So tickled to be featured in GardenDesign.com!

If there’s one refrain I hear over & over amongst freelance or independent landscape and garden designers, is that it can be isolating working on your own. Who do you get to meet over the water cooler to gossip about the latest headlines in the design world? Who’s going to call you out on using that same “trick” again, or high-five you for the originality on that site wall?

The world of design, be it gardens, structures, products- has reached celebrity status. Each month, we get to read all about the latest winery So & So redesigned, or the $2.5 million the CEO of Blah Blah Blah just put in to their Hamptons estate.

None of it seems real to the rest of us working away at our craft in our small towns with our middle class budgets all across the United States. We only dream of someone profiling us for our latest design movement, or getting a property featured in a magazine. When I see my friends get international recognition, or a peer from my very own valley get published, I honestly whoop and holler for them.

When Evolving won a Merit Award for Carbondale’s Genny’s Garden, I finally got to whoop and holler for the home team, Me. Cruising around the internet tonight while listening to an interview with design great Luciano Giubbilei, I stumbled across Garden Design Magazine’s coverage of our 2011 Association of Professional Landscape Designers Annual International Design Awards. Out of 26 award winners, they profiled 1o of the winners. They chose to include Genny’s Garden. I’m whooping & hollering.

THE DESIGN PROCESS-Unexpected Opportunities

BILLY COLLINS, U.S. POET LAURETAE, 2001- 2003

THE HOPE FOR THE UNEXPECTED is so essential to my process, I wouldn’t bother to start a poem if I already knew the ending. The pen is not just a recording device device; it can also be an instrument of discovery.

 

When a design moves from paper to reality, lifetimes of delight may unfold through it. That's a powerful thought. What discoveries will design bring to you? And not just in landscape- through any purposeful process?

Success in a Landscape design comes not only from planning and creating.

Are the Ts crossed? I's dotted? Is the contractor $olvent?

Duncan Heather, principal of the Oxford College of Garden Design, distills essential steps in contracting with a a landscape installation company to ensure financial solvency and more than satisfactory completion of your landscape installation.

Be very diligent reviewing and understanding your landscape installation contract.

Anne Wareham makes me laugh.

She calls it out on garden writing for the syrupy platitudes, celebrity designer ass kissing and product endorsement that it is.

This article of hers, published toady in the Britain’s The Spectator,   “The Emperor’s New Weeds” is an entertaining expose. Please enjoy!

A terrific and funny addition to garden writing

For more of her writing, read her recently published “The Bad Tempered Gardener.” I consumed it in 3 evenings over 2 bottles of wine while the dogs and my child slept and hubby flew the friendly skies.

She also manages the UK blog, thinkingardens.co.uk.

The Steps To Developing A Landscape Plan For A Simple Home

Check out this super basic demo for developing a landscape plan, from Texas landscape designer Donal McKinney’s site The Green Sculptor.

Flowers are merely the ICING of a landscape. The "whole picture" design creates integrity, gives focus and determines goals. Unless there's a solid cake to spread icing on, it's formless.

SEARCHING FOR A WELL DESIGNED PERGOLA?

Surfing the LandscapeNetwork.com, I watched a video on the How and Why of a terrific pergola that would suit most of the newer modern/western inspired homes in this valley. If you’re thinking of building one, check this one out.

Western design has a feel all of its own, unique to the Rocky Mountains. Building a raw, pine lumber pergola often looks “tacked on,” not an integral part of the design. How can you make it kick-ass, a significant addition to your property?

• Lose the “cedar red” stain
• Consider painting it to match the architecture of your home
• Try switching out the 2×4 or 2×6 cross members for another material

Or try starting backwards. Perhaps think of the quality shade or the shade patterns you want and play with new materials  to achieve that effect. I saw a pergola covered in long thin branches once. It created a very beautiful, delicate shade.