Landscape Design | Deborah Silver & Co.

A Snowy Interlude

As near as I can tell, we had 16 inches of snow fall yesterday. Actually, it didn’t really fall-the wind blew it every which way. It started out slow, but it was steady. At 5 pm yesterday, I had decided the weather forecast people had been outwitted by Mother Nature once again. We had some snow-but we always have snow. A winter in Michigan without snow is rare. The piddling daytime accumulation surely was not the volume of snow we had had by this time last year. I was yawning. By 6pm the speed of descent had really picked up, along with the wind. Hmm. By 10 pm, I knew the snowfall would be considerable.

This was our first snow storm of the winter. As much as I detest being shut out of my garden, the winter landscape can be quite beautiful. If a landscape has been designed with a winter season in mind, there should be plenty to look at. I suppose I should be censured for still having my garland and wreath up in February, but it has a wintry look to me. I like having it to look at. I feel the same way about my winter lighting. How the lights melt the snow-bravo, those lights.

The evergreens in my landscape are beautiful, given either a dusting, or a drubbing of weather. We had lots of wind; would that I were able to photograph it. It was fierce. The big Norway maple in the back left of this photograph was swaying, and creaking. The sound was as spectacular as the motion.

In the morning, the landscape was all about the depth of the snow, and the height of the drifts. Beautiful. Some storms can be utterly destructive and horrifying. This snow, everywhere, whipped into the most astonishing shapes, was breathtaking.

It took an hour for one of my landscape crew people to shovel the drive. They look after me in the winter. I will admit that I backed the suburban blind down the driveway to the street to clean it off. There really isn’t any other place to put snow here. The Suburban snow went in the street.

Once I cleaned off the bus, I backed it back up the driveway. I would need to gun it out of the drive into the street. Only the momentum established by this heavy vehicle would propel me 1/2 block to the next street over-which had been plowed. My city only plows the main arteries in a neighborhood. I would be on my own, getting to that plowed street.

Before I left for work, I had to take more pictures. We had a landscape/weather event, and I am a fan of such. I am trying not to think about another snow storm, as the snow piles are 6 feet tall from this one storm. But all the snow was beautiful. I shoveled the upper deck myself. The snow was dry and powdery-I just pushed it off the deck into the yard.

My winter pots had a look this morning not of my own creation. Given a rock solid construction, they were unfazed by all of the snow. Just so much better looking. So striking, the forms generated by the snow.

These plastic picks with rhinestone dots were unbowed, and still glittering this morning.

The fountain yard was sculptural beyond anything I had been able to achieve with this space. It was corgi-proof. Even Milo would not venture off the bottom stair. I love the peace and quiet of it. How the landscape is muffled.

This thick blanket of snow illustrates how the garden is sleeping in the very strongest of graphic terms.

garden bench in winter

fencing, stone wall, and yews-interpreted by the snow.

The snow has transformed my winter landscape-all for the better.

Posted on: February 2, 2015 18 Comments

Filed Under: Landscape Design, Picture This, Winter Tagged With: winter landscapes., the garden in winter, winter interest

Complicated

This past fall I had a call from a great client from years ago. They bought a new house- recently built, and close to finished on the inside. The outside revealed a large piece of property with dirt as far as the eye could see. The contractor on the house recommended a landscape architect-a landscape professional I happen to greatly admire. My first visit to the site was during the installation of his complex and beautifully imagined walk from the driveway to the front door. A curved set of steps lead to a generously scaled landing, centered on the dining room window, and not the front door. Had the walk been centered on the front door, the landscape would forever have looked off balance and lopsided. A bump out halfway to the front door would prove to be a perfect spot for a bench. The curved walkway falls within the center space, defined by the front porch and dining room window taken as a whole. That walkway would be the dominant element of the front landscape.

My clients were a little uncertain about the complicated landscape that was additionally proposed. I understand that uncertainty. Any landscape involves lots of time and commitment. They were concerned that the landscape proposed was too involved, meaning it would be in need of frequent and ongoing maintenance. I understand this point of view. I reserve complicated gardens for clients who latch onto the idea of a complicated garden as if it were all they ever wanted from their life. Other clients, who love the landscape, may have kids and demanding jobs that drain time away from maintaining an intricate landscape.

Consideration of the maintenance was a key part of the design for my own landscape at home. I would make regular time to take care of my containers, and dead head a few roses. But I also wanted to relax in and enjoy my garden when I got home from work. These clients were of similar mind. They both are busy working people, and they are raising a family. A very simple landscape that would look put together and elegant every season of the year would respect the lives of my clients. By way of contrast, a simple landscape would visually reinforce that stone walkway as the dominant element of the landscape.

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Of great importance was the fact that the house was built on rather steeply sloping ground from side to side. A stone retaining wall encloses that space, and isolates the remainder of the property from the front yard. The landscape would have a clearly defined space in which to be. As evident in the drawing in the first picture, the landscape beds are rectilinear and opposite in direction from the walk. The visual read is as though the landscape came first, and was overlaid by the walk.

Laying out all of the spaces in advance is the last step of a design. What is drawn on paper only rarely translates to the actual space perfectly. My drawings are not perfect, as I draw by hand. I have also had more than a few surveys with inaccurate dimensions. Trying the landscape on for size before you plant is a good idea. Once the plants are purchased, they may not be so easy to return.
No decision was made immediately as to what would go on either side of the walk leading up to the porch. There was no need. Those spots could be handled in a number of different ways, each of which could be good. I had a plan to suggest different pots for the porch, and move these urns to the side. I would bring the new pots out, so they could try them on.

We did cover the new limestone walk with plywood and tarps. There was no reason to put put any more dirt on that walk than necessary. As we did this job fairly late in the fall, the temperatures were chilly, and we had had a lot of rain. We had a need for a considerable amount of soil to bring the grade up to the grade set by the walk. The pipes for the irrigation had already been set. The irrigation contractor would finish the job just before we were ready to mulch the planting. We use ground hardwood bark fines, which deteriorates fairly quickly, and adds much needed compost to the soil. The mulching will need to be done every year.

We did plant three Venus dogwoods-small trees. The geometry of the ever green planting was strong enough from the start that larger trees really weren’t necessary. I like planting smaller trees. They take hold quickly and put on weight fast. The center rectangle would be grass. As the grass would go right up to the trunk of the tree, it would have to be clipped by hand around the trunk.

A tree set in the lawn without a ring of mulch is a maintenance headache, but given that the rest of the landscape would take very little work to maintain, I splurged on the look.

My clients did decide on four Jackie boxes from Branch-2 rectangles, and two squares. The area between the box and the front wall was planted with white tulips, and will have annuals in the summer. The area underneath the window was planted with white variegated hosta.

The look coming up the walk-simple, but lush. The house has particularly beautiful architectural details. The landscape will never obscure any of those.

The area in front of the wall will be planted in the spring. Either a low sun tolerant ground cover, or perennial-or mix of perennials. A low wall is a challenge to work with. While the base of it needs softening, a beautiful wall should be visible. I have a few months to think that through.

We did have time to squeeze in some winter pots. It is a little tough to see in the photograph, but the rectangular bvoxes sit on decomposed granite, for ease of maintenance. I would not object however, to alyssum growing in the gravel.

Part 2 is set to come next year. But for now, the front of the house is entirely presentable.

Posted on: January 23, 2015 25 Comments

Filed Under: Landscape Design, Woody Plants Tagged With: Landscape Design, stone retaining walls, limestone walkway

The Weather

What’s your weather like today? Mine is cool and rainy, punctuated by torrential downpours of short duration. Two days ago the temperature was above 80 degrees by late afternoon. The forecast calls for 48 degrees tomorrow, and 39 degrees tomorrow night. The transition between summer and fall is marked by moody weather. There will be frequent swings in temperature, wind, rain, and fog. Gardeners follow the weather with great interest. Some plant by the phases of the moon. The weather forecast lets me know how to dress for a day in the garden. A dry hot and sunny summer day asks for different gear than a cold rainy fall day. An early winter day hanging holiday garland might as for warm clothes from side to side, and top to bottom.

Weather forecasts the change of the seasons. Longer days, and warmer temperatures in late March signal the hellebores and crocus to come out of the ground. Plants do have a mechanism by which they recognize that the cold and dormant season is over. A biological clock. They know when it is too dicey to show themselves, and when it is time. In much the same way, they know when the winter is approaching. Their growth slows, and deciduous shrubs and trees prepare to shed their leaves in anticipation of the dormant winter season. I understand next to nothing of the biology and chemistry of this, but it seems like plants keep very good track of the weather.

As long as I have been gardening, I routinely see weather conditions I have never seen before. I cannot remember a winter like our past one-not that I should. It was the coldest and snowiest winter we had had in over 100 years-why would I? A morning sky that is so pink that it changes the color of everything in the garden like a piece of colored acetate over my camera lens-we has such weather early this morning. Clouds of some fantastic shape and arrangement-there they are, though they never looked like that before or since.

Fog so dense that everywhere I looked was blinding white-that weather was on a boat bound for Mackinac Island many years ago. I have never experienced that again. Rain so hard that it bounced back skyward-memorable.

Our summer has been cool and rainy, overall. It was perfect weather to work, and have dinner outdoors. All of the plants in the landscape have that lush well watered look. So many evenings were perfectly comfortable-not too hot, nor too cold. That bland temperate weather was memorable. All of September was quite warm and sunny-the dahlias loved it as much as I did. The weather is a daily companion to a garden, which brings me to the real point of this post.

The longer I design landscapes and gardens, the more I believe that weather is one of the most critical design issues. I am not talking about plant hardiness, or light and shade conditions, or soil that never gets rain, or is always flooded. I think good design features the many faces of the weather. For many of my clients, my design is first and foremost concerned with establishing some structure- some good bones. Good bones can be built upon, or stand on their own. Structure in the landscape in my zone has to take the winter season into account. Our fall and winter is every bit of 6 months long. Once the perennial garden fades, and the leaves of the shrubs and trees fall, all that is left is the structure – the bare bones.

I only have one very small perennial garden. But for the trunks and branches of the dogwoods and magnolia, and the green of the yew hedge, that garden has little in the way of visual interest. The horseradish collapses in a heap of rotten leaves, as do the lady’s mantle, the bear’s britches, and the Rozanne geraniums. The phlox and hibiscus stand resolute for months after, but the snowy soon obliterates their shapes.

My evergreens respond to the weather in a very different way. The leaves that cover the tops of the boxwood underneath the magnolias celebrates the fall landscape. The wet weather makes every boxwood leaf shine and glitter. A dusting of snow illustrates the shapes described by that box. A thick layer of snow is like a winter hat. These rectangles of boxwood underneath the magnolias are very simple. Though they have been there for many years, my eye does not skip over them. Every day, the weather transforms them. The landscape is designed to change with the seasons, and change even more often with the weather.

One can readily design a spring garden. Designing in celebration of spring weather is another issue altogether. The weather in Michigan is always a big fluid situation. The simpler the landscape, the more striking it will be, whatever the weather.