Good Bones

The picture above was taken in the early morning of Jan 3, 2021. I remember waking up well before dawn to a landscape whose every surface was transformed by mounds of snow. Giant snowflakes floated downward on the still air like feathers, and stuck to whatever surface they touched first. The quiet was disconcerting. My yard was truly a fairyland – the first time ever quite like this. Every shape in the landscape was faithfully described and added to by this extraordinary snow.  Within minutes of opening my eyes, I was dressed, out the door, and marveling.  I took photographs for several hours, and several hours after that the snow had completely melted and was gone. This was an incredible weather event of  breathtakingly striking and shocking beauty, the likes of which I had never seen before.

That snow dispassionately described the landscape design. I was happy about what that revealed. A good landscape composition celebrates the depth of a space by beautifully revealing its background, mid ground and foreground. Of course a landscape is a sculpture –  a three-dimensional object, if you will. Great landscape design explores that uniquely spatial quality created by land and sky-and edges. I can’t really explain what I mean by edges, except to say that everything and everyone has them. Expressing depth in a composition fuels the means by which a landscape space can be wrought and experienced. A design. Depth in a landscape composition creates mystery, and reveals surprising outcomes at unexpected or opportune moments. Some designers describe this as flow. Others describe this as rooms with transitions in between. The background space above is a thicket of tree branches indicating trees that are a ways away. The focal point of that background space is a a centrally located container with a cut evergreen tree inside. That planter box is in the front of the back – ha. The mid ground space is defined by the hedge of arborvitae that is open in the center to permit travel and views through. The gate marking that entrance and exit is overseen by a steel arbor wreathed in a pair of John Davis roses. That gate explains how the end of the mid ground space becomes the beginning of the foreground space. That arbor is centered in the transition between the front and the back. It also separates the public space from the private. The structure of those climbing roses in the snow is every bit as beautiful here as they are in bloom in June.  I mean this. The foreground space features Limelight hydrangeas, faced down by hedges of clipped boxwood, and opens up to a widening path of snow covered grass.  This composition features layer after layer of plants from front to back. What is it that makes the relationships established by this design so dramatic and clear?  The weather.


The landscape here is very simple. Lots of boxwood clipped in various shapes, heights and volumes, and symmetrically placed containers framing the walk to the front door. The containers feature fan willow faced down by cut fir boughs. This view is unexpectedly dramatic, given this rare type of snow. The snow reviewed the design, as it reduced all of the major shapes to their simplest forms. What is usually experienced in varying and often romantically subtle shades of green is presented without ceremony in black and white. A significant snowfall can reveal the bones of the design. Are they good sturdy bones?

Our most recent snow was not nearly as spectacular as the 2021 storm, but it was good nonetheless. The skirt of this container is set with cut evergreen boughs that radiate out from the center. A second set of evergreen boughs are set on end against the centerpiece. Separating the vertical fir from the horizontal is a loosely defined ring of green and white pine cones in a nest of lights. A single evergreen material has special visual interest given its multi-dimensional placement. This simple arrangement with only a few elements is all the more striking given the landscape around it.  The snow tells that story.

A different year in this location, the container sparkled with an abundance of lights. An unusually textural snow cover produced yet another visual version of this landscape. Over the course of a year or a gardening season, the weather should play a major role in the landscape design. I am an advocate of landscape design which takes a sweeping bow to that element we call nature.

Rob took this photograph of my driveway near the garage a few nights ago. I have not parked here for better than 15 years, so the landscape has grown in and over the edges of the space. I like that. I have a piazza now, rather than a driveway. There is no real need to shovel the space, as it is for viewing, and not foot or car traffic. It is amazing what an enormous difference it makes visually to make such a simple change in the treatment of a landscape space.  The snow revealed this.

That same night, the snow illustrated the transition between the driveway and the fountain garden. The pots, arbor and fence occupy that mid ground. That middle ground space can be the most difficult to define and develop in a landscape.  It sometimes involves putting an idea or an object or a plant out there in the middle and building from there. Starting a design at the front or the leading edge or the beginning is not necessarily the best or only way forward. A landscape will speak back, if you give it sufficient time. This mid ground space took many years to establish. There is no substitute for age on a landscape.

This is as close as I have been to that extraordinary snow in 2021. I am happy for it. Beautiful snow is a hallmark of our winter. Having a well designed landscape on which beautiful snow can act makes the winter season welcome, yes. The fence pictured above, punctuated by a gated arbor and flanking pots, is not that unusual a treatment of an outdoor space –  but the considerable change of level does give pause. But the simple arrangement of bold and thoughtful forms emphasizes the main idea. The legibility of intent is key to good landscape design.

Most of my landscape is going on 28 years old. That age has enriched design decisions made decades ago.  Sometimes it is good to stay the course, and see what grows.

 

The Garden Cruise July 23, 2023


Detroit Garden Works hosted its first Garden Cruise to benefit the Greening of Detroit since 2019. I feel an intense satisfaction in being able to write that sentence. Perhaps some background for those readers who are not familiar with this event should come first. The Garden Cruise is a celebration of a lot of events. The landscape design that has been my life’s work. The extraordinary relationships created with clients culminating in the building of a landscape project. The selection and placement of beautiful and appropriate landscape ornament that physically centers and metaphorically organizes the landscape in question. And those steel boxes, benches, ornament, fountains and pergolas designed and manufactured in steel by my company, The Branch Studio.  The wild shade garden portion of the landscape pictured above, which is part of the upcoming tour, features all of these things.  It was designed and planted almost 10 years ago. The rod steel sphere fabricated at Branch Studio is fixed on top of a repurposed 19th century English stone lawn roller set on end – minus its steel armature –   as a rather contemporary pedestal. That piece was sourced and purchased in England by Rob Yedinak, and shipped to Detroit Garden Works and offered for sale. The wild garden features shade plants that beautifully represent and thrive in Michigan-so hellebores, sweet woodruff, pulmonaria, brunnera, hamamelis-and hemlocks. The big old spruce had seen better days, but why remove plants of such majestic scale and presence?

These clients are extraordinary people. They have diverse interests, but to the last they are united in their love of this house which is turning 100 years old, their love of nature and the natural world, and their commitment to preservation and restoration.  The bricks and limestone slabs were part of a wall in such disrepair that it had to come down and be rebuilt. Those stone and brick elements featured in the walk above were the original wall materials they felt were too beautiful to throw away. They asked me to design something around them. We call this path from the back yard to the front yard “the history walk”. There was story telling. History and artistry. In all my years of designing and installing landscapes, this photograph of my client in his surgical scrubs touring his garden late in the day is one of my favorites.  Gardens are good for people.


They also have a big love for entertaining outdoors in the summer. I drew a 20′ diameter circle on the site plan, and wrote the word POOL in the center. Ha! That ignited a firestorm of discussion, most of which had to do with not wanting a round pool. I was able to persuade them that round entertaining spaces are so friendly. And that it would fit handsomely in their oddly shaped lot. I was able to persuade them, once the shock of the suggestion had faded. A final design featuring the change of grade between the house and the rear lot line looked exactly like who it was for.

That is an essential part of a successful landscape design – a relationship that enables work that looks like it belongs to the client and their property.  This landscape has been on the tour before, but the way in which it is evolving and maturing makes it well worth another visit.


These clients have invested 25 years in the landscape and gardens on their 7 acre property. They went so far as to purchase the house next door, as it would complete and make whole a natural feature of the land. What an extraordinary thing to do! The property is packed with gorgeous mature trees – some usual fare, and some rarely seen outside of an arboretum.

In recent years I have been involved in the landscape design of those areas adjacent to both the main house and the getaway house. This portion of the landscape has a distinctive contemporary feel that is quite formal. The allee of columnar hornbeams pictured above is at the beginning of a very unusual trimming protocol. The outsides of the trees will be pruned flat, and the interior will be a celebration of the natural arching branches of these trees.

Adjacent and perpendicular to the broad gravel pathway which connects the main house to the other is a 50′ diameter circle of liriope spicata. The texture and mass generated by this single plant is stunning. On a breezy day, it is constantly in motion. What is perhaps the most amazing is that these clients maintain virtually the whole of their property themselves. I am not sure how many containers they have filled with seasonal plants, but that number is big.


In additional to small seating areas sprinkled throughout the gardens, there are plenty of places near the house to leisurely sit and enjoy the out of doors.  They have devoted considerable effort to providing a large terrace, pergolas, and furnishings to host friends and family comfortably for meals, parties and celebrations. Plan to spend some time exploring this landscape.

My landscape and gardens have been on the Garden tour every year since they began in 2008. A visit was mostly about how plants had grown.  The only substantial change from year to year was the container plantings. This year is not so much different, except for the deck and fountain garden.

I do have new furniture, and a mix of  of pots. French glazed pots from Terre Albine so enchanted me that I had to have some at home. All of these particular pots were broken from a series of unrelated mishaps. One of the fabricators at the Branch Studio was able to piece them all back together. I like that these beautiful pots still have a place in a garden, and I love them in my garden.
I am not posting any pictures of the fountain garden. Better that you see it in person. It is completely and shockingly different than it once was. Everything has a life span, including a landscape and garden. This part of my landscape has only been in 2 years.

This client has always had an interest in plants and flowers, but he has a fairly new and more substantial involvement. I was able to redo areas of the landscape to feature more ornamental plants and containers. He is watering his pots when they need it, and keeping his eye on all of the plants.

He is thoroughly enjoying what pleasure the outdoors can provide to people.

A large scale pool which is an entertainment focal point for his family and friends now has the ornamental gardens to go with. A mature hedge of Green Giant arborvitae provides a gorgeous backdrop and lots of privacy to the pool deck. In the immediate foreground is a series of three steel planter boxes fabricated at Branch. A section of a boxwood hedge was removed and planted elsewhere in favor of a seasonal flower display.

This landscape features a formal front yard composed of masses of spherically pruned Green Gem boxwood, boxed smaller scale Green Gems, and Venus dogwoods. A hedge of limelight hydrangeas encloses it all.  This pattern of planting encloses a spacious drive court. The house sits high on a rather steep hill, so parking near the house was a landscape priority.

The back yard with literally no flat space has been transformed by a 3200 square foot wood deck made from Ipe. The far end of this deck is 11 feet above the existing grade. Inset in the deck is a three sided infinity edge pool and waterfall. At the far end, a large scale pergola designed with louvered roof panels for shade by Branch Studio provides a shady spot for lounging and dining. The surrounding landscape is informal and lush.

I do hope as many of you as possible who are reading will attend this Garden Cruise on July 23, 2023 from 9am to 4:30pm, and the cocktails and pizza dinner reception to be held at Detroit Garden Works afterwards. So many have asked me to sponsor a tour again, and to write again. I am doing both. It will be an excellent tour well worth the time of any person for whom the garden is a way of life.

All of the proceeds of the ticket sales – 40.00 for the cruise, and 55.00 for the cruise and reception –  go to benefit the programs of the Greening of Detroit – an organization whose work I think is crucially important to the City of Detroit. For further information   www.thegardencruise.org     Tickets can be purchased over the phone or in person at Detroit Garden Works.  248  335  8057.

A Pergola From Branch Studio

 

I am several years into a landscape project with great and ever so patient clients. In 2019 we removed their old dysfunctional driveway, regraded the entire front yard, and added back a new driveway and a landscape to go with. So far, so good. The back yard has been the subject of our efforts for better than a year. As the house is built on and into a steep hill, the rear yard had no flat usable space outdoors. Unless you count the 400 odd square feet pictured in the photo above. A large scale ipe deck with a swimming pool –  part of which is cantilevered over an 11 foot drop in grade –  has strongly addressed that problem. They like to entertain, and they are actively involved in supporting their greater community. They also like spending time out of doors. They were keen to create a place that would be beautiful and functional. The deck and pool were monumental undertakings, due to the sheer size, the difficulty accessing the site, and the extreme grade.  We are very near the end of that part, but for the glass rails that will surround the deck.  I am hoping the project will be entirely finished by the end of May, so they have the rest of this season ahead of them to enjoy it.

One component of that landscape was a pergola to be fabricated at Branch. Those of you who follow this blog know that I bought a 7 acre property with industrial buildings and large capacity bridge cranes in 2004, with the express idea of designing and fabricating heirloom quality objects for the garden in steel. We have been at exactly that over the ensuing years. The years have provided an opportunity to tune up fabrication protocols. And they have provided a framework for the evolution of design. Our original pergolas from years ago were designed primarily to provide large scale, organizing structure to a landscape. Seating areas under them naturally came to mind. They also could support large growing lax vines. Think climbing roses, climbing hydrangea, grapes and wisteria, or sweet autumn clematis. Both the strength of the steel and the permanent performance of the finish made them a great partner for vigorously growing vines that would put on weight, year after year. Those leafy plants that eventually grow over the roof would eventually provide shade.

However, not every location for a pergola is accommodating to in ground plants.  The south end of this deck is long ways away from any soil, and the location is very sunny. We needed a structure with the intrinsic ability to provide shade. A pergola that could provide a shaded area for dining and seating would be a welcome addition to the deck furnishings. The curving louver design was inspired by the art glass sheathing a waterfall next to the pool. Engineering this roof took time. Eventually, 28 individual fixed louver steel roof panels that could be dropped into a framework built in to the roof were fabricated. The structure is 32 feet long, and 14′ deep. The 11′ height of the structure matches the height of a horizontal frame set in a series of 6 large windows on the facade of the house. The columns and corner brackets are beefy, as the roof is heavy.

The pergola is tall enough that its roof does not interfere with the view out the picture windows. Nor does it restrict light coming in to those windows. It looks remarkably light and airy, considering it weighs 4500 pounds. The ipe deck is incredibly strong, but a pair of support beams traverse the underside of the deck to provide an additional level of support to the steel columns.

All of the roof panels are identical. But they cast different levels of shade depending on their orientation. Since the spring season is up next, and the intensity of sunlight at that time of year is subdued, the panels were placed to provide a more open shade from the south side. Being outdoors on a sunny spring day is one of the garden’s most memorable experiences.

Viewed from the north side, the shade is more saturated. As the panels are dropped in, and held in place by the roof framing mechanism, the panels could be rotated to provide more shade from the south side later in the season. The panels could also be alternated one by one, or row by row, for other versions of shade. It would only take 2 people several hours to completely change the arrangement. The louver style means that warm air will be able to dissipate quickly.

Viewed from the northeast, it appears that the  areas of sun and shade will be balanced.

From the north side, the shade cast will be much more pronounced. The sun is still low in the sky now, so it will be interesting to see what level of shade is provided once the sun is directly overhead. In any event, the pergola will go a long way towards providing a comfortable place to enjoy the outdoors.

Everyone’s interest and participation in the landscape is unique to them. I have come to have loads of respect for all forms that expression might take. On a practical level, it means trying to provide whatever direction it takes to get people outdoors. It also means cultivating empathy as an essential element of good design. What could happen next is not predictable, but I have had numerous instances over the years of a tentative interest in nature blossoming into a commitment to the health and well being of a piece of property. Or down the line a garden with which to teach their children how to grow vegetables and flowers. Or a new found love for spring flowering bulbs or fruit trees. It happens.

There is a special personal satisfaction in having taken the design of a structure for the landscape to another level. Our head of design and engineering, Dan Moore, and his fabrication group of 6 do a terrific job of manufacturing our stock line of boxes, pots, fountains and ornament. They do an equally great job of engineering and fabricating something they have never made before. I think they like making those forays into the unknown. All they needed from me was the concept.

It will scarcely be another month or two before this space will be humming with activity. The waterfall will be running and the pool will be open to the sky.The glass rails should be installed by Memorial Day. The furniture has arrived, and is in place; the outdoor grill is hooked up. I can easily imagine this space full of people enjoying a summer evening.

The last part, as usual, will be the landscape. We will be ready to start that in a few weeks. Most of what we plant will be trees. A new generation tucked in to an existing old woodland.

Savoring this moment.

A Perfect Moment

By late January, winter has an immutable grip on my zone. It’s cold, but the cold is not the spirit breaker. Its the gray. All the imperceptibly different versions of gray. The massive and almost daily uni-cloud that covers the entire landscape from the sky on down. We have weeks and weeks of it yet to go. Michigan has an impressive number of cloudy winter days. That day after day gray, on top of the cold and wintry weather, is a serious damper for anyone who lives to be out of doors. Gray days and lengthy nights ask for a little intervention. Just in case you are asking why I still have a lighted tree on my deck January 21, this is the reason. That glow from the tree is warm and inviting. It banishes a bit of the gloom. And it casts what the winter has to offer in a positively beautiful light.

It is not too many for me – having two lighted trees. This one in my side yard illuminates the entire area. People often ask me what kind of lights I use. That doesn’t matter so much, although LED lights are certainly more economical to run. What really matters is using lights in sufficient quantity to provide the quality and extent of light you want. Though this is the south side, it is exceptionally dark in the winter. The surrounding arborvitae are every bit of 14 feet tall, and their foliage turns black/green in response to the cold. They are brooding and monolithic. The tree provides just enough light to bring this part of the landscape into a winter focus. On a gray day, the tree sparkles. I don’t visit this spot so often in the winter, but I see it from inside every day and every night. The light is an invitation to enjoy the landscape from afar. Its no secret that I believe lighting and winter containers are both essential elements of the winter landscape. How and when to provide it may be addressed in November and December, but what they provide is most welcome in January and February.

Lighted containers installed in the landscape in November and December are ready for the winter weather. Containers decorated for the holidays celebrate a specific event, but once those holiday elements are removed, a winter container is set to perform over the long haul. We will have wind, heavy snow and bitter cold along with the gray. Once in a blue moon, we have a snow unlike all others. The wet sticky snow falls slowly and vertically in windless and entirely quiet conditions. The total snow fall is but an inch or two or three. But it sticks to and steadily builds on every surface it touches. The quality of this kind of snow is such that it even sticks to vertical surfaces. I have never heard a weather news caster predict such an event, but air temperature and humidity play a crucial role. The science aside, it is a perfect moment in the winter landscape. No lighted winter container is ever more glorious than when clothed in snow like this.

The same is true for the landscape. A good design is both revealed and invigorated by weather. It is a vital element in the landscape over which a gardener has no control. Some weather is entirely destructive, but there is always the opportunity to re imagine and rebuild.  Whether it be rain or snow or fall leaves, or the drop of spent magnolia flower petals, a fresh coat of weather tells a story. In the above picture, the design elements of line, mass and texture are illustrated in a graphic way. The color of the light is in especially striking contrast to the somber surrounding landscape.

Fantail willow branches sport an infinite variety of curving shapes. The snow, and a strategically placed spot light, feature not only their shapes, the the overall shape created by their placement.

To follow are too many pictures of my visit to the garden that day. I was outside at 6:45 am, and back indoors by 8:15.

 

 

The towering maple in the far left background and the weeping Norway spruce in the right mid ground have probably been there better than 50 years. The arborvitae and foreground boxwood are about 20 years old. The Princeton Gold maples in the far background were planted in 2005. After that, the large container in the side yard. Next, the hydrangeas. The arbor and John Davis roses are probably only 4 or 5 years in. Did those climbing roses look at beautiful here as they did in full bloom? Oh yes. A lot of years came together in preparation for this perfect moment. It was indeed a very brief moment. This extraordinary snowfall melted away within a few hours. The relationship between nature, the landscape, age and the ephemeral keeps me designing.