Oak Street Church design

  Most people have never heard of Piet Oudolf.  Even in the horticultural trade maybe 1 out of every 10 people I encounter are familiar with the Dutch designer.  Well, if you are familiar with his work, you know that his perennial and ornamental grass compositions are like rich symphonies of incomparable combinations.  He and a few other designers have championed a plant-focused design movement employing many of the wildflowers that inhabit the prairies of North America.

   In this design, along the sidewalk strip of a church in Silverton, I pay homage to Mr. Oudolf, though Piet would probably never use blue fescues in his designs.  Oak Street Church is a community-focused church, and wanted a landscape that was vibrant, diverse and low-maintenance. We achieved this using Oudolf's method of garden design.

   What really makes this design standout is the length of the border.  A good 70 feet long and almost 8 feet wide this border allowed me to create a perennial drama of color, with Echinacea, Liatris, and Russian Lavender providing the action, while ornamental grasses such as Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerester', Deschampsia, Pennisetums and others lend structure, texture, and context.  Without the grasses this design just looks like a mess.  With the grasses it achieves a "wild" look without feeling out of control.  Grasses not only provide structural  balance, but also provide a soft earthy, golden colors that help accent the bold injections of perennial color.  Also, their visual texture helps make the composition more palpable, breaking up the perennials into visually manageable groups. 

   Less is More.  Limiting the number of perennials to four (Echinacea, Sedums, Liatris, Lavender) allows the design to be wild and bold.  If we cram too many different perennial species in here we get visual overload.  Too many colors competing against each other. But with only four different species, all planted in bunches for maximum impact, our eyes can travel the length of the design without feeling overwhelmed.

   Lastly, this design is also incredibly easy to maintain, provides ample pollen and nectar sources for our native bees, and needs minimal water during the summer.  I think Piet would approve.

Irving Street Kitchen patio

   A few months back I was asked to design the planters at a new restaurant in the Pearl District.  The restaurant, called Irving Street Kitchen, was in the process of getting a facelift, transforming itself from its previous manifestation as Bay 13; a cold, metallic-heavy, industrial designed airplane hangar.  The inside was already vastly improved with rich reds, and lots of rough wood, but the outside was still very nautical and shiny, aluminum and concrete being the common elements.

   The cantilever that covers the loading dock or patio as Irving St. Kitchen now calls it keeps the sun from pouring down onto patrons, but also limits the amount of available sunlight, yet because of all the reflective material on the patio the area remains very bright.  I chose plants that prefer part sun, and maybe even pushed the boundary on this requirement.  I wanted to use neutral tones with soft textural grasses to make the patio area feel more relaxing. The more earthy tones of grey-green and tawny-brown of the grasses flowers convey softness (a contrast to the metal), without the color contrast of bright flowers or foliage.

   We chose a Coral-bark Japanese Maple for the entrance, planted with Black Mondo grass as a more dramatic entrance piece.  The more lipstick red of the bark echoes the brick red of the bar inside.

Front yard update

I finished installing the front yard.  I went with pavers for the two access paths, mounded all the beds, planted drought tolerants and covered everything in 1/4 minus screened (clear) gravel.  Here's what it looks like.

July 2010 (jeffry)

Sedums

access path

Initially these plants will need to be watered throughout the summer, but with the mulch in place it won't be more often then every two to three weeks.  By next summer they won't need any supplemental irrigation, possibly once or twice just to keep looking good.  As far as maintenance its just weeding.  The grasses, Sedums, lavenders and others will be pruned once in the late winter or early spring.  This is called a low-maintenance garden, not a gardener's garden, but still beautiful, and without the time, cost, and resources of a traditional lawn and border front yard. Sit back and enjoy.

It's definitely a Mediterranean look as of now.  I'm going to wait until the fall to plant a sorely needed tree.  When the temperature rises past 90 degrees a little shade goes a long way.

Front yard at NE 33rd and Going

When I bought my house almost two years ago, I was elated to finally have the chance to landscape MY yard rather than my client's.  And since I wasn't going to move in right away, I had plenty of time to think about it.  After careful measuring, I went about sketching out various patterns and forms, plotting retaining walls and paths,  and wrestling with xera-themed designs vs grasses/perennial style plantings.  Of course having options is a good thing, but too many options just leads to confusion.  The deciding factor soon became cost, or more accurately:  how do I reuse my existing materials into a design that is of comparable aesthetic appeal to one that could be purchased with new materials.  

Once I decided on a plan, I went about getting the hard physical labor done first, which meant installing a cobble and stone retaining wall, and tearing out my concrete entryway and replacing it with flagstone.  95% of this I accomplished by myself, which I do not recommend because some of those flagstone pieces nearly removed the tips of my fingers.....yeah, not recommended.

When all the hardscaping (what we call it in the industry) was complete it was time pick out the plants.  Again  I chose the frugal route, and used plants that were left over from previous jobs, though a good portion of them I bought with intention of using them for my front yard.  Xera Plants helped me out immensely, as in I don't know where I would have gotten all these amazingly unique and gorgeous looking plants without them.  They are truly a gem, and we in the PNW are blessed that they exist, and sell to the public.  I completed all the planting and mulched all the beds around the first of April.  

Since then I've tinkered with some things, added a couple gravel paths that allow easier access to the driveway and side of the house than the previous stepping stones, and finished off the retaining wall on the north side.  Most recently I've removed the grass from the sidewalk strip, and will soon add plants and two gravel access paths.  I've even begun work on the backyard installing a gravel patio and adding a custom-built picnic table with the help of my roommate/handyman Jeffry.  Updates will be coming soon!

My former San Francisco Backyard....revisited

I was recently in the Bay Area, and was able to visit my old San Francisco apartment.  Located in the Sunset district, this area is routinely shrouded in fog and is so close to the beach that the soils are basically old dune sand.  Upon visiting I was able to snap a few photos and reminisce about my former backyard.

Four years ago this garden began with just a few ornamental cherry trees that were the only things that survived after years of neglect.When I began creating the garden I was faced with a subterranean dilemma. The resident mole population I inherited was quite happy with the flora of annual weedy grasses that emerged every spring, and as the infant garden took roots my mole friends were curious to sample the exotic buffet of ornamentals I unwillingly offered them.  I planted, they devoured.  I planted strange plants from far regions, they sampled.  I planted aromatic Meditteranean like lavender and sage, they still sampled!  But after giving up on ornamental grasses and Phormiums, I began planting stuff they hated (lavenders), to stuff they were unfamiliar with, such as Grevillea and S. African Honeybush and other southern hemisphere Mediterranean climate plants.  Because not only are moles and gopher unfamiliar with these plants they thrive in nutrient poor soils, so beach sand is like rich hummus to them.  Getting the garden going was not easy, and this was not only an example of creating a garden ad-hoc, but learning from it, and letting ideas evolve over time.  Gardening is often about trial and error, and in difficult sites that is often the only way to learn.

b. forman backyard

I just finished working on a project for my good friend Brett. These are some photos of his backyard before we started the project, in progress, and after all the planting was finished. After a year or so of discussions and weighing options we decided on a low-maintenance planting scheme with use of natural flagstone and gravel pathways. Brett works full-time as a graphic designer, and is not the type of person who gets pleasure out of pulling weeds in his backyard on his weekends, though he does appreciate the aesthetic value of having a visually pleasing landscape.

The backyard he had inherited consisted of some poorly laid out minimalist design features: a lumpy rectangular lawn, an awkwardly placed fire pit, and a few stray plantings. The yard was sparse, which made my work as designer so much easier. I can't emphasize this enough. Working with a blank canvas is a garden designer's dream, because the majority of backyards are not (blank).

When Brett decided that he didn't want to put the effort and time into leveling the earth and re-laying his sod in order to get a proper croquet playing surface he scrapped the lawn altogether and elected for a more low-maintenance, sustainable-minded design. To rid himself of lawn he used the now well-documented newspaper mulch weed suppression method to suffocate that sod into submission.

This is where I stepped in. From Brett's living room there are large floor-to-ceiling windows which I am very jealous of because it allows the garden to be visually integrated into his home.

To capitalize on this feature I wanted to add plants that would have strong structural qualities and also lend movement to the space which will soften very linear and rectangular shape and allow the garden to feel more organic and fluid. Ornamental grasses with strong architectural qualities will assist in adding three important features: continuity, structure/foundation, and softness/foil . Tall structural grasses provide foundational elements, and yet aren't oppressive and overly bulky. They provide rhythm to the garden and their soft earthy colors make a great backdrop for the more showy displays of flowering perennials. This Grasses/perennial style of design is compelling for many reasons. By choosing the right species/cultivars one can create a gorgeous composition with quite elaborate (if desired) plantings and still have a garden that isn't nearly as demanding as traditional "english" style gardens we are so used to seeing in gardening magazines. Brett's garden will need initial light weeding, but the most maintenance will come from cutting back perennials and grasses in the late winter. I'd say once a year cutting back isn't too laborious, and the best thing is that these plants won't require much water after the initial year or two of establishment.

Chicago's prairie style parks

This is from a trip to Chicago I took in 2008. This is a planting in Millenium Park by Piet Oudolf. Check our the Rhus typhina 'Staghorn.'


Some of Piet Oudolf's prairie style planting with Eryngium yuccifolium, and white-flowered Echinacea, make a nice foreground for the Chicago skyline. It feels somehow less imposing this way.



The nature museum which appears to be swallowed by what looks like Ratibidia pinnata and Monarda. And finally one of my favorite perennials: Asclepias.

Some old photos that I found. A public stairway in San Francisco that I planted