The 2010 gardening season has officially kicked off!

Garden and home shows mark the official beginning of the new season for us garden nerds (and landscape designers).  The first weekend of February, the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle made a triumphant return from what was, at this time last year, believed to be insurmountable funding challenges.  Then, here in Portland, the middle of February is when we get the double whamy of the Yard, Garden and Patio Show followed immediately by the Portland Home & Garden Show.  And still to come, in what I believe is only its second year, is the annual Better Living Show with a specific focus on energy efficiency and sustainable living.

Here at Dennis’ 7 Dees, we put a lot of effort into our presence at the YGP Show.  2010 marked our second year as presenting sponsor and we had the exclusive privilege of offering discounted show tickets at our garden centers.  I understand that attendance this year–a year that almost didn’t see a YGP Show due to strained resources at the presenting OAN–was the best ever!

We had a great time too taking a new, modern design approach to our display garden and turning it into a very functional series of outdoor living elements.  In partnership with stone artisan Peter Attila Andrusko, we created a custom grill, fire pit, and water feature, as well as a series of industrial steel columns planted with gorgeous edibles and ornamentals.  Planting design was headed up by the inimitable Mulysa Melco who, when not rocking out as garden designer at D7D, is also an accomplished fine artist.

So, without further ado, here are some photos of our efforts this year.  I look forward to sharing lots more pictures of 2010 projects as they continue to roll in and 2009 projects as they grow in.  Cheers!

Three reasons why you should be planting a tree right now.

I know it’s winter time and though some folks are satisfied to curl up on the couch with a cup of cocoa (or at the bar with a stout pint!) until the clouds clear out, some of us are twitching and salivating from the long lack of contact with our garden tools.

However, even if you’re not lusting over a reason to pull out the shovel, I would like to offer up three very good reasons why you can and should be planting a tree.  Right now.

1. As mentioned in my last post, the winter is an excellent time to examine your garden and make plans for structural reinforcements. In planting design, that fancy talk means “trees.” If you haven’t done it already, go outside and look at your yard.  Don’t you need a tree? (Of course you do!)

2. The Willamette Valley’s mild and wet winters are great for planting trees. The risk of death from a hard freeze spell is about on par with the risk posed by a dry, hot spell in the middle of the summer –especially when us Portlanders are waaay too busy to water what with street fairs, block parties, soapbox derbies, and bike events taking up all of our time. And though no one can predict when we’ll have another Snowpocalypse, there are some additional safety precautions you can take to help get your young ‘un through a cold snap if need be.  Your local OSU Extension Master Gardener office can provide specialized advice for all sorts of specific situations.

3. If you’re a hardcore budget watcher, perhaps the best reason I can offer you to plant a tree now, is the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services’ Treebate Program. Available to all Portland residents ’til May 2010, for each and every tree you plant, get a utility bill credit worth up to $40! (Bonus points if you plant a native tree, the maximum rebate amount goes up to $50!) Caliper and height restrictions apply as well as bans on tree species currently classified by the city as “nuisance plants.” You can find out all of the details and submission instructions here: http://portlandonline.com/bes/trees.

So pour that cocoa into a to-go cup and head over to the nursery!  And stay tuned here for lots more reasons (crackpot and otherwise) why you should be gardening in the middle of winter.

Is your yard earning its keep?

When I was in design school in Colorado, the opening project of one winter semester was to visit the Denver Botanic Gardens and photograph the gardens.  Naturally, we the students, whined and complained about being assigned a picture taking exercise during the time of year when it was not only cold, but all the plants were buried under a blanket of snow.

In response, my teacher, Wendy Booth, shared two pieces of indispensible wisdom.  First, “good weather” is anytime there isn’t something actively coming out of the sky.  (Now that I live in Oregon, my definition of “good weather” has had to be even further broadened.)  And second, winter is the best time to look at a landscape with a designer’s eye.  Pull your head out of your aster and start seeing the garden for more than the plants!

Now is when the structure of your space is laid bare and you can no longer cover up inadequacies with flowery frosting.  Because a good landscape should look great even in the winter, be brave, get out there and really see what’s happening.  Have your paths completely lost their shape without plants to define their boundaries?  Are they adequate?  Practical?  Comfortable?

What about vertical elements?  Does your house look like a lonely behemoth rising out of a flat piece of dirt?  You may realize you need some supporting characters to visually frame the house, connect it to its surroundings, and create a less abrupt image than “box on prairie.”

Step back and put on your macro lens.  Is there a sense of adequate proportion, scale, harmony that ties all of the individual elements together to create a complete whole?  Is it bland?  Are you lost and lacking an adequate focal point now that the Knock Out Rose is knocked out?

Look for areas where you can incorporate more advanced design elements like rhythm, repetition, layering, and contrast.  Add a piece of garden sculpture.  Examine the presence of winter interest plants (or lack thereof).  Are they creating as beautiful and balanced a picture as your warm weather performers do?

Consider your slumbering yard as a clean slate and use this opportunity to dream up new possibilities.  Not only will you gain a valuable new perspective on the cycles and structures of your garden, but you’ll emerge in spring with a plan to focus any improvements in the areas where they’ll make the most impact.

You don’t get to stop paying your mortgage or rent at the first sign of frost so why should your yard get to take the winter off?

The Medians of Lake Oswego

Just about a week before Thanksgiving I found myself embroiled in a quick turnaround proposal for the City of Lake Oswego. The first step of which was a whirlwind tour of all city owned planting locations.  No small feat and it took three days and over 600 photos to document the various beds, medians and planters across the city.  By some grace of god, the third day found me wrapping up my journey in the very charming downtown area on a blessedly sunny day. (The weather was not so friendly on previous outings.) Poking around in the nooks and crannies of Millennium Park which hugs the waterfront and a very walkable shopping area, the vibe brought me back to similar wanderings around the elder portions of North Shore towns in Massachusetts back in the early part of the century. (Ha!  Doesn’t that sound monumental?!)

Net, net, what I gained from the experience was a warm-and-fuzzy realization that Lake Oswego is absolutely chock full of charm. And I got to experience it in intimate detail all in the interest of “official business.”  I am officially in love with this place and will be back often, I’m sure.

So without further ado, here is the yummy stuff, photos of some of my more favorite highlights…

Fountains in the giant wall along Evergreen Road at the western end of Millennium Park.

Another great character-ful feature of the city is that there is an official City of Lake Oswego Art Collection and they have public sculpture everywhere! I don’t know how many of these ceramic pieces by Joel Cottet are on display in various locales but I just love them.  They remind me of giant chess pieces.

And how can you not love the partially inside-out elephant?

The Power of the Plan

It’s Friday, I’m finally embracing the potential of this whole blog thing (for the record, I’m still resisting Twitter), and I’m thinking about where my attention has been since it’s still a tad early to be taking prize-winning project photos.

So I thought I’d write a bit about the Power of the Plan.  A good landscape plan clearly communicates a concept.  A great landscape plan evokes an emotional connection with its target audience (ie. the client).  I like to tell people about a high scool friend of mine whose parents had the rendered plan view of their landscape c. 1970 framed and hanging in the dining room as a bonafide piece of art.

With this in mind, my presentation materials are a labor of love, beyond the pure functionality of communicating the nuts and bolts of a project.  I want a client to walk through the plan (figuratively speaking) and to feel the creation I’m proposing.  So, I thought I’d share a few of my ‘visual aids’ that have proved particularly effective:

specimen birch & weeping purple beech

 

formal front entry

 

wading pool overlapping patio

 

cozy gazebo as part of shrub border

What’s your landscape worth?

Many homeowners are suprised at the cost of high quality landscape design and installation services.  Understandably landscaping gets second billing behind construction and/or repair costs associated with the actual structural shelter in which you eat, sleep, and raise your children.

And I think we can all appreciate the “niceness” of a useful, beautiful outdoor space.  –Sunshine, fresh air, connecting with nature, and so on.  But taking a dollars and cents view of the real value that landscaping brings to your homestead may make the case for why it’s worth enlisting professional help.

In the interest of full disclosure, the following information is a blatant rip-off of a post on a fave web site of mine, Sustainable-Gardening.com.  But it was too good to not share.  According to a recent article in the Journal of Environmental Horticulture (and summarized on Sustainable-Gardening.com by Jeff Gilman) improved landscaping has been found to raise the value of a house by 5.7 percent.  Of course, quality matters and when “comparing average landscapes with excellent ones, the difference in sale price is a whopping 10.8 %.”

Further, for anyone who has ever looked at the bottom line of a landscaping bid and felt woozy, a cool wash cloth on the forehead and the following statistic may provide some comfort and aid your speedy recovery: the authors of the study further posit that “every $1.00 spent on the landscape returns $1.35.”

Even for do-it-yourself installers, getting a well-thought out landscape plan from a professional designer can define a clear and integrated vision for your space and maximize your efforts.  Not to mention your expenditures!

If you’ve invested in a home, chances are you got some sort of outdoor space as part of the deal.  Are you making the most of it?

Hidden Springs Summit

I have committed to taking as many ‘After’ photos as humanly possible this year.  Plants are just starting to grow in so I’m expecting completed projects will be looking photo ready in about a month.  In the meantime, I happened to be in the neighborhood last week of a project that I worked on with Annie Bamberger and Robin Mann at Dennis’ 7 Dees so I took some pics even though things really haven’t had a chance to fill in (or flower) yet.  These monuments at Hidden Springs Summit in West Linn were planted just a few weeks before we got socked with all that snow last winter.  Not looking too shabby all things considered…