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A Michigan Gardener, Part 2

 


You may remember this photograph from a post I did a few weeks ago called ” A Michigan Gardener”.  If you knew my client, you would understand how until he could have the entire landscape, he would have nothing.  The design had been drawn and presented for quite some time; out of the blue, they were ready.  

They have a unique situation; their property backs up to a golf course. They are able to take their golf cart out of their garage, and drive to the first tee.  Their love of golf is another story all together; preserving their view of that course was my main concern. I wanted a very strong foreground element that would hold its own against all that golf course acreage,  and a landscape that would frame, and not obstruct those beautiful views out to the course.  Central to the design, 4 Bowhall columnar maples, which would be inset in a picture frame of decomposed granite.  In the center, a fountain.

A fountain-this sounds so simple.  It is, once every dimension is carefully thought through.  Once all the proportions and construction are sorted out. Even the smallest most simple self contained fountain is a great addition to a garden.  A fountain of this size would be a place to congregate, and entertain.  My clients are young, and appreciate modern design.  But they did not want to be limited by a “modern” definition-they wanted a landscape which would please and suit them.  This means a landscape that allows them to easily entertain outdoors.      

The fountain footprint is 10′ by 10′.  My clients have 2 young children and very busy lives-I insisted that this fountain be constructed and cleaned as if it were a swimming pool or spa.  When I make much of a central landscape feature, it only makes sense to cover the maintenance. My client contracted Gillette pools to construct this reflecting pool; Buck built the acid washed steel surround.  Transporting that welded box to and from the galvanizer, and to the site-at which point 8 men carried that 900 pounds of steel box and dropped it over the concrete shell-a big deal.  Once the surround was in place, the frame of decomposed granite was installed. 

I played with no end of possible dimensions for the fountain, as did my clients.  I envisioned the limestone cap at seat height.  The kids in the fountain on a hot day.  A coping wide enough to accomodate a plate and a glass of wine.  The limestone cap-two inches larger than the walls, inside and out.  A low profile.  The golf course, and everything that park- like view represents to my clients-keep that intact. There would still be a wide expanse of lawn.  That large lawn space visually melds their property to the golf course property.  Most of the formal landscape is close to the house, and off to to the sides.       

The attendant landscape is clean and crisp.  It provides privacy from the adjacent homes.  Perennial gardens with a limited plant palette will provide interest throughout the summer.  White Knockout roses, dwarf Russian sage and shasta daisy “Becky” will be easy to maintain; this is my client’s first foray into perennial gardening, and I want him to be successful.  My client tells me he did not exactly know there would be perennials.  I did label certain areas on the plan as “garden”.  I will admit I did not discuss that much with him.  I am not only sure he will be able to handle it, I am even more sure he will really enjoy it.  His interest in landscape and garden is genuine-that is always easy to spot in someone.  The maples, the granite picture frame, and the lawn celebrate the fountain still under construction.  The work should be complete by week’s end. 

In my opinion, a big measure of the success of this landscape has to do with the views from the golf course.  I had an interest in my clients sustaining privacy from the course.  Sometimes privacy has less to do with walls, and much to do with invisible.  Every element and plant hugs the ground, but for the maples. Ros of yews on either side are punctuated with Venus dogwoods; someday those trees will be spectacular for 6 weeks in the spring.  Fot the rest of the year, they will gracefully provide screening from the neighboring homes.  

We brought in soil, and graded away from the house. The lawn always comes at the end of the landscape project, but it is very important. Lawn describes the shape, drop and drift of the land. The lawn plane is to my mind, beautiful.  Those trunks of the Bowhall maples bring the golf course landscape up close.  The fountain vase-coming up.     


Venus dogwoods, yews, boxwoods, and sparsely furnished perennial gardens round out the landscape around this fountain.  A formal landscape concept has a decidedly modern execution. Always on my mind is how I can apply and go on from the history of design to projects from real people who engage me. The fountain will have its vase and jet installed this week.  More to follow.

Posted on: September 20, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Ornament, Landscape Design

In Process

I am hoping you remember my post from not long ago about a young but very articulate client whose parents rank right up there on my list of “ten people I cannot do without”. I will amend that statement.  Cathy and Dick rank right up there with my most favorite clients, but kid Rich is getting my attention.  This rear yard, post a big house renovation, has been laying in wait.  Sue is so over the laying in wait phase-Rich is lucky to have her.  Thank you Sue, for getting Rich to get moving.  We got going with the landscape a little more than two weeks ago.  

Four Bowhall maples were planted first off.  Trees of this size require planting via a tree moving truck as big as a garbage truck.  The rootballs were 120″-10 feet-in diameter.  A house bereft of any plant of scale asks for a little something big.  Given the prized views to the golf course, columnar trees seemed like a good idea. 

A fountain figures prominently in the design.  A 10′ by 10′ fountain, 18″ above ground would feature a galvanized and acid washed steel surround, and a likewise contemporary steel vase skimming the surface of the water, and spouting.  This picture of Buck’s shop, and the fountain surround was shot from the mezzanine level at the Branch studio.    The surround in question was ready for a trip to the galvanizing plant.   


A complicated landscape installation involves the coordination of a lot of contractors from different disciplines. GP Enterprises would install the drainage first up, and then the big trees.  We would install the landscape.  Concurrent to our work, Gillette Pools would begin the installation of the fountain.  The irrigation work-a whole other issue we hope will get done today.   

Nothing gets done in the blink of an eye-just ask my client.  Each phase has its issues that need sorting out.  Careful and thoughtful sorting out.  Who needs a poorly planned installation to be evident at the finish?  No one.  The forms for the fountain seem like the work of a boy scout project, but they are anything but.

Wes Gillette has been installing fountains, spas, and pools for a good many years.  His work I can rely on.  I know this fountain will be reinforced with steel, level, and true.  Exactly what was drawn on the plan.  I can expect that he will coordinate with Buck on the installation of the steel surround, and fountain vase.

This fountain goes the extra 50 miles, thanks to Wes.  The water will be filtered and cleaned, just like a spa or swimming pool.  Though they were not interested in a swimming pool or spa, they greatly liked the idea of a fountain that would be people friendly.  The 8′ by 8′ water surface will have a fountain vase 4′ in diameter, and an overall depth of 23″.  I can see friends, kids, and family in the water.


Though the forms pictured may seem slight, the finished concrete work is solid.  This fountain will need its surround, its coping set at seat height, its pumps installed, its fountain vase levelled and fastened securely.  Every part of this fountain will need to be level.  My conversation over the Labor Day weekend with Buck-mostly about how to set and fasten that fountain vase level.

Posted on: September 7, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: The Branch Studio, Garden Ornament, The Natural World, Landscape Design

More Hounds

I am very pleased that Troy is in the process of creating his third collection of hand sculpted concrete hounds for the Branch Studio, as all but one of the original 18 dogs have been sold.  Detroit Garden Works gets inquiries about them regularly-no wonder. His sculptures accurately represent the forms of the hounds, but what is extraordinary about them is how they capture the soul and being of of a hound.  He grew up in a rural Michigan community in a family that hunted, gardened, fished, and grew a lot of their own food.  He was a naturalist, farmer, fruit grower, plantsman and gardener before he ever turned to sculpture.  His understanding of the natural world is evident in all of his work.             

His Annie is a Cattahoula Leopard cur-one of the oldest North American mongrel breeds.  Bred in Loiusiana to hunt wild boar, they are also known as Catahoula hog dogs.  Fiercely dog-like, smart, energetic and unruly, Annie is much more like a wolf than a poodle.  That barely civilized soul of hers you can see loud and clear in Troy’s sculptures. 

The sculptures begin with the a steel rebar armature that gets covered with a heavy duty wire mesh. The armature is designed and built to give the concrete strength, not describe the finished shape. But even at this stage, it is easy to see that the finished sculpture will have energy and grace.  

The frame is hot dip galvanized, to keep the steel from rusting once it is coated with cement.  Steel and cement in contact with one another is an unfriendly affair.  Cement absorbs water; steel in contact with water rusts. The galvanizing process helps keep the two materials away from each other. 

The entire form is packed solid with cement; this is a time consuming and tedious affair.  Once the form has cured, a layer of mortar is applied, and hand carved.  This is a simple description of a process which requires a considerable knowledge of how mortar can be worked before it sets up.  I have watched him work an entire day when all the mortar would do is fall off the concrete. Or another day when nothing was to his liking; he would chip it all off the next day.

Should the mortar set up faster than you can sculpt it-troublesome. A clear understanding of how the materials work allows him to concentrate on what makes these dogs sculpture.  To the last they have energy, attitude, rhythm, tension-life.   

Each dog would have a whole lot of one thing going on.  His sleeping dogs would be sleeping deeply, oblivious to all else.  His howling dogs would keep on howling, or howl louder. His playing dogs had nothing else on their mind except play.They were all engaged in some singular hound activity.  Whether sleeping, playing or barking at the moon,  I knew they would really come to life outdoors.

Though I really like all kinds of sculpture in a garden, I am particularly fond of these.  They are of a scale and grace that makes them as natural as they are striking.  Imagine this moment in the landscape without the hounds-sleepy.  Garden sculpture that does not necessarily engage, energize or require a landscape does not appeal to me as much. The dogs look great from a distance, as they are very simple and direct expression of the artist’s view of the living world.  Don’t ask me what I mean by this, but these dogs are as witty as they are wily. I doubt my garden will ever have a 19th century limestone sculpture of the huntress Diana, a steel sculpture done by Richard Sera, or a Deborah Butterfield horse, but it could have this dog. I could move it to a different spot every year. I am guessing that before long the dog would have a name. 


When Annie would visit, no surface outdoors was too high off the ground for her,  or off limits to her. You could not help but admire all that energy and zest for the out of doors.  See what I mean?

Posted on: September 6, 2010 4 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Ornament, Good Design, The Natural World Tagged With: , , ,

Small Spaces

 

The dowager queen French vase from yesterday’s post has a home waiting for her-but not the home I expected.  An object of this size would need an even bigger space, wouldn’t you think?  What evolved was anything but.    

My clients bought a house that had never really been finished.  The landscape was much the same; unfinished.  My client referred to the property on the side of the house as “the music room mulch garden”.  It was bleak.  This very small space functioned as a transition space between the front of the property, and the rear-a sheer 8′ foot drop in grade. A boulder retaining wall at grade barely visible in this picture was punctuated by a staircase down with 16 stone steps-maybe more.  This left the area with an edge that was in fact a precipice.  At the base of the precipice, multiple air conditioning units, and a collection of meters apparent in this picture.     

My first design, they flat out rejected; I had missed some important information. My first design did not take into account that they spent their summers at a home on the East Coast.  OK, my plan for a cutting garden and whatever went with that was way off the mark.  Plan 2-a landscape that would function and look beautiful early and late, and especially over the winter.  A small landscaped area that would have big impact. A healthy hedge of Thuja Nigra sporting one lone out of place Thuja Pyramidalis was a starting point.  

Three linden espaliers of great age would form a backdrop to this small garden.  The green wall they would provide would take up little space, and would screen the clunky boulders and grade changes from view.  Enclosing a small space makes for a feeling of intimacy.  And the room would need some furnishing.  

Three linden espaliers, each about 10 feet wide, completely covered the back.  It would be up to my client to decide whether to maintain the horizontal pattern of the branches, or let the the twiggy growth make a solid wall of leaves. Green velvet boxwood organizes the ground plane.  The precipitous drop to the rear yard is shielded from view by a hedge of Thuja Nigra that matched the hedge already in place on the street side.  Flat and safe spaces are friendly to people. As for the mulch pile we had scraped up-that would be used to mulch the new plantings.  

Decomposed granite walkways make it easy to navigate the space. The color is easy on the eye, but provides strong contrast to the green elements.  There is no reason a small space cannot be a lively and interesting space.

A simple arrangement of plant material and gravel finishes the landscaping portion of the project.  Now what? 

From inside the house, a generously proportioned bench makes the space look inviting. The placement of the bench implies there will be something of interest to see.  I thought that old French vase might be just the thing.  

The colors of each compliment one another. The placement of a large element in a small space can be dramatic.


The view from the bench side is in scale with the size of the house.   Should I plant very tall? Short and wide? With what? It will take some time and thought to get the planting just right.

Posted on: September 4, 2010 1 Comment
Filed Under: Garden Ornament, Woody Plants Tagged With: , , ,