A number of design firms have drawn up plans for new a Penn Station and Madison Square Garden as part of campaign to rebuild the complex. Renowned studios SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings Merrill (SOM), Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and H3 were all asked to re-imagine the New York landmarks by the Municipal Art Society (MAS), a nonprofit that campaigns for, among other things, intelligent urban design and planning.

The most radical proposals came from Diller Sofidio + Renfro and SOM, who both submitted wildly complex designs. Diller Scofido + Renfro’s “Penn Station 3.0” aims to serve “commuters, office workers, fabricators, shoppers, foodies, culture seekers, and urban explorers,” with a multi-level complex that’s topped by a rooftop public garden. The concept separates out the fast-moving commuters, who are confined to the lowest level, and adds layers of stores, cafes, a spa, and even a theatre, in which people are able to move around at a more leisurely pace. The plan would also see Madison Square Garden relocate to sit alongside the Farley building on 8th Avenue.

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SOM’s proposal could become a true NYC landmark

Should SOM’s proposal become reality, it would likely become an iconic building in a city not short of landmarks. The architectural juggernaut responsible for One World Trade Center and the Burj Khalifa envisages a four-towered megastructure that would expand Penn Station into a huge green space. The plan moves Madison Square Garden to an adjacent location and places a giant transparent ticket hall at the heart of the complex. SOM is thinking big: The plan would represent a commercial property the size of Rockefeller Center, a public park “four times the size of Bryant Park,” a “city of culture larger than the Lincoln Center,” and a residential development “the size of Tudor City.”

SHoP Architects, which was responsible for the Brooklyn Nets’ Barclays Center stadium, presented SOM with “Gotham Gateway.” The plan is more modest (and perhaps more realistic) than others, expanding the main hall of Penn Station into what SHoP calls “a bright, airy, and easily navigable space,” with the aim of creating a new “destination district” where people would meet socially. It also adds for “significant security and rail capacity improvements,” along with new parks, and an extension to the High Line that would connect the new station to an equally-new Madison Square Garden.

Would UW-Extension help develop plans for planting our yard and gardens? We have a lot of space and would like to put in some new gardens. We want to make good decisions about what to plant but we don’t really know how to do it. Also, we have a lot of shrubs and flowers in our yard that we don’t know what they are; can you identify them for us? Will master gardeners come to our home and help us? We could pay them. — Robert, Racine.

UW-Extension and the master gardener volunteers provide educational services to the community using university research and resources. Our purpose, to which we commit, is to teach, learn, lead and serve, connecting people with the University of Wisconsin and engaging with them in transforming lives and communities. There are many ways that we work to serve our communities, but we are not a horticultural business so we do not hire out for private gardening services.

We do provide assistance in other ways, however. There are many publications on our UW-Extension publications website at http://learningstore.uwex.edu that can help you choose the right plant for the right place and learn more about gardening. Also, our master gardener volunteers, who work as plant health advisers, can help you identify plants if you bring in plant samples or photos of the plants you would like to know more about.

These volunteers have different areas of specialization and interest; some enjoy working with community members on garden design, some enjoy teaching others about vegetable gardening or use of native plants. They all can help you with identification of flowers and shrubs.

In addition, the plant health advisers excel at disease and insect questions, and will help you figure out why certain plants may not be doing well.

We have master gardener volunteers at the Racine County Office Building at 14200 Washington Ave. in Sturtevant on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon, and sometimes on Wednesday mornings. We also have master gardener volunteers on Tuesday mornings from 9 a.m. until noon, and on an intermittent basis at the Burlington UW-Extension office, located at 209 N. Main St. These volunteers answer the phones, respond to email inquiries and work with walk-in clients on all gardening questions. Be sure to thank them for their service to the community.

They volunteer their time out of a desire to learn more about gardening, but also because they want to teach others how to make good gardening decisions. Our landscape and gardening decisions affect us in many ways, impacting our quality of life, our pocketbooks and the environment.

If you would like to have someone come to your home and help with garden design, plant identification and garden labor assistance, we have many horticulture professionals who provide excellent service in this area.

We are fortunate in Racine to have an abundance of excellent local greenhouses, nurseries and landscaping businesses; at least one of them should have someone who can meet your needs.

Another place to search is www.findalandscaper.org; this is the Wisconsin Landscape Contractor Association website which lists the landscapers who are members of this professional organization. A quick search will give you a list of people to call in our area.

For more information on garden design and maintenance, visit our Wisconsin Horticulture site at http://hort.uwex.edu.

More questions?

Master gardener volunteers serving as plant health advisers are able to answer your questions at mastergardeners@goracine.org or by calling the Horticulture Helpline at (262) 886-8451 (Ives Grove) or (262) 767-2919 (Burlington).

Dr. Patti Nagai is the horticulture educator for Racine County UW-Extension. Submit your questions for The Journal Times QA column to Dr. Nagai at Patti.Nagai@goracine.org and put “Question for RJT” in the subject line.

HANDOUT

Landscape designers can help prune your yard plan into shape

A narrow strip of land beside a house can be difficult to landscape. (Courtesy Peggy Krapf/www.HeartsEaseLandscape.com/MCT)

HANDOUT

Landscape designers can help prune your yard plan into shape

A paved path, seating, plants and privacy can turn a small strip of land into an intimate garden. (Courtesy Peggy Krapf/www.HeartsEaseLandscape.com/MCT)

Peggy Krapf/www.HeartsEaseLandscape.com via McClatchy-Tribune

Landscape designers can help prune your yard plan into shape

A narrow strip of land beside a house can be difficult to landscape (top left). With the right design, it can become an intimate garden with a paved path, plants and seating (top right). Transform a small area of a yard (bottom left) into an outdoor room with stylish and comfy outdoor seating (bottom right).

HANDOUT

Landscape designers can help prune your yard plan into shape

Stylish, comfy seating invites guests to linger a while. (Courtesy Tami Eilers/www.mcdonaldgardencenter.com/MCT)

Posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 12:00 am

Landscape designers can help prune your yard plan into shape

BY KATHY VAN MULLEKOM
Daily Press

Richmond Times-Dispatch

Never underestimate the value of professional landscape designers. Trained to know what plants work best and what designs function best, they can save you time, money and heartache.

“There is much more to landscaping than popping shrubs around a house,” said Peggy Krapf, a member of the Virginia Society of Landscape Designers (www.vsld.org).

“Good landscaping has a real artistic component — integrating architecture, plants and functionality — similar to interior decorating.”

Here’s what Krapf and two other Virginia landscape designers say about good garden design:

Consider the architecture: “I love to bring the architecture of the house into the garden,” said Krapf, of Heart’s Ease Landscape and Garden Design in Williamsburg. “Connecting them with fencing is a wonderful way to enclose the garden — making it feel like an extension of the house. Be sure to use compatible materials and colors in the outdoor spaces. If your home has a brick foundation, be sure to choose a matching or blending color for walks and pathways. Pick out paint colors for fencing, furniture and sheds that echo the accent or trim colors on the house. Choose a favorite flower color and repeat it around the garden for a cohesive look.”

Create a plan: “Develop a plan, make your wish list, set your budget, know the local climate and imagine how you will use the space. Also, consider maintenance,” said Eric Bailey, of Landscapes by Eric Bailey in Newport News. “Do you enjoy the garden? How much time do you have to spend? Do not restrict your landscape to only plants. Decks and patios transition your home from the inside out. If you have a patio, consider a pergola or arbor. If you have a garden path, consider a gate.”

Evaluate curb appeal: “Look at any issues that steal attention from the front door. … Hide trash and recycle cans from view,” said Tami Eilers, of McDonald Garden Center in Hampton.

“Always consider the colors and architectural design style of the house when choosing plants, flowers, paving materials and pots for front yards. Ideally, paving materials should reflect the same color as the roof.

“Placing a tree between the curb and the house gives a sense of added depth to the front yard; 90 percent of front-yard shrubs should be evergreen.

“Keep your house numbers and front porch well-lit, visible and clean, because this is the first place an arriving guest will see. Keep shrubs well below windows and clear from paths.”

© 2013 Richmond Times Dispatch. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Sunday, June 2, 2013 12:00 am.

Grace Amboka from Nairobi, Kenya, and Charling Chen, a recent Washington University graduate, share a common purpose: Saving bees and other pollinators and growing more fruit and vegetables.

Concerned about the world crisis of declining bee populations, they and 26 other college students are designing and helping plant pollinator-friendly gardens in Florissant, Nairobi and Tucson, Ariz. Across continents and cultures, they say, they hope to increase public awareness about the importance of hazards facing bees and the need for human intervention to help.

“Most people don’t connect the micro-scale of the bee to plants and then to the food on their dinner tables,” Chen said.

With fewer bees to pollinate flowers and vegetables, crops and food production are adversely affected.

The year-long program is called PAUSE, Pollinators/Art/Urban Agriculture/Society/and the Environment. It’s part cultural “cross-pollination,” part ecological mission and part arts and garden design. In addition to the students, the Kenyan group includes scientists from the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi. The American staff and experts come from the St. Louis Zoo and Tohono Chul Park in Tucson.

Increasing the number of native pollinators is so important to the St. Louis Zoo that it has its own Wildcare Institute Center for Native Pollinator Conservation. Ed Spevak, Curator of Invertebrates, is the center’s director and is coordinating the project here.

On June 18, the Zoo will offer the public a “Bee Thankful” dinner featuring food made possible by bees and other pollinators. The PAUSE students will speak at the event, part of “Pollinator Week.”

Next week, Chen, Spevak, Brittany Buckles, a recent graduate of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, and Mary Brong, a graphic designer with the Zoo, will travel to Nairobi to see the pollinator garden there.

Last month, Spevak and a Kenyan group traveled to the Tucson garden. Then, the Kenyans stayed a week in St. Louis to help plant the Florissant garden.

The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has contributed about $86,000 to the $200,000 cost of the one-year program. The remaining costs are shared by the Zoo and its project co-sponsors in Kenya and Tucson.

Spevak hopes the students will carry the message of the importance of pollinators to the community and especially to their generation.

“We want this — the Florissant garden — to become a model for other sites around St. Louis,” Spevak said. “We want to show others how you can develop and design a community garden or even a park that is pollinator-friendly and have benefits for local communities and beyond. Pollinators are incredibly important for all of our survival.”

To help pollinators survive, the St. Louis students are building a large two-flower sculpture they designed for the Florissant garden. It will used by bees for a nesting habitat. Colorful asters, sunflowers, cup plants and cone flowers also will draw and retain them.

In addition to Chen and Buckles, other participants are: Aaron Mann, an art education student at UMSL, Anna Villanyi, a Washington University communication design and anthropology major, Bingbin Zhou, a graduate student in architecture at Washington University, Trincy Nyswonger, a wildlife biology major at Lewis and Clark Community College, Heather Richardson, an anthropology major at SIUE, Brianna Hamann, a speech communication major at SIUE, Julia Gabbert, a Webster University student in journalism and environmental studies, and Shannon Slade, an architecture major at Washington University.

“Some people are fearful of bees but they’re so essential for our food,” Buckles said.

Other Missouri pollinators they hope to attract to the Florissant garden are butterflies, flies and ruby-throated hummingbirds.

The Florissant garden, at 601 St. Charles Street, by Old St. Ferdinand Shrine, now serves as Florissant’s Community Garden. Under PAUSES’ plans, it will be expanded to cover 3.5 acres.

Once completed, it will offer visitors a chance to stroll through prairie habitat, a wildflower walk, historic and Native American gardens and an orchard. A shared garden for local food banks will feed the poor and there will be raised beds for people using wheelchairs.

PAUSE is working with the city of Florissant, the Florissant Community Garden Club and Gateway Greening, which promotes community urban gardens, and expects to bring in the Missouri Prairie Foundation. Florissant gardeners are doing the day-to-day work on the garden.

Design magazines and home decorating catalogs tend to feature sprawling backyards with big wooden decks and room for everything from decorative fountains to artificial ponds.

But few of us have that much outdoor space.

Still, with a few strategic choices, you can create something truly special out of even the smallest yard or porch, says Los Angeles-based designer Brian Patrick Flynn.

Here, he and two other design experts — small-space specialist Kyle Schuneman and landscape designer Chris Lambton — offer advice on the best furnishings, plants and decorating strategies for making the most of a small yard, modest deck or petite patio.

Go flexible and mobile

“With a small outdoor space, I really like to think double duty,” says Schuneman, author of “The First Apartment Book: Cool Design for Small Spaces” (Potter Style, 2012). Look for seating that has hidden storage space inside and tall planters that add privacy.

And choose items that can easily be moved, such as lightweight flowerpots or planters on wheels, says Lambton, host of the gardening design series “Going Yard” on HGTV. “It’s an easy DIY thing,” he says, to buy an assortment of inexpensive plastic pots and paint them to match your outdoor décor.

If planters are lightweight or on wheels, you can move them to get proper sunlight at different times of day, and rearrange them if you’re entertaining guests and need more space. And, Lambton says, they can be moved inside to a sunny window or doorway when cold weather arrives.

Choose the right furniture

“The easiest way to make small outdoor spaces appear smaller is to fill them with lots of pieces,” says Flynn, founder of the design website decordemon.com.

“Instead, go big with sectionals, or flank perfectly square or rectangular areas with identical love seats or sofas. This not only maximizes the seating potential, but it also keeps the space from becoming too busy or even chopped up. In my outdoor living room, I used a U-shaped outdoor sectional which seats up to seven comfortably.”

When arranging furniture, consider the view: If the home’s exterior is more attractive than the outdoor view, Flynn says, consider positioning seats so that you’ll face your home rather than looking away from it.

Plant wisely

All three designers say your choice of plants is especially important when space is limited.

Choose plants with a purpose: “Lavender’s great,” Lambton says, because it’s attractive, easy to grow and deters bugs. Marigolds will also help keep insects away.

Lambton also suggests putting up a trellis as a privacy wall, and planting it with colorful wisteria or climbing hydrangea. Or choose a tall holly or cypress plant in a large planter.

“Holly will be green all year round,” he says, and can help transform an unappealing view.

None of these plants are hard to take care of, Lambton says. “If you’re having coffee in the morning, just go out and dump a little bit of water in.”

Flynn agrees, and also suggests using potted grasses, which are “low maintenance and, as they grow, they create a full wall of privacy.”

Think vertically

If you love plants but have minimal space, add a wall-mounted garden filled with succulent plants to one wall, says Schuneman: “It’s a great way to add life and texture without actually taking any real estate up on your small balcony or patio.”

He also suggests using narrow planters to create “long, narrow, raised flower beds that go the length of the space.” They provide room for plants to grow, while also creating a ledge that’s “great for coffee cups or a casual lunch,” he says.

Flynn suggests playing up the height of your space by adding long outdoor curtains or hanging pendant lights.

Drench with color

“I usually paint concrete slabs (on the floor) a bold color or an accent color carried out from an adjacent room,” Flynn says. “This helps the patio feel like an extension when you look out to it through a door. On the flip side, when seated out in the patio looking inward, the consistent use of color flowing inside and outside makes the patio itself feel much more open.”

Flynn also suggests using outdoor curtains for a burst of color, and to block an unattractive view or hide items like electrical boxes and storage bins. “Outdoor draperies are, hands-down, the easiest way to soften an otherwise all-concrete and stucco space, while also being able to control how much or how little neighbors can see.”

Or, he says, order a basic trellis from an online retailer like Hayneedle.com, then “paint it a bold color and use it to instantly make an outdoor space feel more room-like.”

And for a burst of natural color, Lambton suggests adding a small, tabletop fire pit for a golden glow at night. “Some are small enough, and they don’t put off a lot of heat,” he says.

Create your own art

“Most people don’t think of using art outside, but it can be done, especially in a DIY manner,” Flynn says. “My favorite trick is to use tent canvas and stretch it across a DIY frame made from pressure-treated lumber, and add some gesso to the surface for texture.”

Once you’ve created your canvas, he says, “pick up some exterior latex paint, then get as abstract as you want to play with color shape and texture. Once the art is dry, add a sealer to protect it from moisture, then hang it up to create a focal point, and/or add another layer of privacy.”

You can make any outdoor space more beautiful, Lambton says, with just a few hours of effort and a small investment.

“If you get two or three pots and a couple of bags of planting mix,” he says, “it’s easy to do for a couple hours on a Saturday. … Just a little bit of color and life will really dress up your outdoor space.”

Grace Amboka from Nairobi, Kenya, and Charling Chen, a recent Washington University graduate, share a common purpose: Saving bees and other pollinators and growing more fruit and vegetables.

Concerned about the world crisis of declining bee populations, they and 26 other college students are designing and helping plant pollinator-friendly gardens in Florissant, Nairobi and Tucson, Ariz. Across continents and cultures, they say, they hope to increase public awareness about the importance of hazards facing bees and the need for human intervention to help.

“Most people don’t connect the micro-scale of the bee to plants and then to the food on their dinner tables,” Chen said.

With fewer bees to pollinate flowers and vegetables, crops and food production are adversely affected.

The year-long program is called PAUSE, Pollinators/Art/Urban Agriculture/Society/and the Environment. It’s part cultural “cross-pollination,” part ecological mission and part arts and garden design. In addition to the students, the Kenyan group includes scientists from the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi. The American staff and experts come from the St. Louis Zoo and Tohono Chul Park in Tucson.

Increasing the number of native pollinators is so important to the St. Louis Zoo that it has its own Wildcare Institute Center for Native Pollinator Conservation. Ed Spevak, Curator of Invertebrates, is the center’s director and is coordinating the project here.

On June 18, the Zoo will offer the public a “Bee Thankful” dinner featuring food made possible by bees and other pollinators. The PAUSE students will speak at the event, part of “Pollinator Week.”

Next week, Chen, Spevak, Brittany Buckles, a recent graduate of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, and Mary Brong, a graphic designer with the Zoo, will travel to Nairobi to see the pollinator garden there.

Last month, Spevak and a Kenyan group traveled to the Tucson garden. Then, the Kenyans stayed a week in St. Louis to help plant the Florissant garden.

The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has contributed about $86,000 to the $200,000 cost of the one-year program. The remaining costs are shared by the Zoo and its project co-sponsors in Kenya and Tucson.

Spevak hopes the students will carry the message of the importance of pollinators to the community and especially to their generation.

“We want this — the Florissant garden — to become a model for other sites around St. Louis,” Spevak said. “We want to show others how you can develop and design a community garden or even a park that is pollinator-friendly and have benefits for local communities and beyond. Pollinators are incredibly important for all of our survival.”

To help pollinators survive, the St. Louis students are building a large two-flower sculpture they designed for the Florissant garden. It will used by bees for a nesting habitat. Colorful asters, sunflowers, cup plants and cone flowers also will draw and retain them.

In addition to Chen and Buckles, other participants are: Aaron Mann, an art education student at UMSL, Anna Villanyi, a Washington University communication design and anthropology major, Bingbin Zhou, a graduate student in architecture at Washington University, Trincy Nyswonger, a wildlife biology major at Lewis and Clark Community College, Heather Richardson, an anthropology major at SIU-E, Brianna Hamann, a speech communication major at SIU-E, Julia Gabbert, a Webster University student in journalism and environmental studies, and Shannon Slade, an architecture major at Washington University.

“Some people are fearful of bees but they’re so essential for our food,” Buckles said.

Other Missouri pollinators they hope to attract to the Florissant garden are butterflies, flies and ruby-throated hummingbirds.

The Florissant garden, at 601 St. Charles Street, by Old St. Ferdinand Shrine, now serves as Florissant’s Community Garden. Under PAUSES’ plans, it will be expanded to cover 3.5 acres.

Once completed, it will offer visitors a chance to stroll through prairie habitat, a wildflower walk, historic and Native American gardens and an orchard. A shared garden for local food banks will feed the poor and there will be raised beds for people using wheelchairs.

PAUSE is working with the city of Florissant, the Florissant Community Garden Club and Gateway Greening, which promotes community urban gardens, and expects to bring in the Missouri Prairie Foundation. Florissant gardeners are doing the day-to-day work on the garden.

Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum is hosting a talk by historian Judith B. Tankard about England’s most famous gardener, Gertrude Jekyll, on Saturday, June 8.

Tankard is the author of eight books on American and European landscape history; her most recent work is “Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden.”

Tankard writes that Jekyll “was an artist, a gardener, a designer, a writer, and much more.” Jekyll (1843-1932) spent most of her life in Surrey, England, working from her home at Munstead Woods, a 15-acre estate she transformed into an extensive woodland flower garden. She published several important books, including, most famously, “Colour in the Flower Garden,” and wrote a long-running column in Country Life, one of the most influential gardening magazines of the period.

Jekyll designed hundreds of gardens in her career, including collaborations with many of the most important architects in early twentieth century England. Her gardens often remind viewers of impressionist paintings with their compositions of large drifts of colorful bedding plants.

Tankard has contributed articles in numerous national publications and previously edited the Journal of the New England Garden History. She has a M.A. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and taught at the Landscape Institute at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. She is one of America’s leading scholars on American landscape design.

Tickets to the June 8 lecture are $20 for members and $30 for non-members. Call 865-862-8717 or email dana@knoxgarden.org for reservations.

Tankard responded via email to questions about her work.

Your books are generally about landscape designers of the last century and the work they created. What is it about them and their gardens that captivates you?

A: I am interested in British and American architects associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement and all my books reflect the collaboration of architects and garden designers.

How did your career evolve from owning a clothing business to focusing on landscape design?

A: I have a master’s degree in art history specializing in British architecture and design. My interest in the history of landscape architecture evolved from my knowledge of British and American architects of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Edwin Lutyens, who designed gardens with Gertrude Jekyll. My former careers include art book publishing and a brief career as a clothing designer.

What do suburban gardeners need to understand about creating their own outdoor spaces?

A: My best advice is to keep everything as simple as possible, from the layout to the palette of plants. No need to cram every idea and thing into one space.

 

Are you thinking of planting a garden? Dreaming of getting chickens, but need inspiration on coop designs? Wanting to incorporate edible plants into your landscaping?

 

Whether you’re working with five acres, a city lot, an apartment balcony or a community garden plot, there are books and other resources available at the library to help you grow your own food.

Check out the titles below for ideas on growing, cooking and foraging.

 

• “The Beautiful Edible Garden: Design a Stylish Outdoor Space Using Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs” by Leslie Bennett and Stefani Bittner    

This book offers landscape design ideas that incorporate plenty of edible plants along with ornamentals, for a beautiful garden in the front yard or backyard.

 

• “Grow Cook Eat: A Food Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening, Including 50 Recipes, Plus Harvesting and Storage Tips” by Willi Galloway; photographs by Jim Henkens

Portland author and former West Coast editor of Organic Gardening magazine, Willi Galloway offers tips for growing a kitchen garden and includes delicious recipes for feasting upon on your backyard harvest.

 

• “Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat” by Ellen Zachos

Venture into your backyard to explore familiar ornamental plants and weeds. With this book as your guide, you can safely discover delicious unexpected edibles growing in your neighborhood.

 

• “Reinventing the Chicken Coop: 14 Original Designs with Step-By-Step Building Instructions” by Kevin McElroy and Matthew Wolpe; photography by Erin Kunkel

Who knew chicken coops could look so classy? If you’re looking for inspired ideas for building a home for your hens, check out this book.

 

• “Gardening for the Birds: How to Create a Bird-Friendly Backyard” by George Adams

This title offers garden design ideas that incorporate native plants to create habitat and attract birds to your backyard. Note: Currently on-order; publication date is July 2, 2013. To place a hold on the title, visit www.nols.org.

 

• “How to Eradicate Invasive Plants” by Teri Dunn Chace    

200 common invasive plants are discussed in this book, with suggested methods for eradication. The bindweed on the cover may make some readers cringe!

 

• “The Speedy Vegetable Garden” by Mark Diacono and Lia Leendertz

From sprouts you can grow on your kitchen counter to baby salad greens ready to eat in a few weeks, this book features 50 crops that grow quickly.

 

 

Emily Sly is a volunteer and outreach program coordinator with the North Olympic Library System. When she’s not at the library, Sly can be found in the garden with her family. She’s currently looking forward to the first ripe strawberry of the season.

Friday is the last day for discount tickets for VAA’s garden tour.

 

Don’t you long, sometimes, for a garden always ready to welcome you home? 

I visited with Miles Small today, enjoying a cappucino on the dining deck overlooking the waterfall pond. “This is a garden to decompress,” this very busy, well-traveled publisher told me. “I didn’t want another hobby… I didn’t want the kind of formal garden I knew back in Cleveland … We wanted something sustainable, all native plants that could take care of themselves … and I wanted this garden to look good in the rain.”

The front garden was once a long construction driveway used by the contractor who started the house. He had to abandon the project: the Smalls picked up the shuttered home and finished the interior before turning to that unlovely driveway four years ago. The big boulder in the waterfall came from underneath the house, bulldozed to the side until Miles found a spectacular use for it.

By starting the garden’s design after living there for some years, Miles knew visitors weren’t clear where, exactly, the entrance began and ended. Now a stout arbor walls off parking from garden, while a sequence of open garden spaces—fire circle, waterfall pond, raised decks—draws visitors through and to the front door. This landscaping was designed by the Smalls, drawn up by Olympic Design, and installed by GroundWork landscapes. 

The couple entertains a lot, sometimes hiring “Loose Change” to play from the upper dining terrace while friends circulate. Sometimes, he said, “this front porch looks like a Latin American house party, with everybody sitting on chairs with beers between their feet” as they keep an eye on the garden. (I counted 15 chairs along that long porch—and told him they’d be welcome rest to you footsore garden tourists.)

A treat unique to garden tour is that you will be welcome INSIDE the house—the only way to the back porch overlooking the forest beyond is through the welcoming double doors, past the sunken living room, and out the kitchen door. The massive wood columns holding up the second floor are peeled doug fir logs from the property; don’t miss the rustic balcony railing, its spindles likewise made of peeled branches.

So when you need a little respite during garden tour, peel out for Maury and the Small’s relaxation/decompression garden.

Santa Barbara, CA, May 30, 2013 –(PR.com)– Santa Barbara-based designers of eye-catching residential and commercial landscapes, Down to Earth Landscapes, Inc. have recently announced that they will be providing rose garden design and installation services for businesses and homeowners across the city of Santa Barbara. As one of the top landscape design and build firms in the Santa Barbara area, the company will enable clients to create spectacular rose gardens at their homes or businesses.

Gardeners know that climate, sun exposure and water play a crucial role in the growth of roses and successful rose gardens. Therefore, it can be challenging for many gardeners to achieve the results they desire.

It’s no wonder, then, that many property owners in Santa Barbara find maintaining a healthy rose garden a difficult task. That’s why Down to Earth Landscapes, Inc. is now offering clients the benefit of their 40-years’ experience through their new rose garden design and maintenance services.

The company’s rose garden design services comprise two separate areas – traditional rose garden design and cottage rose garden design. Traditional rose garden designs are ideal for those garden area owners who require a symmetrical look for their outdoor property. These symmetrical garden areas feature neatly manicured lawns that are laid out in rectangular or square shapes to present a uniform, classical approach to landscape architecture. Traditional rose gardens are also surrounded by paving stones or sod to section-off the garden from surrounding lawn areas, and create a unique ecosystem in which the roses can flourish over time.

The cottage rose garden designs are the antithesis of the traditional approach. These garden styles are only limited by the designer’s creativity and the need to ensure each bed of roses has the space to grow. Through this approach, property owners can combine flowers, logs, ground covers and stones to build a unique garden area that is truly their own.

Clients can create an elegant, highly personalized outdoor living space when they select Santa Barbara based Down to Earth Landscapes, Inc. as their landscape company for rose garden design and installation needs.

Please contact the company today at 805-765-2553 to ask us a question or book a consultation with one of their experienced team members. Alternatively, you can visit more of our website (www.downtoearthlandscapesin.com) to learn more about the company and services.