Landscape Design | Deborah Silver & Co.

Hard Surfaces

This is my year to focus on hard surfaces in the landscape. Having just had a knee replacement, stairs and uneven terrain are a challenge. Even walking on grassy slopes is difficult. I have had a very personal experience with what hard surfaces can provide in the garden-and the lack thereof. They are a necessity for vehicles; even the underground grass support grids do not support regular or heavy vehicular traffic. Interior hard surfaces support all manner of human activity. Flooring for kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, bedrooms-there are so many choices. As is apparent in the above photograph, should you wish to have some outdoor space that will support human activity, a hard surface of some sort is a good idea. The interior flooring flowing outdoors-a beautifully utilitarian and visually satisfying gesture. Outdoor “rooms” are very much different in feeling and execution than interior spaces, but in or out, a level hard surface can facilitate plenty in the garden.

This bluestone has been cut in what is known as an Aschlar pattern. Several sizes of squares and rectangles can be laid in a pattern that seems random at first glance. The pattern allows a stone mason to lay the surface quickly-as there is a big idea governing the sequence of the stones. The appearance of random makes it a good choice for landscapes not demanding an ultra formal or ultra contemporary hard surface treatment. Interesting that-very formal and very contemporary landscapes have much in common . This bluestone is graded and sold as “full range”. Full range refers to the wide color variation in the stone. Each stone exactly the same color-selected stone such as this demands a premium price. Expect to pay over and above for select. Each stone is as much about what was discarded for a job, as what is acceptable. The muted colors of the full range is easy on the eye. Should you be thinking of a large terrace, darker is better. No one needs their terrace glaring up at them.

Some large hard surfaces-by this I mean a drivecourt, benefit from a change of material, or mixed materials. Cars and UPS trucks are large, and need lots of paving. This concrete aggregate drivecourt is punctuated by a compass built from hand cut bluestone slabs. The pattern draws the eye away from the large expanse of hard surface. A group of materials is good, should your paved space be large.

My own narrow driveway opens into a piazza of considerable size. The driveway/piazza design was done in 1930-I have not changed one dimension. Whomever designed it, I am appreciative. My driveway opens into a terrace, which is driveable. The brick which surfaced both was still intact, but heaved up here and there. Impossible to shovel, and dicey to walk on. I replaced the brick with a Belgian made concrete brick made by Unilock- called Capthorne. The uniformity of the brick makes it easy to lay. It is equally easy to move over, and stand on. It gracefully represents the unusual original drive and drive terrace.

Stone-cut and carefully laid-there is nothing like it. This walk, bordered in granite setts-it is my all time favorite. My client and his stone mason laid this walk long before I met him; his love of natural materials and precise planning produced a hard surface that is incredibly beautiful.

Some hard surfaces are not so hard. Eric and Julie liked the idea of water in their yard-but had no interest in the upkeep. A frame of decomposed granite encloses a hard surface of recycled and tumbled blue bottle glass. The glass-a maintenance free suggestion of water. The terrace seems small, and intimate, given the change of materials. Switching, matching, investigating harmonious materials can make a hard surface lively.

Concrete pavers are not my favorite. I like my concrete to be honest about being concrete. Concrete in imitation of some other material-hmm. Some landscapes demand natural materials-no imitations need apply. Some modern and contemporary landscapes demand materials not one bit natural; materials conceived and generated via the human hand can be stunning. The big idea here is about authenticity of place. Should you own a tudor home in the English style, stay away from concrete-unless you find a believable hard surface material. Should you own a mid century modern house, look at the brick from the same period. A contemporary home-read and research concrete-it is a material appropriate to you. Should you be in between, lay the concrete pavers, and water copiously. A moss fringe around each concrete paver-a visual blessing.

The architect Michael Willoughby designed and built this home. The stone on the walls-he repeated on the ground. I so love how his spare vision does not lecture. The hard surfaces are extraordinarily soft. The hard surfaces here, beautiful.

No doubt you have places in your garden in which you intend to entertain, have dinner, meet friends, relax. Your choices of what lies underfoot-many.

Posted on: June 21, 2010 Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Landscape Design Tagged With: hardscaping materials, outdoor rooms, terraces

A Designer’s Garden

The time I spend planting pots and containers for clients sometimes enables me to see landscapes I would not otherwise see. This old and stately Tudor style home has a landscape of considerable age- still viable, and still beautiful. I am sure I have quoted Henry Mitchell at least three times on this topic. “There are no beautiful old landscapes…beautiful landscapes are a result of the intensive care of the present.” That being said, there are times when intensive care really means sensitive care. Though this client is an interior designer of considerable skill, she felt no need to take apart, streamline, cleanup, remake, or other wise impose on a landscape beautifully situated and thriving in its own right.

There is an understated but fully mature beauty to this property. It takes a very mature and sure eye to leave untouched what is an integral part of the history of the property. Her ability to leave be is pretty impressive. These vintage wood boxes at her front door got tree-form hydrangea “Pink Diamond” . It is a classically beautiful white hydrangea of paniculata grandiflora heritage, whose blooms pink as they age. They seem so appropriate to the architecture of both the house and landscape. There are times when seeing what you expect to see is completely satisfying. Certain plant materials feel right with certain architecture. Nantucket style houses have a love affair of long standing with Rugosa roses. 1950 style ranch homes, on the other hand, can easily handle boxed hedges of gold vicary privet. These plant materials are authentic to their respective time and place.

This gorgeous stone staircase which I am guessing dates back to the 1920’s, is a home to old boston ivy vines. My client made no effort to break up this old relationship-she only and gently prunes the vines away from the stair treads. The urn set in a bed look like it has been there many years. I have been guilty as charged plenty of times-thinking that gardening is another word for housekeeping. Like most people, I can be a contradiction in terms. The Italian garden on the verge of ruin that I love so much I would never permit on my own property. So I do recognize and respect a designer who deliberately keeps her hands from cleaning up the evidence of age from her landscape.

This pool is original to the house; the horizontal arms are a lap pool; the vertical arms designed for lounging in the water. I have never seen another pool of this shape and design in person or in books. How it works to accomodate swimmers and loungers alike is simple and effective. The overall shape striking-and well worth preservation.

This very large oval wirework plant stand of an age and design quite sympathetic to the house and grounds, does not hold individual clay pots, as it once would have. My client wanted to plant it of a piece. Her point of view contrasts with the original intent of the piece, in a very effective way. A garden of size is growing here. The blues and whites are friendly to the overall white and lavender color scheme in evidence in all of the garden areas. The piece sits on a bluestone terrace adjacent to the kitchen, at the rear of the house. This garden is a very private space.

A contemporary French terra cotta pot from the south of France is whitewashed, and planted in concert with the wirework stand. Like other places in the landscape, my enchantment with the space does not rely on surprise. Every element seems to belong.

New to the kitchen terrace this year, a table and chairs in an entirely contemporary vein. The terrace has a new reason for being.

As sculptural as they are utilitarian, the suite is a substantial and confident dose of individual expression. Unexpectedly, I really like it.

Posted on: June 20, 2010 Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design, Garden Ornament Tagged With: Landscape Design

Transport

Much of what keeps a community, or a landscape workable is about transport. These vegetables need to get to market before they go bad. Those M and M peanuts-bags of this candy get shipped all over the country. You and I need to get to work; we require transportation from one place to another. A drivecourt can be a very utilitarian landscape feature-but that does not mean it needs to be an endless expanse of hard surface like the parking lot of a gorcery store. A drivecourt facilitates transport-but it can have its own 15mph zones. This drivecourt-I designed and built a water feature with three jets-as big as an SUV. This takes one attention away from the floor and provides some interest at eye level. The cistern is placed in the drivecourt such that it directs both physical and visual traffic. Only days away from having the water lines hooked up, the soil brought up to grade, a boxwood skirt and flowers to finish, I only hope the music of the water running will transport them, the moment they get home.

Establishing some structure in a garden has much to do with traffic. How will you get from one place to another. This river front property is owned by clients with older parents and family. A motorized cart provides transportation from the front of the house to the water. Gravel walks large enough to accomodate that vehicle were essential to everyone being able to enjoy the outdoors.

A fenced vegetable garden with raised beds was high on the list of their requests. They entertain family and friends, and cook-passionately. The ability to grow their own summer vegetables and fruits was important. Much of their family life and tradition revolves around the exchange and community of the dinner table. This is an old world attitude that I like and respect. The south side of this new addition had the best sun. The design issue-how to combine a working vegetable garden, a means by which materials, people and tools could be transported in a beautiful way. I designed this garden immediately adjacent to a covered porch, home to seating, and an outdoor kitchen. The best part of designing is that occasion when you have a client keenly interested in that process. The deisgn of this garden gate, an exact replica of my client’s grandfather’s vegetable garden gate in Italy. I will say this gate is my most favorite detail in the entire landscape.

Six raised beds provide lots of space to grow. I have yet to meet a passionate grower of food who thought they had plenty of space to cultivate. The curved end boxes provide visual relief from the expected rectangular boxes one usually sees. A series of wood tables that have been in the family a long time can be set up for a dinner party-in the garden. I heard a party last weekend resulted in an impromptu bocce game. Though by no means does this space approach a regulation court, it has the advantage of not looking like a regulation court. Company on the porch and in the garden-a pleasure. The center space is large enough to permit the acrt to pass through, without looking like a road.

My clients have to deal with a considerable deer population. When they are not entertaining, portable screens sheild the garden from the porch. Lacking this, deer would use the porch as their roadway to the garden. Hardware cloth set below garde and up to the bottom of the Belgian fencing keeps out smaller intruders.

Curving a section of 4″ by 6″ lumber is no mean feat. Each of the bottom four boards have 90 parallel cuts perpendicular to their length, side by side. The cuts-each the width of the saw blades, is called a kerf. The saw removes small parallel slices of wood from the board. After soaking the boards overnight, Steve, my landscape superintendent, was able to bend their 4 foot sections into place. 360 cuts all together. The top section, comprised of a series of smaller chunks of wood perfectly fitted together to form the curve-made my Steve’s brother-a carpenter, cabinetmaker, and shop teacher. This painstakingly contructed detail makes a world of visual difference to the end result.

There are times when lawn is suffient to permit traffic, and gathering. traffic The firebowl, set on the opposite side of the porch from the vegetable garden, is set at seat height so guests can congregate without the need for additonal seating. All the these spaces in proximity and easily accessible to one another makes entertaining easy. There are places to be, and places to move to.

The large lawn plane which spans both the old property and the new one, is finally finished; we have planted the boxwood buttons. A large party which is planned for late June-tables will be set over top of the boxwood-what fun. This very long rectagular space can easily accomodate a tent if need be-with a dressy floor already in place. The view from the upstairs balcony is lovely.

The decomposed granite walk traverses the entire back of the property. Its strong shape helps to knit the old house and propert yto the addition and new property. There is a strong sense that every architectural and landscape element has always been there. There is no evidence of spaces being stitched together.

This was a long and large project; I am on the verge of finishing. I think my clients are pleased to have spaces that will be completed by friends, family, dinners, bocce-and growing tomatoes. I like landscapes that invite people to partake of them.

Posted on: June 19, 2010 1 Comment

Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design Tagged With: Belgian wattle fencing, garden flow, raised garden beds, walkways in the landscape

A Level Playing Field

I have skimmed over many gardening articles in the past few years advocating the abolition of lawn in the landscape. In general, I do not favor the act of banning. Those who would ban this or that somehow have the idea that the lives of others are just waiting for them to intervene and save them. Thanks very much, but I have done a fairly good job up until now making my own decisions about how to live my life. That aside, I think lawn has an important place in the landscape.

Perhaps I should distinguish between lawn, and grass. I do not have lawn-as were rolled, tended and cut every other day in those classical English gardens that make my mouth water. I have grass-that low and densely growing perennial that covers considerable and any amount of square footage without any maintenance- save a weekly cutting. Grass grows willingly. It grows on slopes as well as flat ground. Grass covers bare soil, and vigorously resists invasion from weeds. Beautifully graded soil, covered in grass-a sculpture.

Grass is all about endurance. Grass endures the impromptu soccer game, the garden party, the dog play, the car tires, the wheelbarrow grooves,-grass sits on the ground, enduring a lot of physical activity in a garden-with few complaints. It has to be the most versatile and accomodating plant on my planet. That green skin of grass covers a fair amount of my property, to good end. It enables me to get from one place to another. When of a mind to goof off, I might lie down on it. It enables me to be in the garden.

My corgis have legs barely 8 inches tall. They are not so crazy about gravel or concrete-they like grass under their feet. Their favorite time of the day-home, with the grass underfoot. A level playing field for their horseplay is essential to their play. The job of a retail dog has its demands. They are happy to get home, cut loose, and relax. The lawn is a place the four of us can relax and enjoy the garden.

Were you be here, you would understand. When I come home, I want an outdoor place to be and sit-this means a patch of grass. I will admit I have one client with no grass-save for a patch big enough for him to take a nap. You may think this funny-I think he has a very keen sense of what luxury means.

Is there another plant other than grass that would tolerate and facilitate my nightly corgi show? I think not. The most ordinary and familiar of plants can be of such importance in the big scheme of your landscape.

I have devoted no small amount of time to a discussion of grade. Earth, moved up, and down. Level ground makes people feel secure. No one would enjoy a garden cocktail party on a slope. Once that grade is established, there are a lot of ways to handle the space. It is as important to have functional and useable spaces as it is to have trees or roses.