Palm trees

Gossiping Wheelbarrows

ESPatch Jan 8, 2018 1 comment

Here is a project that kept me busy this summer and fall.

This was the scene that greeted me as I walked up to meet my latest clients at a large sweeping property near lake Travis.

Most of the plantings were as old as the house and were not doing anything to visually lift the property.

The random assortment of pruned boxwoods (You know how I feel about pruned boxwoods) felt cluttered and claustrophobic on approach to the front door.

Boxwood Island!

Everything was lined with small pieces of mortored limestone, the dark mortar made them look like dirty little niblet teeth, teeth that need flossing…no wait, extracting!…

With a sledgehammer!

The homeowners wanted a more modern look and were very open to suggestions and change…a great place to launch a design.

Here are the visuals that I used to communicate the design intent:

The design went through multiple iterations,

especially this front horseshoe area.

And then the real work begins…

First the turf (and it was very thick turf) in this front island bed.

The more we took out, the more it apparently expanded.

A disheartening fact in blistering 100 degree temperatures.

My client cooled everyone down with a steady supply of Paletas…thanks E!

And there goes the final mound of boxwoods!

Up closer to the house…

I think we can safely say the ‘Normandy’ phase was well under way.

New irrigation and electrics going in by Steve Serum of ‘Keepin’ it GREEN’: keepinitgreen@gmail.com:

Turf was also removed left and right of the sidewalk to open up the entryway.

Four or five dumpsters later (I lost count) and the area felt so much better, the house could breathe once again.

The space felt much larger.

Area prepped for the steelwork framing, electricals going in for lighting.

This side area was also very cramped, it all had to go.

It was very satisfying to take out the niblets.

A three-piece basalt water-feature getting positioned in front of the living room window.

These rocks, from some distant alien asteroid, are extremily heavy and have to be supported on a reinforced central cylinder in the cage.

A water top-up valve was installed inside the cage to ensure the water level remains constant even in the middle of summer.

The final result:

Large arcing steel panels expand and better proportion the area.

The steelwork on this project was executed by Andrew Miller (aminc13@gmail.com)

The front horseshoe area also went through a significant transition:

From a sloping mound of thirsty turf to

being a focal point when looking from the house to the street.

A central pathway was introduced to break up the area.

Steps were incorporated to traverse up to the now flattened top grade.

Colors in the flagstone reference the rust of the steel and grey of the gravel.

Back in the Patch:

Urgh!

And I have barely made a dent.

‘Stay in the Christmas spirit…stay in the Christmas spirit’…

Awe COME ON!

‘Fal-a-la-la-la—la la la la’

There is only one thing worse than getting leaves out of sagos – it is getting them out of soft leaf yucca.

Staying with such yuccary for a second,

I have followed the demise of this plant on I35 for years.

I find myself staring at it at the stoplight, wondering how this had happened…what had caused it to buckle over halfway into its existence?

A small low-flying aircraft perhaps, making an emergency landing on the highway?

No, more likely stem rot.

Look the vines are starting to take it over.

Could it be saved?

I have a chainsaw in the back,

Perhaps I should…

Honk!

‘Par rum pum pum pum’

rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pummm’

Exactly.

Fall Aster and Celosia put on a good display this year.

My satsumas are still on the tree.

No reason to pick them really, they have a particularily disgusting flavor and mealy texture this year.

Great color for late December.

Looks are deceiving.

“Who wants to try a satsuma kids? They look really amazing this year!”

Oh yes, they WILL have one each in their stockings on Christmas morning.

With the year quickily drawing to a close,

the wheel barrows are out back relaxing by the shed, gossiping about varying tire pressures and how badly constructed they now are.

The pipes hung on the tree.

And just remember Kumo,

“He knows when youve been good or bad,

…stop eating crap for goodness sakes.”

“Merry Christmas!”

from us all in the Patch.

Stay Tuned For:

“The Sheer Luxury”

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intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“The Magic Carpet”

ESPatch May 3, 2017 3 comments

I encourage you to switch this video to full screen – it is visually stunning cinematography featuring Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh.

We are all big fans of Bollywood movies in the Patch.

In fact, keeping with the tradition and success of the Ancient Mariner series that I ran some years back (haha), I will share some of our favorite songs with you over the next series of posts.

That should take us well into 2020 based on the sporadicity of my recent postings and how many Bollywood songs we like!

Painting By Viktor Vasnetsov

Of course the magic carpet I am referring to in the title of this post is significantly less exotic and it certainly cannot fly of its own accord, (unless thrown in a wayward manner by a shovel).

It has nothing to do with King Solomon, teleportation or India.

I am of course referring to rather large quantities (in my case 30 yards to be exact) of decomposed granite.

Delivered in rather large trucks.

To think I used to buy this aggregate in small bags from Home Depot.

Ah, those were the days.

“Watch out for the cables…watch out for the cables!”

“Back wheels coming off the ground!”

A few days later the DG carpet was laid,

and some colorful furniture had moved in.

My buying decision when it comes down to purchasing garden furniture is sadly based solely around excrement.

Due to the location of our family backyard hangout, under this large Post Oak,

there is an abundance of the nasty stuff – ah the price you pay for shade.

This generally negates purchasing anything too expensive with say a nice deep wood-grain or refined finish, because well, it will be literally be covered before you can say: “that’s a really nice garden chair, where did you purcha…oh dear, I am afraid that dove has just jettisoned an alien all over it.”

“Ash…we have a problem.”

No, for me it is about the greasiness of the releasing agents in the plastic of the furniture – the texture on the plastic – how easy will it be to blast and dislodge a particularly stubborn ‘King Richard the 3rd’ with a hose?

Another carpet was also laid in the front yard, this time in the form of Tejas Black gravel:

I got so tired of this manhole cover getting covered I finally did something about it.

“Aye, he’s gaan naiwhere!”

Tejas Black generates some great shadows and looks even better when wet.

Also with a few introduced berms it tends not to look so contemporary, a thick layer discourages weeds.

I like to plant plants that can be pruned up / trunking specimens, that way if weeds do blow in…and they will, they are very visible and can be easily and cleanly treated.

Moving along…

We had a surprise this morning before school.

Upon exiting the back door there was clawing and a few snorts coming from this mountain laurel.

A pair of young raccoons were trying desperately to get some sleep.

They stayed on top of the mountain laurel until the sun came over the top of the house, forcing them to move on

…just stay out of my attic, ok?

To finish…

I am always shocked after revisiting an install as to how much time must have elapsed for things to have grown to the size they are.

It just never seems that long for me.

Here is where this north Austin installation started:

I remember it as if it were a couple maybe three years ago – not 5…

…hoping these baby cypresses would make it, they seemed so distant from each other as saplings.

A new water feature. The fresh plantings were so small – you can barely see the vitex tree (in the lawn in front of the shed door).

Then with a little help from time and some solid pruning by the client on the vitex, the scene had transformed:

The space felt very peaceful, the cypresses were now rubbing shoulders with one another and most surprising to me – it did not feel like Austin.

Visually it looks and feels like it could be in a cooler climate, somewhere much further north…

of course it was a cool rainy day when I visited.

I love the new suburban ‘cabin in the woods’ look to the garden shed.