Association, which should probably surprise absolutely no one who enjoys doing it and which, therefore, sure seems to include those many bloggers I visit and who drop by here. I have always pretty much tried to keep my blog posts “above board”, as it were, which is a dreadful way of saying I have tried to keep it somewhat trade-specific. I always thought there was a dearth of information about how things actually get done out there when people are ripping and tearing up yards and making new ones. I base this on my own experience as a landscaper. Thus, I will always have a bias towards “what we do” sorts of things, and in the detail some folks really tend to appreciate. I hope it is obvious to this point, I speak from the position as a professional – which I have been for long years.
But the blogging thing, which really has caught my fancy in a major way, is a fascinating thing to me. I can actually do whatever I want in here! Aye, and therein lies a small “rub”, I guess. There is a beckoning reality taking a swing at me, asking to augment all this fun with forming some sort of financial interest.
I’ ve plied away in here somewhat ignorant of what’s been going on around me. This confession is not one I am proud of, frankly, but it mirrors my beginnings. When I began the blog, it was at the insistence of Annette, my Israeli friend I had met in some political forum and who I hit it off with. She adored my writing right away and she hired me to write for her as a sort of second job, beginning this entire episode. I spoke of the work I did often and she – a more than active blogger and Webmistress – was sort of enthralled with these stories about things like 5 ton boulder placements, my work installing irrigation and planting at the Portland Chinese Garden, running a business and my daughter’s progress. We connected on any number of levels and I will say right here and now she is the most knowledgeable person I know who plies her trade on the Internet. It makes seeing her angst over her sometimes-misbehaving 6 year old a guilty refreshment and it reminds me of everyone’s commonality in general. I offer all the sage advice I can muster, lol. After all, I actually have been there, ya know.
Anyways, Annette runs TheCatSite.com, which has 23,000 members and is a bustling, happy board chock full of cat lovers. She also has blogs and sites directly involved with how to construct blogs and websites, one in particular called Site Nursery. She is also in my Blogroll under IsraeliMom, for a more normal and human look. In fact, Annette has about 300 different sites and blogs. I was impressed speaking to someone with that sort of Internet swag. Her knowledge of online matters was informative and we exchanged all sorts of ideas about doing things together – which we have. She has also, in her forum visits to Webmaster Boards, hooked me up with employment for writing for other webmasters who also needed writing. In short, Annette has been a mentor. I think we all can apply this tag to someone among us – or, if not, we can definitely attribute good advice and directional opinion to someone outside ourselves.
My question, aside from pimping my new shopping blog attempts in the paragraph below, relates to mentoring and who helped us most in getting to where we are now. I can list a large number of blogs which I used for mentoring purposes – all of which we already know – the wonderful Philip’s blog about San Fransisco and his travels, Frances’ gorgeous Fairegarden, Barbee’s light human touch – many, many others who have been instructive about what we like seeing most – heartfelt feelings for others and for floral magnificence, good stories to read and genuine love of gardening, landscaping and all the things which so please us about dirt. Naturally, I use the Bibilcal Dirt in this sense.
So who is/was your mentor? Have you thanked them? Where did they drop you off, or are you still learning from them? I know I actually am, still, learning from Annette. In fact, if I weren’t so lazy and unfocused in general, I’d probably be visiting her in some gorgeous garden like Haifa right now with all my excess cash had I kept up with her learnin’ me. Anyway, let me dedicate this next paragraph to her – I need a smile.
So Annette has been on me for some time to try and make money off this blog – or others. I have begun this recently, starting up a garden tools blog, Landscape and Garden Tools, as well as this one, Tools-Hub – very new at the moment and less landscape oriented - describing tools I deem fit for gardener’s arsenals and some which might surprise with their approrpiateness for gardening. I remember my own discovery of water timers for hoses, for example – at least one of which I carried on a routine basis during construction projects. They were fabulous for predictable intervals of dust suppression on dry windy days as well as handy during sodding, planting or gardening at numerous other times, especially where we did not install irrigation systems. In fact, for these homeowners, I would simply leave a timer behind, as a thank you gift. I’ll mention these new blogs of mine more than once in the future, without a doubt, in hopes that it will generate some traffic and sales where appropriate. I have hooked into Amazon.com for this particular site, but I will be expanding it into other bases, perhaps even into shipping from suppliers themselves. A look at my Blogroll will see them there as well. Hopefully, I will augment strict sales pitches with some fun and interesting writing such as this bit on The History of The Shovel. It is another excuse to write, after all.
I mean, I’ll keep trying to do this, have no fear -
I’m sure some sucker in Louisville might want a nice garden at some point.
Some of these are lots of work, too!
