Ladies and Gentlemen, Start your Engines!

It's time to move full speed ahead with plans for the 2014 garden season!

Adding new trees or shrubs to your landscape this year? Take the time now to do your research so you can make an informed choice come planting season.

European larch, Larix decidua, is a beautiful tree that needs careful site selection.

Want to try your hand at growing your own edibles?  Think about what you and your family actually like to eat, not only in terms of specific veggies, but also types of cuisine. A focus on cuisine may open your eyes to some fun and interesting new plants to consider. And don't forget the herbs!

Romanesco broccoli and rhubarb. Yum (though maybe not in the same dish!).

Need help seeing the big picture for your property or finding solutions to problem areas that are driving you crazy? Contact me to set up a consultation:  jhcstudios(at)yahoo(dot)com.

One of my favorite landscape designs, beautifully maintained by the owner.

What are you dreaming about for your garden this year?

Garden Designers' Roundtable: Bold

Canna spp.

Has your garden become the only place where you feel safe to express yourself, to vent, to let go of social norms and do a bit of visual screaming?

I hear you.

Use your voice to create something powerful and beautiful — not just noise.  Create bold notes in the landscape to develop focal points that can lead the eye through the space and unify it, too.

Two simple ideas to employ when you want to be bold:  big and bright.

A big object is a bold presence that demands our attention, whether it's the overall plant size (relative to it's surroundings), flowers, foliage, or an in-organic item that's been introduced to the landscape:

Hibiscus spp.

plume grass, Erianthus ravennae

giant silver mullein, Verbascum bombyciferum

an eight foot tall bronze sculpture by Kevin Robb

A bright object catches the eye and is easy to see in a world of green.  Think red, yellow, and white — the colors most easily discerned by the human eye, even in low light:

Bold red tulips in Spring demand that we "Wake up, already!" and leave Winter blah behind.

Acid yellow flowers and foliage is are not to be ignored. Design by DBG.

white glows even on a cloudy day

This brilliant blue hue, unusual in nature, demands our attention. Design by Carol Hines.

Big AND bright?  Powerful stuff:

purple smoke tree, Cotinus coggygria and Achillea at Denver Botanic Gardens

Canna and kale

Hesperalo parviflora. at Kendrick Lakes. Design by Greg Foreman

Cranbe cordifolia

big swaths of bright perennial flowers in the trial gardens at Colorado State University

holiday light extravaganza at Denver Botanic Gardens

Dare to be bold — you may find a voice that you never knew you had.

For more inspiration on the bold landscape, click through the links below:
Garden Designers' Roundtable

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Jenny Peterson : J Petersen Garden Design : Austin, TX

David Cristiani : It’s A Dry Heat : Albuquerque, NM 

Garden Designers' Roundtable: Inspiration

Inspiration comes in many forms and guises.  Sometimes I have to seek it out, other times it hits me as a surprise observation or a flash of an idea from out of the blue when I'm busy at another task (Weeding, anyone?).  I've written about a number of my inspirational influences here, so today I'd like to focus on just one:  my colleagues.

Last week I attended ProGreen Expo, the annual, week-long conference and trade show for landscape professionals in the Rocky Mountain and High Plains regions.  With over 100 seminars to attend and 600 vendor booths to visit, it's the perfect opportunity to find inspiration.  If you didn't know it before, I'll tell you now:  people in the green industry — designers, contractors, irrigation specialists, arborists, etc. — are extremely open and sharing with their expertise and information. Regardless of what part of the country they work in or the size of their business, there is usually a new idea or fresh perspective that I can adapt.  Here are just a few of the ideas that I gleaned from my colleagues...

Inspiration:  tools and technology
Roundtable member Susan Cohan taught a couple of sessions on digital imagery as design tools. My aha! moment came with her tutorial on using "secret", or hidden, Pinterest boards to collaborate with clients.  Design styles, specific plants, hardscape products, colors, etc. can be reviewed and edited to help communicate and customize a landscape or garden design. Did I spend the weekend reorganizing and expanding my Pinterest site?  Yes. Yes I did!

Photographs are a key component of my business, so I'm always looking for good tips and examples to help me improve my landscape and plant photos.  Rich Pomerantz, a master photographer with a beautiful portfolio, had some solid reminders / ideas for me (which I ran right out and tried):

1.  Play with the depth of field.  Not everything has to be in focus all the time.

2.  Play with the light. Back-lit "rimmed" subjects can be lovely.

3.  Shadows can be your friends (they make the subject look more three dimensional).
4.  Sometimes you want to "sell the steak" with your photo, sometimes you want to "sell the sizzle."

Inspiration:  regionalism
Another Roundtable member, David Christiani, gave two presentations on using regional cues to create designs that have a visual "sense of place" and are sustainable.  David recommends not only knowing your climate (much more than the USDA Hardiness Zone), but also the plant patterns of your eco-zone.  Plants are going to form groups and colonies — patterns, if you will — differently in the high plains than they do in the desert or woodlands, for example.  Recreating those patterns in the built landscape will go a long way towards creating a regional design, even when different plants are substituted.
Here's an example of a built landscape in my neighborhood park that replicates that of the high plains region. Grasses are the dominant plant species with the occasional  shrub, thicket, or tree.  Woody plants have naturalized here more than the norm because of their proximity to a lake and drainage/irrigation ditch.

             (More of Rich's photo tips:
             5.  Use the line of a path, wall, planting bed, etc to take the viewer's eye from the corner of the    image into the center.
             6.  The foreground doesn't always have to be in focus.)

This look could be interpreted in a home landscape by emphasizing low profile plantings with the occasional tall accent plant, something like this:

Denver, Colorado, designer unknown

Inspiration:  Collaboration

As an independent landscape designer I sometimes get trapped into thinking that I have to know everything and do everything myself.  Helllooooo! A great presentation by Elizabeth Fain LaBombard on the design, installation (Elizabeth was the lead on Section 2), and maintenance of the fabulous High Line in New York reminded me that complex projects are often best tackled as team projects.  Professional collaborations and public sector+private sector collaborations are what made this project feasible from the very beginning.  Will I be working with my peers more often in 2013?  You can bet on it!

What has inspired you lately?  What ideas will you be incorporating into your garden for 2013?

We have a great program for you today.  Please visit my fellow members of The Garden Designers' Roundtable for more Inspiration!

Susan Cohan : Miss Rumphius’ Rules : Chatham, NJ

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Jenny Peterson : J Petersen Garden Design : Austin, TX

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI

Christina Salwitz : Personal Garden Coach : Renton, WA

Garden Designers' Roundtable: Darkness

The shadows know . . . !

a small courtyard garden is visually enlarged - and enhanced - by its shadow. Casa Benavides Inn, Taos, New Mexico

As the days of autumn shorten, the low-slung sun casts longer and more distinctive shadows. The play between positive and negative space becomes more exaggerated; an even match for the color drama going on now, too.

Shadows help us see forms. Various textures and shapes reflect and collect light differently allowing us to distinguish unique elements amongst landforms, hardscapes and plants.

dunes at White Sands National Monument

enhanced shadows expose the topography

shadows created by the foliage texture of this kale help us analyze and understand the plant's form

the variety of textures and forms in this garden create shadows that make it more readable

Shadows cast upon a vertical surface create a multiplying effect that gives depth to a garden. They can also provide new interest and beauty to a blah surface.

Allium shadows on brushed stainless steel at Kevin Robb Studios

the shadow of an tree creates the illusion of a climbing vine

Shadows cast upon a horizontal surface heighten the textural nuances of the hardscape material and create a distorted echo of the item itself.

ghostly images from vintage iron posts enhance a plain-Jane concrete patio

a lattice shadow on river pebbles has a watery distortion

Another type of "shadow" is a silhouette. Items back-lit by the sun and viewed through a translucent screen have a fascinatingly different appearance -  sometimes simplified, sometimes more complex.  (Either way, it does give one the sense of having x-ray vision.)

hidden flower buds, exposed

colors and shapes interplay like multiple layers of stained glass - Denver Botanic Gardens

a tangle of grape vines, simplified

Our landscapes are changing rapidly now.  As autumn moves into winter, and darkness dominates our days, I hope you will seek out the shadows and enjoy their stories.

Please visit my fellow members of the Garden Designers' Roundtable for more inspiring ideas and information on our theme of Darkness:

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK
Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA

Thanks to M. Zwalen and M. Komodore for allowing me to photograph their gardens!

About Photos - a Very Wordy Wednesday!

I often get nice comments on the quality of the photographs here on the blog (thank you!). Recently, Janine asked for a few tips on how she could improve her garden photos, and I decided it would be fun to expand on my initial response.  Although I’m by no means an expert, my photographs are an important part of my business, not only for this blog, but for lectures and classes, to document the site conditions for my design projects, and for my portfolio as well. I also use photography as a design tool; in isolating my view through the lens of a camera, I can focus in on a unique composition or isolated detail.  In other words, a camera often helps me “see” better.  Last but not least, I think photography is fun --- I truly enjoy sharing my little corner of the world with you!

General guidelines:

Composition: If your subject doesn’t look good when you look at it through the viewfinder, it’s not going to look good on screen or in print. In garden shots, be especially aware of hoses, tools, or toys lying about.

Light: Try to avoid the intensity of mid-day sunlight. If the glare from glossy leaf surfaces doesn’t get you, the contrast of deep shadows will. Early morning, early evening, and – even better, in my opinion – the soft light of high cloud cover, work best.

Camera Setting: Never use the "auto" setting on your camera. Although I rarely work in full manual mode any more, I do always play with the preset modes that vary the lens aperture (opening). Photograph your subject with a few different settings. You may be surprised what the subtle differences in depth of field and focus can do in creating a better image. I’ve also found that the “action/running man” mode can be great for capturing images outdoors when conditions are breezy.

 Quantity: Take lots of pictures. For every photo you see here on the blog, I’ve usually taken 3-6 more with a slightly different angle or different camera setting. And I’ve taken hundreds and hundreds of pictures that never see the light of day!

Keep your camera handy: Most great photographs are the result of an unexpected opportunity, just being in the right place at the right time. The vast majority of the photos you see here on the blog are taken in my own garden simply because I can respond immediately to a random occurrence.

Minimize Editing: Almost every photo can use a bit of cropping – and some of them can use a lot. Light balancing (moderating glare or deep shadows) can also be helpful, but for the most part, if you’re after a natural representation of the subject matter, don’t belabor it. All the bells and whistles in the world won’t turn a bad photo into a great one (review the first two items, above).

My camera and why I love it:

For the past 18 months or so I’ve been using a Nikon D60-SLR camera with an 18-55mm lens and 10.75 mega pixels. I’ve gone through several digital cameras over the years (the first was a Sony FDMavica with 1.6! mega pixels that used floppy discs! for image capture), and now understand which features work best for me.

Large Size: I almost never use a tripod and I find that a larger, heavier camera is actually easier for me to hold steady as I frame and squeeze off the shot. That said, the Nikon D60 also has a built in stabilizer that really has improved my ability to take a still photo by hand. (I use a very small digital Polaroid that I keep in my briefcase for quick documentation during site surveys of design projects.)

Quick-set Format: My term (not Nikon’s) for the way I typically use this camera, as a glorified point and shoot (see Camera Setting, above). I’m not a professional photographer, nor am I a particularly studious amateur, but I do need good photos for my work.

Viewfinder: No more fighting the glare off a screen!

High Pixel Count: The large number of pixels available with this camera allow me to crop the images to the extreme and – somewhat – replicate the effects of both a macro lens and a telephoto lens, before they break up.

A high number of pixels also allows for better quality large format prints. Three of my photos have been cover images for Colorado Green magazine (a regional trade publication).

High Quality Lens: Finally, for the best photos you must invest in good equipment. It all comes down to the optical quality of the lens. Over the years I’ve been very pleased with both Nikon and Pentax cameras.

On my Wish List: a telephoto lens, so I can shoot up into the tree tops!

I hope these tips have been helpful and I hope you’ll leave a comment about your experiences with garden photography.

How to Create a New Garden Vista --- Instantly!

The rounded bench back echos the rounded line of the wall. Design by Phase One Landscapes

One of the most valuable components of a landscape, whether large or small, is destination seating. Every garden should have a spot where you can sit and relax, dream and scheme! More importantly, a place to and look at the garden away from your main window or patio/deck view gives you a whole new vista. Gardens are composed of three-dimensional forms and, like a piece of sculpture, should be viewed from multiple points to be fully appreciated.

View from back of house to seating area. Design by JHChilvers

View from seating area to back of house. Design by JHChilvers

Two seating areas on opposite sides of a small space. Design by Phase One Landscapes

The same concept with a more rustic interpretation. Design by owner.

  Another reason to create a destination seating area is that it will pull you into the garden. There's nothing like actually walking through the space, instead of just viewing it as a static "picture," to get you interacting with nature again. A small seating area can be an oasis of quiet and calm, a place to regenerate.  Conversely, it may bring you closer to the action if you site it near a play structure or active lawn area.  Hey, there's no rule that says you can only have one!

Front yard pair of chairs perfect for watching the world go by. Design by owner.

Multi-season impact. Design by JHChilvers

Design by owner

And finally, a pair of chairs, a teak bench, a large boulder, etc. can also act as a focal point in the garden. Try and select a seat that is harmonious in color, materials, or character to the architecture of your home and the other furnishings in your landscape. Choose materials that are low maintenance or attractive to you in their rustic state. Also think about weight - you don't want something that will end up in the next county every time the wind blows.

Albuquerque Botanic Garden

Chair lift swing, Telluride, Colorado

Rustic flagstone bench in garden designed by Elenor Welshon

 Now sit back and enjoy!