Decomposed Granite
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.
Some materials are so versatile, which makes decomposed granite a major player in my palette of hard surfaces. Great for driveways, friendly to plants-amazing how it can work in contemporary landscapes as well as vintage ones.
Posted on: June 19, 2009 6 Comments
Level
Sometimes 
I am dealt plenty, when I am asked to design for a client. Although the immediate concept of flat ground seems simple, the solutions can be time consuming and messy. This property was extreme in its high grade- a fence included- on the lot lines. This home-in a ditch.
Can you see-how this client’s land is high at its edges, draining to the house? There was always soil and bark on the drive after a rain. And water standing next to the foundation, and in the garage. Sometimes it seems to me that a house is set too low in the ground; this house was a good candidate for a landscape that would improve many conditions-as water is not good for a house. Slopes are great for sledding or skiing, but not so great for living in. Flat gound makes for sociable spaces. I myself have no interest in juggling a glass of wine, and an appetizer on a hill. I like level. Or As close to level as I can get, and still have drainage. Steeply sloping sites are tough to negotiate, and tough to plant. If you have a space you wish only to view-plant that hill. If you plan to live in that space, terrace it.
This clients fence was set a good 40 inches above the grade of their house. Water rushed down and covered a terrace that was too small for company anyway. I proposed that they tear the entire space to pieces, and put it back together in such a way that would make their outdoor living and entertaining a breeze.
We got to work building retaining walls some seven feet off the lot line, and flattening the land near the house. Of course we had to install drainage to handle the water that deluged their property from the adjacent houses. A transformation of this scale is big messy work-they were fine with it.
So many machines, so much stone for the retaining walls, so much mess.
Heavy rains interrupted our work. No drains were in place yet. Looking at all this water, I did explain to my client how they could see all the water on their property, as a layer of grass no longer covered it up. We did a series of drains that took water to the street, and away from the back yard. Its about as much fun to spend money installing drainage as replacing a furnace-only more expensive. But in this case, the threat of water damage to the house was considerable, and this expense necessary-even if they never went outdoors.
This upper level terrace-we planted with columnar carpinus, and Limelight hydrangeas. This simple planting gave them privacy in a lively way. A terrace double the size of the original made sure that any amount of entertaining they had a mind to do would be handled adequately by the landscape. This project was a big fluid mess for better than 3 weeks. The outcome-level.
Posted on: June 18, 2009 2 Comments
Shear Bliss
The ability to prune with true precision is as much about a gift, as it is about the science. The big science concept has to do with being able to establish a line level with the horizon, or perfectly horizontal-and its complementary-those lines exactly perpendicular to the horizon-or vertical. Mindy’s crew sets lots of vertical markers-the stakes in this pictures. They use a level to set those stakes exactly vertical.
The horizontal plane is determined with a set of lines, or strings. There will be strings everywhere, side to side. But there is plenty of gift involved here too. I perfectly understand the math, but I cannot do this how they do it. Every cut is made with giant, long handled shears-by hand. The clip clip takes 7 people, an entire day; its a slow but sure process that I enjoy watching. Even the sound of the clip clip takes my blood pressure down at least 10 points.
Shape, mass, and volume are very important design elements in landscape. This landscape is entirely geared to the shape, and level of the lawn plane. Every other element has been established, based on that plane. The importance of the lawn plane is accentuated by the wide, overscaled steel edger strip. Where beds and lawn are on the same plane, the edger is invisible; its function is to keep grass out of the planting beds. In this case, the edging is a design element, clearly indicating a change of level. This very geometric change of level provides lots of interest in a very small space. The boxwood pruned into long precise rectangles is a great foil to the sprawling shapes of the roses and perennials.
Pruning level with the horizon requires attention to a form that may not exist in the space. The land into which this landscape is planted falls from north to south, and it falls from east to west. To give you an idea of how much drop there is from the south to the north, I measured the height of my Hicks yews. On the southern most end, they are four feet tall, give or take. At the east end of the north side, they are nine feet tall; this is a lot of drop. It was many years, growing those north end yews tall enough to prune. This boxwood is pruned level with the horizon. Pruning with the lay of the land produces an entirely different effect. Level with the horizon gives a landscape a formal and serene aura. As in, on even keel, or level-headed. As my work life is as I have described a big fluid situation, I like the even keel feeling when I am in my garden. This is a choice any gardener makes when designing. What do you want from your space?
This is my idea of a good place to be.
Posted on: June 17, 2009 5 Comments