Ha ha……I had forgotten my non savvy mind had accidentally posted this, looking for a possible method of transferring wma files to the Internet. I’ll leave it here but gussy it up a little with a picture. Now you have to listen. 😉
How about a Rhododendron?
This is totally cheating but I really don’t care. I make no apologies for loving – adoring – great music. Youtube makes it ridiculously easy on bloggers to simply take art from somewhere else and toss it up, acting like their taste matters. Well, I happen to think it actually does matter.
I’ve chosen these tunes in honor of you, the reader. I sometimes visit videos or get referred to them and I bear you in mind. I think to myself – “Would this be cool on my blog?”
“I wonder if folks have ever seen these, because, if they haven’t, I’d bet they’d be grateful after experiencing them.” This is as complicated as it gets. It’s most certainly some very simple sharing with people I like.
In the first video are old favorites of an entire generation: Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, working with an Egyptian Ensemble, doing what they do best – good  music.
This next tune is from some simply incredible Italians – Cuncordu de Orosei – and a marvelous Dane, Ernst Reijseger. I’ve always respected Reijseger, simply because he is in the Yoyo Ma category of Hall of Fame talents on a favored instrument of my own – the cello. But the stunning voices of his friends singing this hundreds-of-years old traditional song, make it a rather riveting experience, all-in-all:
The 3rd one is simply a delightfully different and lightweight bit of violin virtuosity at a club in California, featuring my current Love Interest Lili Haydn. Her work on “Mantra”, playing with Bill Laswell first showed me this incredible Canadian talent’s abilities as a musical prodigy – seen here in this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF1jRKXEuJM.
Here she does rock and roll in her own, um, “breathless fashion”.
Once again, my travels took me back to my hometown where I am rather glacially performing a task of book-writing based around the myriad great accomplishments of my old high school coach and Kentucky schoolboy legend, Jack Hicks. But even though the task is slow, it is definitely taking shape as our interviews any more range delightfully into personal realms and to the fun stuff of specific games and favorites. I so look forward to spending time with Jack any more and his appreciation for the visits is reciprocated in spades.
Nearly every visit I make begins with a stop by the new riverfront park – Smothers Park – smack on the river in downtown Owensboro, a small city with an ego and a vision. My appreciation for the park grows as it matures and as its legend expands. Yet more stories circulated based around kids who don’t want to leave. Oh the tragedies! The humanity!! 😉
(click on pictures to enlarge)
The approaches from the street are universally thick with developing plantings, now reaching the second year stage which – for me at least – was always that stage where the eventual look of decades to come most reveals itself as the plants mature sufficiently to illustrate their eventual plumage and shapes. Certain definite judgments can be made at this time assessing the appropriatenss of the arrangements and selections surrounding hardscaped areas. With just a couple of exceptions, this park grades out spectacularly.
The red brick street and the contrasting color and structural elements of the tall thin grasses, replete with those gorgeous seed plumes, make for a contrast of planes and even motion, directing and protecting foot traffic most satisfactorily. The sandy colored wall blocks of the planters behind are soft and nearly unobtrusive, displaying more the colors they contain in the persons of gorgeous plants and their blooms.
Cool colors are also available with surprising alacrity as we cross the sidewalk/street threshold and walk deeper into the park.
The visual effort at cooling us off is pronounced and uniquely situated, even dappled with impossibly rangy blooms from the Variegated Hosta varieties which punctuate the view and influence the tenor with minimal effort. This is a really interesting area to me, taking such advantage of the desire to evade the heat in a typical very hot Summer of an average Owensboro year. Below, this testament is grossly enlarged upon as we visit the cool fountains, spritzing our kids and ourselves, most enjoyably. The fountains and water effects are literally everywhere.
I particularly enjoy the small fountain at the rear of the veteran’s area. Unobtrusive, it’s a complete surprise as we walk around the corner after regarding the well-achieved solemnity of the display which honors all vets from Owensboro – from every war, many of whom I am proud to say I also knew quite well.
I remember my first views of the park, from my initial visits which so fascinated this landscaper and landscape installer. I could watch that stuff for hours. And did! Naturally, I was quite pleased to see others doing the work instead of myself, in a burst of true honesty. I once laughed when someone asked me to describe a day at work and replied: “Oh, I guess I move around 10 tons of stuff a day from place to place.”  😉
Really quite a change, is it not? These views are a totally accurate vision of what a landscape contractor sees of this world.
Back to modern life………..
I have always relished a certain Midwestern quality to the Owensboro geography. Huge sunsets and sunrises merge with the sheer flatness of the land itself and its agricultural bounty as a grain-producing center. But a hot muggy and oh-so-lush Southern-style Summer climate and ambiance often overwhelm the senses as well. Great bourbon and beautiful women are commonly seen – at least by me!! And often! But then, of course, I actually look. It’s a curse.
Well, Smothers Park is a tribute to beauty. The expanses of gorgeous perennial blooms is rapidly becoming a signature element to this slice of gorgeousness.
I have long been a Black-Eyed Susan fan and it won’t be fading any time soon. I also have to say that the judicious use of modern hybrid grasses combines the softest edges structurally imaginable for these gorgeous beauties and produces a literal privacy for a Susan to do her work. In another 2 years, this area will be simply breathtaking.
I remember when I discovered the new landscaper passion for shrub Roses. Easy to grow, profoundly blossoming on a highly regular basis and – more importantly – integrating the most deep and fabulous reds, yellows and cream colors into hardy and low maintenance shrub beds, these plants are one of the true “coups” of landscaping and horticultural accomplishment. It has recently become possible to have roses almost wherever you want them. And to forget about them!!
I love the way the design on Smother Parks uses these shrub Roses so tastefully – as highlights and swatches of color above more routine surfaces, stressing not only elevation changes and material enclosures, but also their beauty in blooming.
There is just so much “Win!” in this gorgeous city block or two of life in Owensboro. Obviously, I consider it a rampant success, as my over-the-top praise often reveals. Yet, there is a reason for this. As someone who has constructed parks and playgrounds in the past, I have parlayed an excitement of owning an occasional child’s eye view of the world – my best trait – into converting that pleasure to the experience adults provide for a field of dreams. To my trained eye – deeply immersed in childishness!! – this is what a park is supposed to be.
I mean, this is bigger than me.
Owing to recent picture postings on a social media site, the nature and abilities of the machinery of landscaping became notable, commented upon by some amazed watchers and myself, in a brief but interesting exchange. What modern machinery has accomplished for not just landscaping but for the building trades in general, has been rather amazing. Below, we briefly touch on just a few mechanisms of help, celebrating an iota of labor-saving one can trust made landscaping not just different, but somewhat easier. It also released a million new directions of installation possibilities in an abundant and totally creative design future.
This is all about mental and physical things…….
Strictly educational – the “mental tools” and the wherewithal to use the “physical tools” can and most often come from various combination of learning events – general osmosis, class, on the job comparisons and experience. But both are extremely real, and each can be either modern or classical……….to some degree.
Mental Tools
Landscaping requires at least a rudimentary knowledge of the following fields:
Electrical Trades, Carpentry, Cement Technology, Hydrology (the behavior of water), Gas and access to the various kinds of gas used outdoors.
Additionally, we arrive at very trade-specific assumptions of competence, dealing with issues like Farming; Horticulture in general; Soils; Irrigation issues, including wells and water pressure; issues of relative Compaction under surfaces as well as the detriments of compaction regarding root growth in lawns and plants and trees.
In terms of design alone, an awareness of issues of compatible colors, structural architecture, and successful arrangements which include the tiniest elements of duplicity, for lack of a better word. Hidden wonders which magically appear on our walks around a property well illustrate a potentially pleasing scenario, designed with just that visual – or even aromatic or aural – pleasure.
Enough of that. Now come the Machines. Where will one learn these?
Installing All That – More Importantly – Making It Work
Other helpful considerations – and most importantly at the level of installation – involve the latest technologies, built to save the poor backs of our minions in the game. Below is a “Soil Thrower”, made to toss soil up to 50′ to an otherwise impossible area. As the picture below this one shows, it can deliver it up a few floors worth of territory too!
(enlarge any image by clicking)
Does this guy have a great toy or what??!
Combine that gorgeous masterpiece of dirty technology with this “Bark Dust Blower” and you have a quicker project in areas once considered nearly impossible to work in.
Nor do the newer technologies stop there. For heavy duty work in small places, hydraulic science and the wonders of newer and more reliable engines have made lifting easier as well.
If you think this is a “small deal”, then you’d be wrong. What one man can do with these machines is staggering – these are a productive increase of exponential dimensions, frankly.
This next baby looks like something only wrecker could love. You’d be wrong. This is a “Knuckling Grappler”, which can grab a boulder or a log or a piece of wood and rotate in absolutely any direction – 360 degrees. You could literally insert things sideways into a hole if you wanted.
Consider its use in the construction of walls such as this one:
These don’t get built by themselves. 😉
As dilapidated as this machine looks, it has built one heck of a lot of gorgeous walls. In fact, this technology can only be improved on by quantity – not quality. This one can handle a ton or two at a time. The next generations provided more stable footing and huger capacity, but they all do the same work.
Diamonds and modern cutting technology. The Diamond Drill has become a paving guy’s primary utensil. Cutting road surfaces, bricks and coring into upstanding cement or solid rock are all easily accomplished now with this rapidly-expanded and amazingly efficient new technology. One can now take a boulder and bore a hole completely through it, down many feet, until it becomes a clearly-perforated stone, fit for making into a Bubble Rock water feature. Here is a nice close look at one such blade – this one for coring.
Each of the 3 stones below has just that – a long cylindrical hole running down its length, under which a pump runs water to its base and out the top. This technology has produced an entire new galaxy of Bubble Rock Water Features.
The truth is, a closer look at the pavers forming the patio in the foreground of this shot – which were also cut by a diamond blade on a table saw – show how exact that aspect of paving has become as well. Now very cool curves and more appropriate fits are made to increase the overall curving appearance of hard, severe surfaces.
Here is an even better, closer look from the same project looking back, at how the most modern diamond blade technology can result in very satisfying curving appearances: (enlarge this one)
A Summary Of Modern Tool Impacts
The tools themselves have opened up the entire field of landscape design. What was once a massive, intensive labor, requiring lots of folks struggling over a long period of time can now be done in a day, using 2 men, with the right machines. This relieves costs and increases possibility.
Ask yourself this. When you see this picture below – of the Portland, Oregon Chinese Garden – how long do you think it would take to plant all the big plants and trees there? Since the whole place is a block square, let’s peek in from the outside:
That’s 20% of the big trees planted there, a few which weighed a nice solid 5-8 tons, complete with hand-dug root balls. We even designed a special chain for quick-release.
Well, if I told how long, on one would believe me, but I can say this much. We cheated like crazy. Here’s what we used to place the trees:
180 tons of landscaping love!
He can sit in one place and deal with an entire city block. Which, fortunately, was exactly what we had! He is also good for dropping in a few thousand tons of dirt, for the record. In other words, in the immortal words of Dana Carvey in his spoof of George Bush’s post-Berlin Wall statement:
“Before the crane – no dirt. After the crane – Chinese Garden.” 😉
If you think that’s something, wait ’til I talk about landscaping that 42 story Vancouver high rise!!
