I spent the morning cruising all my gardens that are slated for the garden cruise this coming Sunday, to benefit the Greening of Detroit. As I have posted before, the noted architect Michael Willoughby somehow managed to get my attention about supporting the Greening; so I am now on board, and working hard to raise some money from them. Detroit needs this group more than ever now. Asking good clients to put their gardens on tour I could do. But today could best be described as an embarrassment of riches-for me. Every garden is beautiful, and so lovingly tended. My clients are genuinely excited to have gardener/visitors. I am having the above pictured exuberant Susie to dinner this Friday night; she wants to be in her garden all day to talk to guests, but she insisted she needed to see my garden. So fine-lets have dinner. We have a relationship that is a good and valuable one to me. Her place is immaculate. Every pot is representing; its obvious she takes great care of them. The windows will be washed everywhere tomorrow. She has gone the distance and then some, as I asked her to. I saw this everywhere on her property today. She called the DNR to clean up the algae in the giant pond that borders her property; ” my garden is on tour, and I want this pond presentable for company-when do you think you might come before July 19?” I am so lucky to have her as a client.
I have posted again and again about the importance of caring for a landscape. But every garden I visited today was about the reality of that committment. What needed trimming got trimmed. What needed weeding got weeded. What was a big deal to get done, got done. Of course there is a chorus of voices about those things that are behind this year. None of us will have Limelight hydrangeas in bloom-they are two weeks behind at least. Everyone’s roses are completely out of bloom, and the roses are struggling with black spot, and every other ill those queens of the garden contract. My matched pots are mismatched. Damn. Every single gardener on this tour is agonizing over what is not just right. I could not thank them all enough for the effort they have put to this event. The good part? Every single true gardener who attends this tour will know in a heartbeat the extent of the effort that has been put to making each and every garden engaging, thought provoking, visually striking-all in all, just plain good.
One of my oldest clients whom I love dearly has sold their house; they are moving near their adult children, as they are in their eighties. Ed and Mary both told me today there garden has never been as beautiful as it is right now; the three of us cried buckets. No one I have ever known my entire career could make begonias grow more beautifully than Ed. This is the last of their stewardship-don’t miss it. Their garden has gorgeous and beautiful age. Their landscape is quiet, but powerfully compelling. Our relationship over the landscape I so treasure. I am glad they agreed to be on tour this year, as they will be gone the end of August to a new life.
This garden I landscaped some 9 years ago, and was not back until a month ago. I was knocked out by how they took that landscape in hand, looked after it, and moved beyond what I did. My day today was such a good day. This insouciant pot of my clients own design and hand is so beautiful. The overall shape, the textures, the green thing going on-I could not do better. The embarrassment of riches I felt today is all about doing work for interested clients, who take up on their own when I am done, and make magic.
I hope everyone who tours these gardens, realizes the great views. I am so interested in places to be, in a landscape, and places to view. Revisiting landscapes I did years ago today, I have new views, new impressions-I so have my clients to thank for this.
Should you be so lucky as to live in my area, I would suggest that this garden tour would do your gardening heart and soul good. I feel confident saying this, as my tour today made eminently clear that I have not just had clients. I have people with whom relationships have been forged, over a big love for the garden. No doubt, I am the luckiest girl on the planet. Thank you, Janet, Arnold, Susie, Kate and Rob, Rob Y, Mary and Ed, Steve and Karen, Michael and Beth ; the weather promises to be good-go on tour if you can, to benefit the Greening of Detroit. Please come-the weather promises to be fine. Every dollar of your ticket goes to benefit the programs of the Greening of Detroit. More information on the tour can be had at www.thegardencruise.org. Many thanks, Deborah
We are looking for you too!
The property had steep grades, and drainage issues both. I made use of a bulldozer. That machine of mine can make quick work of a lot of ills. Just being able to see the front door was a big improvement. 
The lawn panels are formal, no doubt. They are softened by the plantings in the Belgian boxes, and the wildly representing yews. This scheme makes a presentation of the house that I think represents the feelings of my clients. In my view, success is all about the serious interaction I have with clients. There is a moment, a chunk of time, in which we have a serious exchange. Whatever came before, whatever looms ahead, we had our moment. Notice the finish on the boxes-and a new finish on the shutters.
These boxes overflowing with flowers make a big statement. Wood in the landscape is a natural. In this case we lined the boxes with sheet metal liners, to improve the longevity of the boxes. The entire scheme is friendly and pleasing to the eye. 
This contemporary American version of a classic French chateau includes garage wings on either side of the main house. What a beautiful architectural detail- visually treating the garages as living space. This gives the house a very European flavor. The design challenge was providing enough space to turn cars into the garages, and guest parking, without the landscape looking like a commercial parking lot.
The wing walls, finished in large columns add another hard architectural feature to the mix. As there is no hiding so many hard surfaces of this size, why not celebrate them? Selecting a primary material for the drive and drive court came first. The clients decided they liked concrete aggregate as a surface. Though their first choice was gravel, they had legitimate concerns about snowplow damage. Good looking concrete aggregate requires a very skilled contractor; be sure you see samples of work before you sign up.
The concrete aggregate in the drive court was comprised of four sections, based on the turning radius into the garage, and the reverse radius corresponding to the surface needed to back out of the garage. This picture illustrates the aggregate surface I thought necessary to back out gracefully. Four quadrants made it easy to sawcut the aggregate every 100 square feet or so. Large surfaces of concrete require expansion joints, so if there is to be any cracking, the cracking occurs in these joints. The area immediately to the right of the freshly poured concrete in this picture was surfaced in decomposed granite. This change of material is a subtle one, in terms of its texture and color, but definitely a change. This created four curved shapes on the ground, in contrast to the rectilinear shapes of the house. They also repeat the curved roof over the front porch.
Each stone was individually set in mortar, as the thickness of each stone varied a good deal. Natural stone takes so much longer to set, as it is never completely or predictably the same thickness from stone to stone.
The roughness of this stone seemed to ask for a frame. To cut limestone to fit perfectly here would have been very problematic. So we poured a border of mortar, finished to resemble the limestone on the house.
The finished drivecourt is an interested study in shapes and textures, as well as a utilitarian solution for parking.
The decomposed granite was brought outside the wing walls, to better visually integrate the drive and drivecourt. I think the end result is not just austere, but beautifully austere.