I have a few clients that challenge me to be the best I can possibly be-this client is right at the top of that list. Her design ability-whether it be interiors, or parties and events, or gardening-is superb. She could have easily founded a School of Design-had she had any inclination to do so. She and her husband live in a beautifully overscaled modern house with a beautifully high pitched roof, and overscaled high-pitched dormers. (This is a landscape designers description of architecture; bear with me.)
To drive into the impossibly small front drivecourt, you would think the house was sited on a postage stamp of land. But in fact, the house is sited on a steep ravine, and hangs out over a rear yard that widens, and goes on to embrace the river. It is a big property, with incredible aerial views.
She loves gardens and flowers. Flowers and more flowers. She is a master chef-so any plan for her has to include acres of basil, and the like. OK-the challenge here-to plant a perennial garden stuffed with roses and other perennials, in a flood plane-courtesy of that river. The first order of business was a lot of drainage, and rear yard grading. When her son got married, we had to install floors in the tents and stepping stones between them at the last second-which we did. The perennial garden ramps up to a curvy modern swimming pool. So far so good.
I met her when I was young-so I had no problem moving every tree and every shrub within two days of my first work there. There were trees, shrubs and perennials placed poorly, and too many boulders. But that house was a jewel-perched out over a beautiful piece of property. The house-a beautifully designed tree house.
A house sited in the crowns of trees-how beautiful. But what if you love to cook, and grow flowers, and want to sit with your garden and family around you?
The house already had a giant deck all across the back. Stairs to the lower level had a small landing-perfect for pots. The lower level under this deck-dark, and intimate. My only suggestion-windowboxes. And lots of pots. 
We built and hung two giant windowboxes-off the deck, at the railing height. There is a whole symphony of flowers in those boxes every year-every year a new arrangement. The pots we outfitted with automatic irrigation-there are too many pots for one family and one hose.
I heard my client tell someone recently I had brought her garden upstairs for her. I had neither the words, nor the clear conscious intent to do this-but I realized when I heard her that she was exactly right.
As I said, she is a client that encourages me to be the best I can be. I am a very lucky designer.
There are some landscape materials I cannot get enough of. Decomposed granite is a material comprised of pieces of granite 3/8ths of an inch across, and smaller. The smaller pieces are known as “fines”. The fines sift down in between the 3/8 inch pieces, and interlock the decomposed granite. This makes for a surface that delivers that beautiful sound with every step that says garden, dead ahead. Decomposed granite looks like sand when it is delivered. I have taken plenty of panic stricken phone calls from clients. But once it is laid down, graded, compacted and washed, it is a surface that won’t give no matter how high those heels are. I have no love for asphalt as a surface; does it not seem like a symbol of all those places we have paved over without cause? Concrete is a great material, as long as it is used with architecture that asks for it. Concrete aggregate is beautiful for modern or contemporary landscapes-I hate to see it used by a client who really wanted gravel, but was too afraid. My mentor and dear friend Al Goldner, told me once his only regret as a designer was that he was not bold enough; be bold! 
Decomposed granite, properly installed, makes for a driveway impervious to tire marks. In this landscape, the driveway flowed seamlessly into paths for a vegetable and cutting garden.
A driveway of decomposed granite requires an expert installation. GP Enterprises does these drives for me. They are so careful to install with a careful eye to grade and drainage. They compact the granite with the same machinery that compacts asphalt. 
Decomposed granite makes a great mulch for comtemporary landscapes. This landscape did not ask for mulch-that granite completed a thought. 
Decomposed granite can finish a formal planting, as well as a contemporary one. It is clean, fresh, and crisp. It is easy to make shapes, and moves; it does a great job of giving the eye a place to rest.
I have done many a terrace in decomposed granite. It is a clean surface, not so demanding of attention as stone. This garden makes much of the pots and the furniture-the granite is a quietly beautiful surface. It is the color of nature, a texture that celebrates all that is set on it. 
This material is useful for more than driveways and paths. Some plantings need a special space of their own.
Wherever people may be in a landscape, I wonder if this surface will play a part. The granite did a great job of featuring the stone from the 1920’s original to this garden.