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Monday Opinion: The Drawing

No matter how well I communicate an idea about a landscape to a client, I need a drawing.  The drawing is a bird’s eye view of a property which in no way communicates the sculptural volumes that might bring an idea to life in a dimensional way, but it formalizes my thinking.  It helps me explain my idea, and all of the details of that idea.  For me, the drawing and the creating happen at the same time. Some clients take the drawing of the design, and install it themselves, or contract with someone else to do the work.  All of this is fine with me. I could make models, but I have too many design projects at any given time to make that idea practical. And truth be told, most clients want to feel comfortable that what they are getting has value, beauty, sensibility, and inspiration.  They want this much more than a drawing.    

A drawing is a series of lines put to a piece of paper.  A definition of a drawing includes the signature on a check, a couture designer’s gestural record of shape, a graph tracking any number of trends, the doodling most people do while on the phone.  It can be utterly simple, or amazingly complicated. Architectural drawings are incredibly detailed.  They are a map which details how a structure should be built.  Topological surveys, mortgage surveys, drainage plans, installation details-these are all highly technical drawings from which an idea can come to life.  There are drawing made by Picasso whose lines can be counted on one hand.  There are drawings by Albrecht Durer that involve thousands of intersecting and overlapping lines.

These drawings are not technical in nature.  They are emotionally generated, and emotionally charged.  A pencil, a charcoal or pastel stick-some line drawings are not so much about the shapes the lines describe, as the pressure placed on the medium.  My drawings are a skeletal and dispassionate version of a sculpture which I passionately believe will live and breathe.  Not art.  They are a means by which I can better express an idea.

I do all of my drawings by hand.  I find the time I spend creating the drawing influences the design.  There are times when in the process of constructing an angle or a space-I have a different idea.  I value an idea, no matter what time it appears. These hand drawn plans may not be as perfectly crisp or accurate as a drawing assisted by a computer,  but my hand made gestures speak volumes to a client.  There is a person governing that hand. 

I am very stubborn about taking the time for a plan to develop.  I like to see homes or buildings out of the ground before I commit myself to a plan.  Most of the the time I spend designing happens in my mind, in the course of the day.  Just before I wake up.  Monica has learned to distinguish those times when I am looking at her, but actually somewhere else.  I rarely put a pencil to a piece of paper before I have reviewed and determined a point of view in the abstract. 

Ideas that help to design a garden can come from lots of places.  A picture in a magazine.  A comment from a friend.  A favorite color.  I subscribe to lots of design magazines.  I read them twice, then I rip out any page that still appeals to me.  I don’t need to know what I like about anything I see at that moment.  The time will come when that picture will inspire a particular design.  But nothing helps my creative process so much as the drawing.  It does not need to be finished or fancy.  It needs to have rhythm.  I cannot explain this very well, but what you are thinking needs to come out of the end of your pencil as a drawing.  No gardener plants ideas.  They plant living things appropriate to or in celebration of an idea. 

None of my clients like to draw for me.  Sometimes I insist.  I learn more about how a client feels about a space by seeing their drawing of it, than I do talking to them about it.  Their drawings are about clearly expressing spaces and shapes; this is an art of a different sort.  In just a few lines, they express to me what they hope for, what they need, what they expect.

People’s signatures interest me.  They are usually highly individual, and beautifully gestural.  A signature is a drawing that has been developed and practiced over a long period of time.  Most signatures are very confident, and sculptural.  Your garden bears your signature-so does mine.  I might not really be aware of what my signature is-who thinks throught the process of signing a check or document?  I do what I do-you do what you do. That expression-it is a drawing you could do at a moment’s notice.  A design for a landscape should have that same immediacy and confidence.  My advice-do not second guess your signature.  Just sign, and build.

My drawings sign-sorry- assign spaces, places, accessibility, movement, rhythm.  They are simple maps, detailing what I hope will be a good journey.  That line drawing at some point will become something else entirely.  A place to live.  A place to grow food.  A place to cut flowers. A place to be.  A place to entertain friends and family.  A mini-soccer field.  A place to relax and read.  

My advice?  Blow up your mortgage survey to a scale you can easily study.  Draw the beds and spaces you have, the best you can.  Draw your ideas and dreams over top of what is existing.  Look at the picture this makes.  Make lots of marks with your pencil.  Draw lots of lines before you ever put your shovel to the dirt.  Your drawing may turn out to matter more than you ever thought possible.

Posted on: September 12, 2011 2 Comments
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Susie’s Pots

 

Making a move to renovate a landscape usually begins with some fairly compelling idea. Who would take on the mess and expense, unless there is some imagined outcome that will make for a decidedly better experience? As much as my daily routine has to do with tearing up people’s yards and putting them back together in some other way, I personally find change to be unsettling and difficult.  Maintaining the status quo has its attraction. I am likely to dig in my heels, and hang back until something throws me in another direction.  An appreciation and interest in the out of doors was a given for this client, but other issues were getting some play.

She had raised three girls, and was toying with the idea of moving to a smaller place, and making some time for travel.  Her decision about an outcome had to do with a few basic things.  She could not imagine a place she would like better than the one she already owned free and clear.  She had already spent a lot of time and trouble furnishing the inside of the house to suit herself.  In the end, she decided to stay where she was, and create a beautiful space outdoors that would make her feel like she was on vacation.  She is very happy with her own private vacation spot-I attribute that to her clear idea of what she wanted from her landscape. �
Everyone’s defining landscape decision is different.  Every committed gardener asks for something individual from their garden.  The important thing is to think through what it is you need and want before a shovel goes in the ground. Figuring out what you really want is not always so easy.  I might in casual conversation say I want vast perennial borders, but in truth I do not.  I work on perennial borders every day.  What I want when I go home is peace, quiet, and order. My landscape has lots of evergreens; they are very low maintenance and are beautiful all year long.  My container gardening is a foil for all of that-each one gets a new outfit every year.  They are my idea of fun.   

Susie’s pots are bold in color and form.  All of that resort style turquoise blue water asks for a strong color statement.  She enjoys taking care of her pots as much as she likes swimming in the pool.  The care of the pots is an everday pleasure, not a burden.  

Our late June and early July have been scorchingly hot.  The annual and tropical plants thrive in that heat much better than I do.  Susie is poolside every day, enjoying the weather as much as her plants do.  I can tell at a glance that they get daily care.  Anyone lacking the drive or time to look after containers every day can still be successful with them.  The installation of automatic watering and the planting of drought resistant plants can go a long way to help with the maintenance. A care plan is as important as the design. 

Three of her steel boxes have boxwood in them that live there all year round. The variegated licorice thrives on the boxwood watering schedule.  She does see this particular spot looking out the window in winter.  There is always something there for her to see.     

A pair of Belgian boxes were moved to the driveway.  She not only sees those boxes coming and going, she can see them from a window in her living room. My guess is that we will fill this box with something good looking for the winter months.

The dining table bakes in the sun all day long; the trailing verbena Lavender Star thrives in this environment.  The yellow glazed pot from Cliousclat in France, and that lavender provide a lot of color in a very small space. 

The apple espalier is now on its 4th year, living in a large steel box.  I had my doubts that it would live over the winter with its roots above ground, but she was willing to risk it. It is doing well enough that we need to install another wire up top, to keep the branches growing vertically.  An espalier grown in a heart shape-we both fell for it. 

This pool yard would be every bit as beautiful without the container gardens, but such a landscape would not suit my client.  She truly enjoys making plants grow.  The responsibility is great, but the rewards for her are greater.  

What makes people happy-it makes the gardening world go round.

Posted on: July 10, 2011 6 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design, Landscape Design Tagged With: , ,

A New House

I have a client with a new house under construction.  Now that the structure is out of the ground, I wanted to see the property.  We have had what is starting to feel like endless rain-the construction site of course was mud and more mud.  But that doesn’t faze me much-I am too busy looking at the spaces the house creates, and envisioning what could be there.  On the left of this picture, a three car garage.  On the right the large open space will be the front door.  I am unwilling to design a landscape from a drawing of a house-I need to see the mass of it.  I admire how an architect can visualize something which does not yet exist.  But since the landscape has to come last anyway, I would just as soon look at the house before I design.  The house is the major feature of a landscape;  seeing a building sitting on a pile of dirt makes that very clear.   

I will have to come back, once the soil from the excavated basement is hauled away. Right now I do not have the best sense of the lay of the land.  The back of the house faces a lake; preserving the views to the water will be an important aspect of the rear yard landscape.   

The lot had been empty for many years; this is the first house to be built on it.  This meant that there was very little in the way of existing plant material.  Luckily some mature and good looking plant material exists on one of the three lot lines.  A mulberry tree I will most likely take down.  I would guess it grew from a seed dropped by a bird.  I am fairly easy going about trees that drop twigs seeds and fruit, but the fruit of a mulberry is intolerably messy.  This picture was taken from a third story tower; the neighboring landscape is mature, and well looked after.  Unlike many lake communities that prohibit plant material over a certain height that might obstruct the view of the water, the landscapes in this community have been planted with privacy in mind.

The view straight out from the tower is spectacular.  There will be a good reason to walk up here and see what the weather over the lake looks like every day.  A natural feature as spectacular as this is well worth building around.

The neighbor on the opposite side has one of the most beautiful stands of mature carpinus I have ever seen.  I would never have thought they would tolerate living in a windy exposed spot, much less thrive.  My client will have a borrowed view in this direction that is quite beautiful.

It seems as though the rear yard slopes quite a bit before reaching the water. There is also quite a drop to the water from the seawall.  Dealing with the changes of grade – the sculpture of the ground- will be necessary ahead of any planting.  My instinct tells me how the ground plane is handled will be a very important factor in the landscape.    


Did I have a good sense of what the property would feel like before I saw it-no.  The experience of nature bears little resemblance to the experience of a technical drawing.  The things that make each property unique cannot so easily be represented in a drawing. I do make design suggestions for properties I have not seen, but I am uneasy doing that.  I have to see what the land feels like.

Posted on: June 23, 2011 1 Comment
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The Front Door

I never use my front door-unless I am outside after work, watering my pots. If I am out there watering, the chances are very good that I will exchange hellos with people walking the neighborhood.  When company comes, I am on the inside looking out.  Why I would care how the landscape at my front door looks-simple.  My friends are walking up that walk.  We have a visit or a dinner planned.  I have every interest in making that walk welcome them.  It takes a little time to get to my front door from the street; any visitor has time to see what I have going on.   The front door pictured above-my clients were interested in making a change. 

Making friends feel welcome is but one of the ways that my landscape gives me pleasure. My clients had the same idea.  They changed the door and sidelights for the first time in twenty-some years.  Their choice of a new door and sidelights-a beautiful update.  Part of that update was a new pair of containers for the front porch.  A porch generous enough in size to accomodate both pots and guests; I like the size of the porch.  These chocolate stained concrete vase shaped pots, much larger, and much more emphatic-they make a statement.  Purchased just in time for the winter season, we filled them with twigs, dyed eucalyptus, and a wide densely constructed nest of cut greens. The scale of the planters and plantings frames the front door in such a way to make the invitation read from the street.  This also makes friends knocking on the front door feel welcome. 

Just today, we planted these pots for spring.  The winter centerpieces we kept.  The height of the twigs, and the mass of the eucalyptus, are scaled properly with the size of the door, and the size of the porch.    Guests approaching have a sense of the landscape at eye level-this is a friendly gesture.  How I landscape places in my yard where friends come to visit-I like that landscape to put its arms around my friends, and say hello. 

Some city gardens are built on very small properties.  A conscious choice was made here-to block the view of the front door with a luxurious square of boxwood, dominated by an antique urn.  I planted that urn very tall. How that planting obscures the front door makes the walk to the door an adventure.  Front yard landscapes have much to do with the relationship between the public presentation from the street, and the welcome issued to family and friends. 

This front walkway behind that urn planted very tall is actually an extension of a drivecourt.  A shallow porch benefits greatly from its overscaled width.  I so like the decision to do four pots on a narrow porch.  Everything about the numbers of pots, the placement and the planting influences to what extent you say hello, and welcome.

Some front doors are not symmetrically placed.  A tall portion of wall existed to the right of this front door.  A tall pot, barely visible here, is home to a planting of zebra grass and variegated plectranthus.  The planting is at eye level from the street.  The landscape successfully frames the front door. 

This client loves the big statement that her limelight hydrangeas make-they are glorious.  The view from the street to the front door-a long view.  Her contemporary faux bois selettes from France-they still read from a long ways away.  Up close, a mass planting of white New Guinea impatiens is complimented by lime green creeping jenny-the creeping is almost  4 feet long, come mid July.  There is no walk from  here to there-but there is a view that engages the eye in a lively way.

Not all porches permit pots placed symmetrically.  One planter at the door can be every bit as strong as a pair.  In this case, one giant planter is balanced by a substantial planter box.  The landscape obscures the walk.  This makes for a public presentation of the landscape separate from the private experience.  I live in an urban neighborhood.  This means I have concern about what I want to contribute to the beauty of the neighborhood, and how I might want to more personally welcome my guests. 


The back door of my property sees lots of action.  I load and unload the dogs every day-I park just 15 feet from the back door.  We take the trash out.  We come and go, and park here-all the time.  Treasured friends come in the back door regularly.  But my front door-the landscape and the pots-I have a thing about this special place.  It is my obligation and pleasure to present as beautiful a presentation as I can.  To the neighbors walking by.  To casual visitors driving by.  To special guests.  On my mind is what people driving by, and guests coming up the walk-what do they see?  What have I been so well mannered to put at their eye level.

Good manners?  Any guest of mine, I do try to consider their experience first- before I consider my own. Beautiful pots, overflowing with plants, at the front door-this is no doubt a gesture of respect, and affection.

Posted on: May 3, 2011 5 Comments
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