Machines and Innovations in Landscaping

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Steve

This is another recirculated post which I think stands another glimpse. Having recently rediscovered the advantages of the newer types fire breathing torches which can warm and subsequently loosen frozen sand and make it malleable enough to re-install pavers, my respect for innovations and machinery reaches a yet higher level.

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.

Installing a Paver Patio – Part 1

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Steve

This is a repeat performance of an entry over a year old. I wanted to get back to the nuts and bolts of this blog, featuring some sweat and manly men in action. I love all the dogwood pictures and have oodles more, all set up to feature my new home base in the currently outrageously gorgeous Louisville. For now – it’s the work that rules, however. Click any image to enlarge, by the way. I’ll put up the accompanying Part 2 tomorrow.

I’ve done bits of this before, just not of this particular place. This post will deal with the in’s and out’s of encountering different soils at the base of a project and how we coped with them in establishing a firm bottom for a durable and permanent patio. A look here at the onset of the project shows what we were up against. The client – a busy lady who was CEO of a big concern in Reno, wanted a place to entertain. She had a smallish lot with a fabulous view and as we worked on the design, her primary request was for space to seat 4 tables with hungry eaters. She also wanted a small water feature – a bubble rock – and a place to put a sculpture of a Heron, rendered from Pink Granite. Oh – and irrigation up by the house. It was actually a big project, complete with an absolutely homely point of departure.

Essentially, no one had laid in any base material whatsoever under the original patio which had been constructed using some exceedingly odd principles, including using wood for the patio itself – not raised but embedded in the ground. No doubt it was a rapid and temporary solution that was simply never addressed again, once completed. So, needless to say, it was a mess, rotten and falling apart and adding – daily – yet more soft, spongy material to an already-soft base.

(click all images to enlarge)

We removed the covering and arrived at the dirt floor we looked for. Once here, we could decide on what material and how deep we needed to go to provide the adequate foundation for permanence. Naturally, we had to remove the spongier material. What was next was a determination as to how deep we had to excavate in order to get to soils which would support a durable foundation. So we dug down until we reached a reasonable clay base, something that would actually take compaction.

Making life even harder for this project is the fact that it had a tiny gate through which – oh – approximately 12-14 tons of material would pass – in both directions! Obviously, we had to get rid of some stuff and, just as obviously, we had to bring in even heavier “stuff”, including bricks, base rock, sand and the always-lightweight irrigation materials – whose existence got provided for by yet more good old excavating!

Oh – and the Pine Tree – it had to go, too. For guys spoiled by machinery, this one was a nasty project 😉

Note also the small white arbor. The client wanted a sort of “private area” – away from the rush and quieter. This area was far shadier and oodles more private than any other possible spot. We would install an intimate seating area, suitable for romance, perhaps or for some fine reading and contemplation.

Irrigation was intended to go under the patio and to be accessible for the placement of pots and containers adjoining the house itself. This is a great idea and totally do-able. Planters such as these can thereby be nearly maintenance-free, inasmuch as water is a daily additive run off a clock, adjustable to run as often as is necessary. The wonders of drip irrigation once again surface, making life easier as well as requiring more exactitude as far as quantity.

Thus we see the trenches going under what will eventually become the base of the patio itself. We use “hard pipe” (Schedule 40, PVC) to run under, then attach the more flexible and fragile drip hoses to them at the destination.

As shown above, the trenches are nearly ready. We add the pipe, then cover, then we are finally at pretty much Stage 3, which is the heavy lifting – bringing in the base material, spreading it, then compacting. We try to get somewhat perfect at this stage. We shoot for adding an exact amount of sand for the next level – that just below the pavers themselves – for a variety of reasons, including having enough! But it also pays off in spreading the load out as far as what to expect for compacting later. An area with a thickness of more sand than another will be just a tad spongier and require extra work in the end. Kenny here is getting it pretty much as close to perfect as we can get it. Being pretty much perfect himself made it easier – by his own admission. 🙂

Note the compactor in the foreground to the right. These machines are modern miracles, in many ways. They can also adjust waves and high spots and they knock down what appears to be chunks and pieces of gravel down to a smoother surface. They also render the base flat and immovable underneath – our primary goal anyway.

Yes, there are pipes everywhere. The extruding gray pipe with the blue wire is the electrical line which will power up not only our little pump for the Bubble Rock we will install but is also intended to provided an assembly for plugging in other stuff – a gang box of outlets for radio, barbecues and Lord knows what else. The white pipe, meanwhile, is a water pipe, connected to the irrigation system itself and intended to act as an “automatic fill” for the water feature, to add water when necessary to the pond. It all seemed so simple, didn’t it?

So below is the aforementioned “private area” forming up. Naturally, we began here, inasmuch as it is the most remote spot to build ourselves out from. You can see our 1″ of sand, laid in over the compacted base material here in good relief. Yes, we literally just add pavers after reaching a desired surface. Typically, we use a “screed board”, notched to travel along premeasured width and height lines. A couple of passes with this board and we’re off.

It gives us something like this:

You will notice the “edge restraints” and aluminum – sometimes plastic – edging. Obviously, these act to hold evertything in place just marvelously. When you see the size of the “nails” we use to insure its stability, you can see why it stays intact. Those are each 8″-12″ long.

Yes, there is pipe under the pavers here, leading into the small bed at the center. We also ran lighting wire for eventual outdoor lighting.

Below is what it looks like when we are essentially done with an area. You will notice the drip pipe, connected elsewhere and supplying water to the center bed. While working elsewhere, we spread kiln-dried sand over the top – for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we spread it all over the place anyway, for purposes of grouting and filling the tiny spaces between the bricks themselves. However, at this stage it also protectas the surface from accidents like spills or excessive traffic.

This area is now pretty much complete. Naturally, we will add plants, sweep in the sand and then – on this project – spray on a semi-gloss finishing sealer. But that is for the next post.

Installing A Paver Patio – Part 2

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Steve

As promised, here is Part 2 of the post dealing with this new patio construction at a place which challenged us concerning the original soils and their ability to hold things in place for The Duration – which is how I view projects. Surfaces like driveways and patios, done right, should last longer than the homes they serve. Sure, I have overbuilt things before. But that error is one of caution and the results have spoken for themselves. This is the primary method of getting yet more work. A happy client is a beautiful thing.

And so it begins….We start at the house on the major portion, bearing in mind the stubbed up pipes and electrical paraphernalia and providing for those things by making precise cuts in the bricks. At this stage, we screed out the sand over our compacted base, then add pavers. It gets fairly simple from here on out, bearing in mind the pattern we select for laying them.

(click all images to enlarge)

The saw shown here gets ample use from this stage out. In a crew like ours – 3-4 guys – we generally have one guy dedicated to bringing the bricks around and placing them for the “layer” on the ground. Another will usually be cutting pavers in order to conform to our needs. Another – that is often me – will work ahead of this pack, preparing for the next round of laying.

Since I believe in curves in landscapes, naturally I make it harder on us. But my sense of things reflect a respect for Nature’s curving lines. I rarely make anything square.

Here is Jason cutting away and in the next picture, the reason for someone constantly cutting. The bricks used here come in very tight, straight rectangular shapes. We find that by making very exact straight cuts, we can usually induce a nice gentle curve out of the straight product.

Building our way out now…. We approach the outer edges. Note the cavern where the water feature will sit. We need a basin to hold water, needless to say, on top of which we will rest the bubble rock. But the pavers are still the focus at the moment.

Nearing the end of the line for the major portion of pavers, in order to finish, it will require the building of the water feature first. It is designed so that the edge of the feature itself will meet the pavers. Thus, we have now put i the liner, as the picture below illustrates. Next, we’ll fill the hole with rock and with supporting bricks and or rocks to place the actual bubble rock itself. Once that is adjusted and tweaked enough for the perfect fit, we will add the hardware – like the pumps and any underwater lighting we opt for. Only then will we consider finishing off the edge itself.

We get the rock in place – a nice big juicy 600 pounder which was quite an experience to bring inside – and begin the finishing cutting, then placing the edge restraints. We are getting closer. For those who wonder, the house in the distance is owned by a Casino Owner. He thanks us all for our contributions.

We complete an area of bricks which then allows us to begin planting and bringing in the new soil.

Rake some, add a bit of bark mulch…..

And spray on the sealer, which gives a mildly “wet” look and acts to preserve the color and finish.

In a year, the barren areas which seem so vast will be over run with the very plants you see here. It looks so bare, I admit, at this stage. Our job was to make her happy with it all, of course, but the plants are the easiest part of that. It’s the patio and its long term stability which was the goal. We made that happen, in spades.

The Patio – What Is Possible?

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Steve

This post was originally entered a year or ago. Since then I have visited a few places recently with owners wondering what to do with patios. It has inspired me to post this again, but with yet a few more example patios added. The constructions of these vary from stamped concrete to interlocking brick pavers to natural stone slabs. But the one thing I have prided myself on was in making each and every one of them appealing as possible to all of our senses.

(click on any image to enlarge)

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 constructions 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.