Landscape Design for Virginia, Maryland and DC
If I had a penny for every client who included “I want a low/no maintenance design” as part of their wish list, well… 170 pennies are in a pound, so I’d have a stack that weighs more than my biggest cat. I get it. We’re all busy, whether it’s work or kids or church orRead more
When I was designing landscapes in Arizona, one option we had available to us was travertine marble tile. These were actual tiles – typically 12″x12″ and less than a half inch think – so they had to be laid in a mortar bed on a concrete slab. Shortly after landing in Virginia in 2005, IRead more
Truer words, am I right? Consider the source, though. You know Thoreau was running around Walden Pond naked as a jaybird. Anyhow, context: this weekend MJ came with me to visit a client in Maryland, and we looped around and came home through Point of Rocks. As we came down route 15, we came toRead more
With the end of another winter upon us, I’m reminded of my mom’s summertime refrain: “David, go outside and play!” Here’s a list of ten things to think about when creating a play space for your kids (or grandkids, or nieces and nephews, or whomever): 1- Love The Lawn. With a little imagination a lawnRead more
We all know what a line is: a connection of two or more points. In design, line happens when two planes meet, or when we see an object in silhouette. Line helps us play with scale and proportion by emphasizing height, width, or movement. There are several types of lines, each with a particular effectRead more
We often think of shapes as two-dimensional: squares, rectangles, circles, and triangles. This isn’t how we perceive them in the landscape, however. We see them in three dimensions, like cubes, spheres, and cones. Shape (or form) in the landscape can even dictate how a space feels. This is a backyard I did for a clientRead more
Winter is a great time to start thinking about landscape projects, especially starting the design phase. It’s hard to get folks on board with this, because a lot of people think that landscape work shuts down in the winter. The fact of the matter is that Virginia has a pretty mild winter climate, and mostRead more
Thanks to the magic of Twitter (do you follow me?), I stumbled across the Garden Designers’ Roundtable, a really cool blog to which designers from around the country contribute. Their latest group of posts is all about super cool, underutilized plants for the landscape. It got me thinking about OVER-used plants, and how I feelRead more
