Showing posts with label landscape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label landscape. Show all posts
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Beyond the Border How to Use Perennials and Grasses in Landscape Settings
Of all the plants I frequently obsess about, herbaceous perennials and grasses are perhaps my favorite. Of all the plant categories, they are the most ephemeral, dynamic plants. One can mark the seasons with these plants; they are harbingers of change. And as a designer, perennials and grasses are the most expressive plants within my palette. Rich layers of bold perennial massings can express a site in powerful ways.
| The British border |
When it comes to designing with perennials and grasses, however, we have a limited language for their use. The perennial border—an intricately arranged, delicate frame of flowers—is really the only concept we have for their use. And while borders can be beautiful, they have limitations. They are generally high maintenance, fussy, and require a high degree of horticultural knowledge. As a result, American gardeners and landscapers are often hesitant to use perennials and grasses because we associate them with British-styled borders. But it does not have to be this way.
Let me propose an alternative. Instead of limiting our landscapes to two distinctly British genres (the manor lawn and the perennial border), let us take the border and explode it out of its box. Let’s blanket our landscapes in bold massings of perennials and grasses. Let’s convert our wall-to-wall carpeting lawns into well-proportioned area rugs surrounded by perennials and grasses. Let’s drape office parks and civic landscapes in vibrant tapestries of flowers, ferns, and sedges.
The American landscape—from the great forests of the East Coast, the iconic prairies of the midland, and the mountains, deserts, and forests of the West—should be ample inspiration for a new, distinctly American garden aesthetic. Like the American landscape, let us use no small gestures. Let us draw on our country’s rich native palette and patterns and distill them into artful, garden spaces. The New Style will not merely imitate our natural landscapes, but interpret them into uniquely modern, human landscapes.
| Over an acre of herbaceous plantings added in the right of way in downtown D.C. Designed for NOMA BID by Thomas Rainer, Derrick Wolbaum, & Elliot Rhodeside, Rhodeside & Harwell. |
Ok, Thomas, enough with the manifesto. Is it really practical to use herbaceous plants on such a scale? Won’t planting huge swaths of perennials and grasses require an enormous effort of weeding, watering, and gardening?
The short answer is yes in the short term, but in the long term, this style of planting can be very low maintenance—even less maintenance than lawn and shrubs. The key to successfully planting large scale perennials and grasses is to combine good plant selection with smart massing.
In the next couple of posts, I’ll get into the nitty-gritty of how to select perennials and grasses for landscape settings. What types of perennials and grasses are best for larger massings? How do you arrange them in a way to minimize their maintenance? How do you make these landscapes full, beautiful, and lasting? Stay tuned . . . I’m giving away all the secrets . . .
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Monday, March 3, 2014
How a Frenchman became Americas Hottest Landscape Architect A Focus on Michel Desvigne
Desvigne’s recent U.S. work includes the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (with architects Herzog & de Meuron), the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts (with architects Norman Foster and REX/OMA), and the St. Louis Art Museum (with architect David Chipperfield).
Desvigne owes much of his recent success to his association with European starchitects such as Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, Herzog and de Meuron, and Jean Nouvel. Cities across the globe are turning to these celebrity architects to revive neglected urban areas by creating sensational cultural buildings. When cities want an architectural adrenaline shot—what Gehry did for Bilbao, Spain—then Desvigne is often the corresponding landscape architect.
The irony is that Desvigne’s designs are anything but iconic. “Having reached what one architecture critic described as the midpoint in my career, I feel I have nothing to show,” describes Desvigne in the introduction to his book Intermediate Natures: The Landscapes of Michel Desvigne. He continues, “Or at least nothing that resembles the seductive images in architecture books.”
Perhaps it is precisely because Desvigne’s work resists formal composition and design stylization that makes him so compatible with celebrity architects. His landscapes are a field to their objects, a living fabric that knits together the architectural pieces. In Dallas, Desvigne’s ten acre Sammons Park offers a green foil to the complex of opera houses, theaters, and ampitheaters that sprawl over the loosely defined district. The park is rather minimal in its design and detail. Blocks of lawn combine with strips of concrete, and the young trees and “micro-gardens” give the landscape an in-the-works feeling. “He has a fascination with the unfinished,” says American landscape architect James Corner. “He does not seem at all bothered that a landscape architectural project may appear raw, young, still-in-development.” Corner and Desvigne are transatlantic intellectual allies. Both landscape architects share similar conceptual approaches that eschew form-making and embrace agriculture as a metaphor for urban intervention.
Perhaps Desvigne’s interest in agricultural landscapes is the key to understanding his work. Agricultural sites differ from scenic landscapes in the fact that they are working and ever-changing landscapes. In the agricultural setting, people work the land and dwell in it, a pragmatic model Desvigne considers appropriate for urban sites. The landscape is not a static object to be looked upon, but a field in which we dwell. “I like poplar groves, orchards, artificially planted forests,” describes Desvigne, “I like to perceive these spaces whose conventional order is forgotten so that they are only densities, variations on density. Neither full nor empty, these squared spaces are sieves of a sort, where paradoxically life moves in—traps for an intermediate nature.” (Image below Keio University, Tokyo).
The influence of agriculture—or more broadly geography—is seen more literally in his design for the Millennium Park in London. The site was a former gasworks that required radical decontamination efforts that leveled the site and created a tabula rasa. Desvigne rejected the idea of creating a large urban park with predictable lawns, playgrounds, and natural areas. Instead, he advocated for the creation of an “intermediate landscape” to give texture and density to the formless site. Inspired by images of aerial photos of alluvial forests, Desvigne called for more than twelve thousand native hornbeam trees and over one hundred thousand shrubs to be densely planted in a grid with clearings indicated for future park activities. The design created a flexible framework for future development that considered the park’s evolution through time.
This process based approach is a hallmark of Desvigne’s work. It gives his work a quality of anticipation and possibility. “I think it is important to hold out against clichés, to play with the multitude, with the successions,” writes Desvigne, “There is no ‘beautiful’ image, nor should there be, except by accident.”
landscape designs for pools
Do you have a swimming in your garden? Whether it is a good above floor pool, a good on-ground pool (fifty percent in the ground along with half earlier mentioned) or an in-ground pool area, theres no need because of it to control the rest of your panorama unless you want to buy too.
Basic safety Tip One particular
The first panorama item you will have to add to a swimming pool is a security fence. Private pools are considered the "attractive nuisance", and it does not matter how many "no trespassing" indications you may have in your property. If the intruder : child as well as adult * gets into your current pool and is also harmed -- you will be accused of negligence. Inside your protect on your own is to have a kennel area surrounding the swimming.
Safety Idea 2
It can be imperative that you maintain your area around your current pool totally free of bric-a-brac. For one thing itll detract from your attractiveness of your current pool, however even more notably it could result in someone to getaway, fall into the actual pool, and possibly get wounded. Even if there isnt any doubt of a legal action, its always finest if your website visitors have a good time and do not hurt them selves!
Alright, that is the grim products out of the way. Currently lets get for the fun products. Youve got a pool area! What comes with it?
Over Ground Private pools
Landscaping all around an over ground swimming is quite distinct from around built to be on-ground or in-ground. The above mentioned ground swimming is so enormous and taking over that theres not necessarily any way you are able to minimize this, so why not spot potted plants close to it. (You dont want to plant bushes or timber near the swimming pool, as the underlying system will get its method underneath the swimming and drive upward : and the swimming pool must be completely level.)
On-ground and also In-ground pools
Anything you have about your pool area - household furniture or other artwork - ensure you place these products more than a number of feet from the edge of your pool. This may prevent men and women from inadvertently tripping. Use a little get rid of where you can spot all the methods needed to maintain your pool area, and exchange them after youre carried out using them. Ensure that the shed features a lock onto it, as you may be storing chemical compounds inside it and also you dont want the crooks to disappear.
Natural fiber furniture put strategically across the pool, the table having an umbrella person of polish lineage in the middle...these are traditional places seen close to a pool. However you can add much more now - a new border involving decorative natural stone, potted plants, sculpture...even a fire.
You can place lamps around the pool to light up it in the evening, but be mindful - if you cannot see the base of your pool area, then you should never go swimming. Which is a simple basic safety precaution. But there is a certain esthetic total satisfaction in observing light participate in across the sparkling surface of normal water.
Youll want to appreciate your pool area for a long time into the future. So, basic safety first, and also esthetic values subsequent. But with somewhat imagination, you can create your pool area the shimmering jewel within your landscape.
 |
| landscape designs for pools |
Basic safety Tip One particular
The first panorama item you will have to add to a swimming pool is a security fence. Private pools are considered the "attractive nuisance", and it does not matter how many "no trespassing" indications you may have in your property. If the intruder : child as well as adult * gets into your current pool and is also harmed -- you will be accused of negligence. Inside your protect on your own is to have a kennel area surrounding the swimming.
Safety Idea 2
It can be imperative that you maintain your area around your current pool totally free of bric-a-brac. For one thing itll detract from your attractiveness of your current pool, however even more notably it could result in someone to getaway, fall into the actual pool, and possibly get wounded. Even if there isnt any doubt of a legal action, its always finest if your website visitors have a good time and do not hurt them selves!
Alright, that is the grim products out of the way. Currently lets get for the fun products. Youve got a pool area! What comes with it?
Over Ground Private pools
Landscaping all around an over ground swimming is quite distinct from around built to be on-ground or in-ground. The above mentioned ground swimming is so enormous and taking over that theres not necessarily any way you are able to minimize this, so why not spot potted plants close to it. (You dont want to plant bushes or timber near the swimming pool, as the underlying system will get its method underneath the swimming and drive upward : and the swimming pool must be completely level.)
 |
| above ground landscape designs for pools |
On-ground and also In-ground pools
Anything you have about your pool area - household furniture or other artwork - ensure you place these products more than a number of feet from the edge of your pool. This may prevent men and women from inadvertently tripping. Use a little get rid of where you can spot all the methods needed to maintain your pool area, and exchange them after youre carried out using them. Ensure that the shed features a lock onto it, as you may be storing chemical compounds inside it and also you dont want the crooks to disappear.
Natural fiber furniture put strategically across the pool, the table having an umbrella person of polish lineage in the middle...these are traditional places seen close to a pool. However you can add much more now - a new border involving decorative natural stone, potted plants, sculpture...even a fire.
You can place lamps around the pool to light up it in the evening, but be mindful - if you cannot see the base of your pool area, then you should never go swimming. Which is a simple basic safety precaution. But there is a certain esthetic total satisfaction in observing light participate in across the sparkling surface of normal water.
Youll want to appreciate your pool area for a long time into the future. So, basic safety first, and also esthetic values subsequent. But with somewhat imagination, you can create your pool area the shimmering jewel within your landscape.
 |
| landscape designs for swimming pools |
Free Landscape Design Ideas Things You Can Do This Weekend
Landscape design ideas come in many shapes, sizes and colors and fit large, small and in-between budgets. If youre the adventurous type, you can "go all out" even to the point of renting a small bulldozer and really doing it big... or have beautiful results with much less effort.
If youre like a lot of us, you just want to have the nicest, most intriguing backyard around, and one you can do yourself. That could be achieved on your rented John Deere or maybe with just a little planing, placement and persistence. Sometimes, the difference between nice and really nice is simply the scale and arrangement.
For instance, incorporating a water feature, such as a fountain or koi pond-in the right place-upgrades everything around it. Ponds, fountains and even waterfalls can be built in a weekend by two non-professionals with a few simple tools and a few hundred dollars. Dont believe me? Go online and search "build koi pond", "cheap waterfalls" or "backyard water feature" for starters. A well placed small portable ceramic waterfall works wonders, too. Even a small water feature adds the unique element of sound.
Creating "areas" for your plantings is a way to add structure to your landscaping while allowing you to go wild within those areas. A vegetable garden set within a grouping of evergreens adds seasonal color and interest while providing food and interesting conversation. A rock tier is a perfect place to grow strawberries and tomatoes. Baskets of shade loving ferns adds serenity when hung from tree branches.
Solar lights are inexpensive and amazing after dark! Place them along a walkway, throughout your landscape or behind your new pond, where theyll reflect your good sense. Buy em, bring em home and stick em in the ground! See how important these can be at your next BBQ when the sun starts to set!
And, as always, keep "color" at the forefront. Variegated leaves, flowers, bright garden art and colorful pots. Color can bring it all together. And be conscious of the environment as you plan. there are many, many plants and landscape elements which are "drought resistant" and environmentally friendly. Its a natural thing to do.
For more tips, advice and free ideas, go to Free Landscape Design and click around!
Durand Demlow is a designer, home remodeler and web site developer. His knowledge and experience has allowed him to create a website focused on helping do-it-yourselfers and homeowners remodel and decorate utilizing his free advice and tips, gathered over three decades of home renovations.
His website, RemodelQuickTips.com, is an ever-changing free resource of ideas and advice.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Durand_Demlow
http://blogspot.com/
Level Alternatives In Landscape designs School
You can now generate a level in gardening by applying yourself in landscape designs university. Most of these colleges also involve techniques in structure, farming, and the like. However not all are blessed to have the high-class of cash to invest.
There are several level alternatives for you when you get yourself into the landscape designs university of your option. Based on time that you have as well as the cash you can invest, you can select on several alternatives for you to explore gardening. For those who want to have an understanding the quickest way possible, they can go for an affiliate level. This only requires two decades of official education and after which one can already be extremely pleased to say that he’s got a feather on his cap. This level already protects most of the primary understanding required for you to be able to engage in a profession in gardening. But since this is only a two-year course, by requirements, some organizations will see this as a restriction because there are those who invested more period in university and got an increased level that you did.
The next option for you is to get into further research or get the bachelors level right away. This level exercising usually requires about four to five decades given that you ace all of your topics. Usually, individuals who really want to are dedicated to gardening engage in this. Students of this level usually go into expert gardening and consultant. For those who have the interest about this art, then you can consider further research and go for a Experts level. Those who go and register this course also understand about city preparing and geographical computer among others.
There are a lot of colleges now that can be regarded to be a landscape designs university. The factor is to create sure that they are approved so that you can be confident that you are getting the best possible understanding around.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)