The American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) is one of my favorite trees. Why, you ask? I’ve always had a thing for interesting plant textures, and trees with unique bark always catch my eye. Every child knows how to draw a tree: narrow brown trunk, fluffy green … Continue readingPlatanus occidentalis | American Sycamore
I know winter is the last thing on anyone’s mind right now, but if you’re considering planting any shrubs this year, you still need to consider how they’ll look in the winter. When you think of plants with winter interest, you probably think of evergreens. … Continue readingCurating a Four-Season Plant Palette: Two Plants for a Pop of Winter Color
It was time to reclaim what was mine. I swung my Hori knife like a machete, slicing through thick stalks of pokeweed and tangles of morning glory vines. Woody saplings fell before my expensive, ergonomically designed pruners. In a matter of minutes I built a … Continue readingI’m getting older – what that means for my home landscape
When someone asks me, “can I lay pavers/brick/flagstone over my crappy old concrete walk?” I think about the difference between frugal and cheap. Frugal is shopping at stores like Aldi or Lidl. Cheap is shopping at stores like the grocery outlet in El Cajon, where … Continue readingCan I lay pavers/brick/flagstone over my crappy old concrete walk?
Since I was young, my parents have always been big advocates of traveling. When I was 5 years old, for example, my dad had to take a business trip to France. He decided to turn it into a family vacation. It was February, and I … Continue readingStudying Landscape Architecture in Barcelona, Spain
This is the last part in a series on basic principles of design. We made it! Check out the intro, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5 if you haven’t already, then get ready to dive into today’s topics: prospect/refuge, panorama, vista, and … Continue readingPrinciples of Design: Prospect/Refuge, Panorama, Vista, and Deflected Vista
Before reading this post, check out the first four posts! So far, we’ve been introduced to the concept of design principles and the four foundational elements. We discussed scale, enclosure, symmetry/asymmetry, and axis in part 3, and hierarchy, datum, organization, and rhythm/repetition in part 4. … Continue readingPrinciples of Design: Texture, Above/Below, Here/There, and Threshold
This is part 4 in a series on basic principles of design. If you haven’t read the previous posts, check them out! After a brief introductory post, we dove into the four main spatial components, then touched on scale, enclosure, symmetry/asymmetry, and axis. This week, … Continue readingPrinciples of Design: Hierarchy, Datum, Organization, Rhythm and Repetition
This is part 3 of a series on basic principles of design. Check out the introduction to the series and this post on point, line, plane, and volume first if you missed them! This week, we’ll be discussing scale, enclosure, symmetry/asymmetry, and axis. Scale There … Continue readingPrinciples of Design: Scale, Enclosure, Symmetry/Asymmetry, and Axis
Hold up! If you haven’t yet read the introduction to this series, check it out before reading this post! Point, line, plane, and volume are the four most basic spatial components to understand. In fact, most of the other design principles we will discuss later … Continue readingPrinciples of Design: Point, Line, Plane, and Volume