It was such a treat to start from scratch with the garden renovation of this Sears Catalogue home. Not only that, we worked with a long time client who had moved from another home we had landscaped. We had our own mutual admiration club!

After a lot of on site meetings, we drafted a concept plan, and

• cleared and exposed a lovely hidden garden in the back.

• designed and built an on-site “shed” that blends with the Sears retro style house.

• planted the front yard with family and friend donations of autumn ferns, oak leaf and Nikko blue hydrangeas, euphorbia, peonies and Russian sage.
• installed a variegated bluestone terrace to take care of the winter mud factor and ease in the cost of the terrace, seat walls, trellis, fire pit  and water feature to come next year.

• took care of a water problem in a high trafficked area with a classy French drain.

Our first concern in analyzing landscape projects is to consider drainage problems that may exist for the house foundation, plantings, and traffic areas.

These new homeowners wanted to take no risks in stopping any drainage issues that had contributed to their moldy basement from years of neglect.

Our solutions were to:

• Redesign and lay the brick walk so that it drained away from the house.
  
• Redirect all downspouts away from the house with a closed French drain. We dug a “dry well” at the end of each pipe and filled it with gravel to direct the water deep into the ground.
  
• Lay the beautiful chalet gravel up against the house and porch to double as a stone feature and barrier for any moisture that may collect there.
  

• Create a natural swale which would redirect any water that came from the upper portion of their lot.
  

If it does rain forty days and forty nights, this is the place to go to stay dry!

A Studio on Cary Street in Downtown Richmond

When this renowned artist asked me to landscape his studio on Cary Street.  When I learned that his space had no irrigation or light available, I immediately thought of using boulders.

Before

There is no better way than using stone to add drama and powerful energy to a landscape. The initial outlay for boulders can seem expensive at $250.00 a ton, but that is off set by absolutely no maintenance. The difficult component of using boulders is just getting them to the perfect spot with the perfect angle showing!

In his museum exhibits, this artist is referred as an abstract environmentalist. Our design stayed abstract by creating small vignettes within the narrow space.  We integrated it with  St. John’s Wort ground cover and the geometric Dee Runk Boxwoods.

We placed a “muy grande” boulder in front of the building for instant identification of the space.  The plantings include a purple flowered vitax which hates to be watered and a few sedums planted close to the rock.

After

Lespedeza is one of my favorite plants partly because of its old fashion name “kissing by the garden gate”.  You get a lot of bang for your buck with this $12.00 perennial that starts out the size of your hand and grows bigger than you in 3 years.  The pretty pink flowers are shaped like a pea bloom and lasts for months.  The only maintenance is to cut the plant with hedge clippers in June, and then again in February.

Lespedeza

Silver Fleece Vine
This is another inexpensive perennial that grows quickly and holds well to pergolas and other upright garden features.  It isn’t that terrific while not in bloom, but is just great in the fall when you need something pristine looking that hasn’t been fried by summer heat. When it gets too big after 4 years or so, I cut it back drastically and let it start over again.

Silver Fleece Vine

Stony Point Area- Let’s Spruce Up a Steep Bank

This was a challenging project. The clients’ goals were to prevent erosion on this steep bank, while giving it evergreen in the winter and long lasting blooms in the warmer seasons. Low maintenance and low water needs of course also fit into the design.

Before

We used about 20 small boulders to serve two purposes; namely holding the soil in place and creating a garden feature.

We “planted” the boulders and plants; then pinned down straw matting around the plants and stone to hold the dirt when a heavy downpour hit. The straw matting eventually disintegrates but until then, it holds the bank until roots are established. We also left any old tree stumps that we could on the bank to hold the soil as much as possible.

After

Plantings include 3 crape myrtles, abelia, plum yews and the low growing spring blooming phlox.

Quite a change don’t you think?

North Side Off Brook Road- We Do Brick Driveways

This old brick driveway skirt had broken and sunken bricks lay at odd angles.  It had collapsed in some places over the years from heavy use. Both clients (because they share this driveway) wanted it pretty and useful without losing any of the old charm of the original drive.

Before

Voila!  After the project both clients said the work was better than some work inside the house!

After

Whenever doing a design the biggest challenges for color in the garden is to choose something

• that has a long bloom period,
• that can get pounded by the sun,
• that can withstand dry conditions,
• that stands up on its own without needing to be dead headed
• And that is pretty!

The black and blue salvia and red maraschino salvia have never let me down.  They come back and bloom, enduring the greatest (yet unintentional) abuse.  The bumble bees and humming birds love them, but don’t bother you.

It’s always good to you to understand the process that we follow for aerations and seeding. Our philosophy is that it is most important to reintroduce new seed with aeration and seeding each year, just to keep the good stuff coming in.

Here is what Kevin and our crew will do.

• Spray lawns with selective herbicides and  round up as needed.

• The same day as aeration (unless it is a large territory) we do  “dirt work” by adding dirt to low spots in the lawn, or by sweetening up a dead spot with soil for better germination.

• We aerate on two different angles in your lawn so to penetrate the area with as many holes as we can.

• We fertilize and seed with a 2 types of seed blends specific to sun or shade.

• We use a seed starter for difficult areas. This looks like blue/ green fuzz balls but contains special fertilizer.  Seed starter also helps hold moisture in the soil.
• You water as instructed in the flyer we put in your mailbox.
• We reseed spots that have not done well about two weeks later.
• We mow after 2 weeks by selectively hitting the high spots.
• In coming months with leaf drop we blend mowing, blowing and overseeding as needed.

When I visited Annabella for the first time, I could tell she had a real artistic flair. Her inside art work and plants were large statements of color and texture which reminded me of Southwest art.

We were trying to add the same feel with new plantings in her back yard. As we talked, I kept feeling pressed for space while standing on her aggregate terrace.

That’s when we came up with the idea of mirroring the existing shape and curve. She selected a beautiful “Golden Sunset stone”.

Our stone masons widened the terrace by digging a concrete footer and cutting and placing block to mirror the existing curve.   Each stone was then cut and mortared on top of the block to fit perfectly.   It really “classed up” the aggregate to a one-of – a kind- stone feature.

We were able to expand her terrace and also have money also to buy the trees, shrubs and perennials for her surrounding beds.

We were asked to continue with the front yard of last month’s Church Hill garden by planting flowers within a picket fence.  The design gave the space a lovely English garden look with flowers in the front.  Their existing knock out roses stayed, but we added Russian sage, a “Sonora” rudebekia, and two “Pinky Winky” hydrangeas to give the garden color lasting into the late fall. Powerful tumbled blue stepping stones add weight and power to the small space.

Church Hill - Before

Church Hill - After

This month’s largest job occurred in a garden space just off Patterson Ave. in west end Richmond. After days of clearing trees, shrubs, poison ivy, ivy, plastic bags, leaves and guck, we decided on a design.  We started with the hardscape, of course.

This client chose 3 types of stone to blend into her new dry lay terrace, seat wall and sweeping stairway. The air of mystery is added by the existence of the multi trunked crape myrtle.  Little did we know before we began clearing the lot that the neglected tree would become such a key element in the design?

Garden beds will be defined and lawns graded for aeration, seeding and planting later this summer.

This Westover Hills terrace was designed by Christie and the client with a diamond shaped pattern in black slate.  The fountain is set off by the circular slate base. It is its own entity- half on and off the terrace, half in and out of the lawn.  We will show more pictures next month of the entire job.

The client is considering a coffee table that has a gas fire pit within it. A pergola may be added later.

This lovely home in Church Hill had all the elements we love in creating a new garden.  The clients, V and M, and I met on a Friday, painted lines in the dirt Saturday, and had the job done in 6 days before their big gala this past Sunday. O-lay!

Here were the challenges and fun parts!

Extending and matching the existing terrace

We had to match the existing aged mortar and bluestone so it looked authentic. We mixed red and white sand, yellow and tan mortar and added a touch a black paint.  We lay all the stone first, so we could do all the mortar work with one batch of color.  We worked in a few random pieces of yellow stone to the bluestone to mimic the original terrace.

Before

After

Water feature

We decided to make a focal point out of the useless fire pit in their backyard. The client was great in meeting me at a moments notice at the stone yard to choose a grey millstone from China.  This worn grey stone contrasted well with the yellow and brown stone in the old fire pit.  We plugged one hole and drilled another to create a center point for the water to bubble forth.

The layers of the hidden mechanisms in the fountain to make it look like it had been there long before the house was built were the basin, pump, concrete pillar,  rebar, steel mesh, river rock, millstone and water! We had to get the millstone itself really level by using dimes and nickels under the edge of the millstone.  Water splashes quietly and evenly over the edge.

Plantings

The hydrangeas you see here are a lovely new variety called All Summer Beauty! We added to the drama of the green and blue with the chartreuse colored Stained Glass hosta.  A trumpet coral vine was planted along the hot side of the fence to climb up in a single column and then drool along the top of the fence. We may add narrow hornbeam trees on an unplanted fence for height and privacy this fall.

Pesticide treatment of the crape myrtle

Kevin our licensed pesticide talent, and my better half, diagnosed their crape myrtle as having aphids.  The honeydew sticky substance from the insect had covered their porch furniture and turned the leaves black with city soot. Kevin treated the tree with a granular systemic and spray.  A day later we hosed off the leaves. He will return in 2 weeks for another look and possible treatment.

Pots

V had a plethora of vegetable and flower pots that she had potted up herself.  It was great. We used her inventory of two Jap maples behind the fountain and other perennials in the beds.

Cleaning out beds and power washing.

It always amazes me the junk you find even in tiny yards like this. (No reflection on V and M!) We tore up ivy,  revealed lots of old fireplace wood, took out a few shrubs that were over powering the fence line, and  free pruned the crape myrtle and red bud trees.  Power washing the terrace was important to try and make the colors of the stone terraces the same hue of clean.