This past January my family decided to bond on a week long “inclusive- o” package to Cancun, Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula.

Ek' Balam

Before hitting the resort and getting totally spoiled, we trod off the beaten path by staying a few nights in the charming town of Valladolid. We skipped going westward with the dozens of tour buses to the famous ruin of Chichen Itza, but instead donned our Indiana Jones attire, and headed 20 miles north to the breathtaking Mayan ruin of Ek’ Balam.

Ek' Balam

It echoed back to the good old days of tourism.  The only ‘vendor’ for refreshments was a single coke machine. Local handcrafted items were under a thatched roof. There were only a handful of other tourists.  And everyone who was there was allowed to climb on the ruins, and walk within reach of stone carvings.

Ek'-Balam and the Family!

The future looked exciting with huge mounds of stone covering future sites to be revealed.  What a great find!

If you walk by one of our gardens this time of year and have a swaft of fragrance over take you, chances are it is the Daphne odora.  My neighbors have been known to hike into my woods sniffing for the diminutive flower with variegated leaves. Once they do, they are hooked and want one for themselves.

Daphne Odora

The nickname for this plant is “odor of the gods” and boy does it fit.  An added bonus is that the flower is a pretty white and pink bloom that when cut, does beautifully in the house.

Another cold weather treat that blooms pink and is first in the winter garden is the “Dawn” viburnum.  This can have a quirky shape that does not stand out as a flowering shrub, and does not grow quickly. You only need one or two flowers however to bring the sweet fragrance inside.  This year with the warm winter temperatures it popped forth in December.  As I cut some stems to take inside I whispered …”Not yet! It’s too early.”

Dawn Viburnum

The third “must have” winter flower that is the Hellebores or Lenten Rose.  These I plant en masse of 6’s or 12’s to create an evergreen winter anchor in the garden.  The whites, pinks, purple and even black of the Lenten rose flower are stunning.

Lenten Rose

The other variety dubbed Foetida or “Stinking Hellebores” is a bit rangy but does great in the woods as a ground cover. Both of these varieties reseed.

Stinking Hellebores

The care for the first few years of these plants is absolutely nothing but water.

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

]]> http://www.christiesfinegardening.com/blog/romancing-the%e2%80%a6-boulders/feed/ 0 http://www.christiesfinegardening.com/blog/more-perennial-fall-bloomers/ http://www.christiesfinegardening.com/blog/more-perennial-fall-bloomers/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:42:06 +0000 admin http://www.christiesfinegardening.com/blog/?p=547

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.