A glimpse of today
French Country Style
I love this garden – this photo says it all. You will see more photo’s of this garden soon.
Theresa Lilac
We designed and built this walkway. It is a purplish variety of blue stone we call “Theresa Lilac’
The stone is an average of 3″ thick and each one weighed from 50 – 150 lbs. This stone is free set, meaning it is not mortared onto cement or any other substance. It is freely sitting on road base and slag sand. When building a free set base you have to be sure to pack the materials properly – using not only a machine, but water and time. This walk way has not lifted, budged or moved in 3 seasons.
Notice the interior mural we built that is perfectly centered to the middle of the two doors.The step up to the door is mortared on cement. The walk way also goes off to the right giving the client access to and from the driveway.
We did plant the ground cover and bushed but I am not responsible for whatever is going on in those annual pots on the patio. I would have gone with big green lush ferns in pots with a few purple petunias hanging out and draping down.
Stone and Roses
This client had a very tight budget for this window garden after her remodelers had their way with her budget. So the solution was these awesome tea hybrid roses that we use bamboo sticks to guide up the window, framed by the simple boxwood and a natural blue stone that we free set on soil – pure soil. This is by far the least expensive way to install stone and a useful and effective way given there is not much traffic or use on that stone nor concern for movement of the stone from the changing seasons.
This garden, with extensive soil amendments for the roses, was under 1,100 not including the irrigation.
IMAGINE EDIBLE: This same layout could have been done with edible plants. For example, I would have used a Black Currant as the hedge instead of the boxwood – this would mean in the winter I would not have an evergreen presence but I can accept that with a little Xmas lighting. Instead of the roses I would go with a specialty grape and roses. Imagine one deep red knock out rose climbing amongst clusters of deep purple plump grapes winding around a cedar trellis painted the same color as the home so that it is as if invisible. What other climbing vines are edible? Hops. Cucumber. Sugar Snap Peas – the list goes one – truly, even tomatoes would be stunning instead of the roses. Whatever can be done with ornamental plants in terms of visual pleasure can be done better by edible plants.
Old World Stone Work
I built these patio’s at a home in Lake Angelus around 5 years ago. It is a mixed stone media set on road base and sand.
This was the area for the firepit. After the work was completed a friend of mine pointed out to me how much this stone work reminded her of the stone paths and walkways in syria. My fathers mother’s family is from Damascus so I took a great liking to the idea there was some syrian influence coming through me during the building of these patios.
If you are building a patio for your enjoyment take your time selecting the materials. Before you go with a cheesy overdone brick paver get some prices on natural stone – nothing beats the look of natural stone and if it can fit into the budget then all the better.
Layering
This garden was nothing but flat light brown clay when we got to it. We added some elevation, the stone, the boxwood, yews, bradford pear, thuja nigra and oakleaf hydrangea layers. Layers upon layers, complimentary textures and colors – I love this particular garden and it’s look. Had our budget allowed it, I would have built these walls a little more significant and most certainly more of them throughout the yard. The oaklead and the bradford pear both offer white flowers in the growing season and both have stunning fall color which is framed by the evergreen boxwood and yews. Complexity of layers and stone media with simple lines and repetition – combining formality and informality for a truly unique look.
Remember, by clicking on the picture you can see it close up (at least on my computer I can)
IMAGINE EDIBLE: Imagine this same layering, this same layout with edible plants. It can be done. Strawberry instead of the vinca ground cover, currants instead of boxwood, blueberry/goji instead of the oaklead, Real Pear trees instead of the Bradford Pear Tree – we must leave the thuja nigra because those evergreen hedges for visual protection from the nieghbors are very helpful and useful indeed! Especially for those of us who enjoy naked garden time! 
Yamabuki – The Japanese Yellow Rose
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| By Ryokan (1758-1831) quoted in “Ryokan: Selected Tanka Haiku,” translated by Sanford Goldstein, Shigeo Mizuguchi and Fujisato Kitajima (Kokodo) |
We have used Japanese Kerria (Yamabuki, or Japanese Yellow Rose herein ‘JK’) in this clients yard as a deep shade flowering shrub that we prune into a more geometric form. 
We are departing from the geometric form to go back to a more naturalized bush look. Notice at the foot of the hedge in this photo the new growth shoots popping out of the ground. As this plant takes into an area it will send out and up new growth shoots. This year, I harvested those new shoots to build the client 3 new JK gardens. I harvested approximately 100 rooted new growth shoots, planted and watered for less than $150. 100 1 gallon JK would have cost over $1,000.00 – Another way to look at this is if the client paid 500 for the initial installation of the JK with this new harvesting and transplantation that investment just paid for itself in savings, so to speak. Garden Smart.
Here are the new growth shoots coming up from the soil.
With a simple shovel under the new growth shoot and a gentle lift back toward the plant, the root system and new plant easily come out of the super loamy organic soil we have developed over the past 7 years on this site.
I have the roots sitting in water while I am pulling them out before they go back into the soil. Keep the roots wet during the transition (less than 2-3 hrs)
This is how I plant the new shoot back into the soil - basically the same way they came out. A shallow long trench made with a few strokes of the perennial shovel. Notice how rich and dark that soil is. You are looking at 40+ years of fir needle decomposition.
I place them in, cover them up and soak them.
Below are photo’s of the new JK gardens. In a matter of 2 seasons these gardens will be booming and ready for more transplants into other parts of the yard or even for resale into other clients properties. No chemicals, no insect control – none of that crap – Easy. Garden Smart. The Japanese Yellow Rose.
JK is a solid plant for deeper shade flowering. It is hardy, it is easy to trasplant and it is pretty. A good consideration for mass plantings in woodland areas or as backdrops, formal or not, in shade gardens.
I searched for medicinal uses of this plant and found nothing, though I only looked for around 15 minutes. If you know of more uses for this plant, please do share.
More photo’s of JK here
Splitting a New Hosta Garden
Last week we spent a day expanding a clients gardens.
They have large clusters of a mixed variety of deep green and green/blue hosta’s. Around every other season I split them and rearrange them. This year I used these splits to build the client 2 new hasta gardens in the front of the home.
Above you can see the new hosta splits we planted. It is really important when planting hosta’s, especially the larger varieties, that you imagine this plant 3 seasons from now when you place it. The whole layout of this garden is simplicity. A simple grass patch, stunningly massive Red Oaks with nice woodland hemlock and taxus. We added some Japanese Astilbi that I split from another part of the yard. It is to the left of the oak in the first picture. The blue hosta are being used as texture, color and another transition layer. In the middle picture we are using them formally in a straight line, in the photo on the left we have them placed more naturally. Buying new hosta’s for the above garden could have cost between 20 and 30 per plant which would have cost this client around 4-500 just in plants. We built this garden for under 150 – the only cost being labor since we already had the plants growing on site. Garden Smart.
This is one of the patches of Hosta we split for the above new gardens. The picture on the far left is what the plants look like from the home. In the middle picture you can see upon closer look that I split the inside of the two hosta’s for the least visual impact and used the leaf as mulch for the plant. Hosta leaf is AMAZING mulch – smothering weeds, adding moisture to the soil and nutrients. It is always best to leave your clippings in the garden. In my case, people pay us to make their gardens look ultra clean and finished – still, there is a way to keep organic matter in the garden beds fashionably, and the above is one example.
I took over 20 splits from this patch. Can you see where I took them from? Even splitting this patch every season it is still increasing in size by about 20% every year. Soon it will be a massive area of giant blue leaf set against green grass and silver green hemlock.
When picking hosta’s go for the deep colors, the deep blues, the deep greens – stay away from green and whites and make sure to plant in large masses. The hosta always has a more pleasant impact when there are a bunch of them. The greatest thing about this plant is that you buy 10 this year and next year you have 20 or 30. With proper design and planning over the course of 5 years an investment of 100 hosta can supply enough plant material for massive gardens. By year 5 you could have 1,000+ plants from that 100.
I do not use slug bait or slug killer for hosta. If your soil is healthy, the slugs will not damage the plant to the point it is visably upsetting. When insects are killing your plants it is because your plant is weak. Strengthen the plant through organic soil conditioning or throw it out and get a plant that is Easy to grow for your area.
Fall is the best time to split this plant only because then it does not matter if you mess up the leaves. Other than that, you can split this plant anytime of the year. I did these in the early spring and within a matter of weeks they will look like they had been there for a season. Splitting the hosta in mid summer usually results in a very weak looking, hurt plant until the following spring – but, it does not seem to effect the plants ability to survive.
Easy. Garden Smart
Simplicity
This is a natural stone walkway I built 7 years ago. We used a mixed stone that was present on site – mainly canadian flagstone. You can quickly expand moss through several different methods – one being blending moss into buttermilk and painting onto surfaces. This moss grew naturally, but as mentioned there are ways to spread moss quickly. Depending on your base (the supporting structure under a walkway/patio), total sqft and style of stone layout a walkway/patio like this would cost around $17 a sqft
(FLE’s) Fake Landscape Edging
Natural edging is more functional than Fake Landscape Edings (FLE’s) and far more attractive.
Natural cut edges are also less expensive than FLE’s. FLE’s have a large upfront materials cost with extensive labor to install it. The sales pitch for FLE’s is that this is a one time fee, a one time fee that saves you money in the long run - but I promise you, if you live somewhere where it freezes, you will be paying the labor end of that deal a second time within a matter of 2 seasons – meaning, the cost of labor to reinstall the now sunken or popped up (from freezing and thawing) FLE’s. Note the color and texture of that soil. We have worked with that soil and that garden for 8 years now. Tons of worms.
That guy is a criminal, notice how professional he looks. Smoke and mirrors – and look at this photo here. Even with sunshine, green grass, misty sprinklers and robust golden flowers, that black plastic edging still looks like shit. Pardon my honest opinion. This looks like a photo from a bag of Scott’s Lawn Fertilizer or something. It looks like someone left a piece of garbage in a beautiful garden.
Don’t let this be your garden.
And then there is this beautiful edge we cut just the other day. Dynamically functional, affordable – better.
Best way is to have no lawn.
Remember you can click on the photo’s and you should be able to view them larger and in more detail.