I will start with a design challenge I have recently completed.

My client had lived with this floating ‘peanut’ bed for some time and was ready for a change…

…a deserted island in an ocean of grass.

This garden had some great bones and great oaks, the layout was just lacking purpose, rationale and flow.

A recently refurbished back deck was in a spacial war with the encroaching peanut, a peanut that was lined with small ‘mortared’ chunks of limestone and holy rocks…what is this obsession with concreting things into a landscape?

To make matters worse, the mortar that was holding these small rocks solidly above ground had to be about a foot deep. Oh yes, I said a foot deep.

They were like little limestone icebergs, small above ground but with enough concrete below to half fill a dumpster and keep my crew busy for half a day. They were the first thing on my sledgehammers ‘things to hit’ list.

The second thing I wanted to address was the integration of the decking steps into the landscape to visually and functionally give them purpose and anchor them into the new scheme.

A visualization was generated to capture and communicate the design intent:

Over-sized Oklahoma flagstone was introduced to bridge the stairwells, creating an expanded central planting bed in the void between them.

Here is the new layout before any planting:

And looking the other way,

Before:

Visualization:

Installation:

Fence-softening loquats and bamboo muhly grasses ease the transition between turf and flagstone. The new layout creates a flowing and naturalistic aesthetic.

An intense stare from this piece of flagstone.

Back in the Patch…

…somebody had been sticking his nose where he shouldn’t,

through a corrugated metal fence of all things to fight with a pit bull.

The end result:

Fence / Napoleon complex: 7 stitches, Pit Bull: 0

The cookies have almost gone for another year.

I knew those pallets would come in useful.

Gopher plants are in full swing,

Euphorbia rigida

they look great around broad paddles and are particularly effective when weaving through edging boulders.

Fatsia Japonica have finished flowering and are now

producing thousands of green berries.

These will mature to shiny black as winter draws to an end, a great late winter feast for the birds.

Now this is what I call an infestation!

I have this scale (Diaspis echinocacti) on two opuntia paddles.

I had no idea how these tiny oysters functioned.

Treatment was easy…snap off infected paddle and discard.

Stay Tuned For:

“Branching Out”

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