Tag: maryland landscape design

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One That Got Away: Challenging Retaining Wall in DC

One of my favorite things to do on this blog is to profile recent projects. It’s a fun opportunity to show what’s possible, and maybe brag a little. Hey, my clients let me create some great landscape designs for them!

DesignerIsIn

As I was thinking about a recent sale I didn’t close I realized I should blog about it as well. After all, what killed the deal were the realities of the site and the budgetary challenges they created. There might be something to learn from this, especially if you’re planning a DC landscape design project of your own.

The site: A rowhouse in DC. It’s in a hilly neighborhood off of Rock Creek Parkway and there is a HUGE amount of elevation change between the street and the front porch.

All the homes in this neighborhood have a 10-12 foot tall stone retaining wall right at the city sidewalk. This client’s wall had deteriorated, so last year he had the wall rebuilt. Such a wall requires a huge cantilevered footing, which meant digging way back into the hill. Because the wall was being built right at the city sidewalk all excavated soil was hauled off site. The new wall was built, including a 4 foot wide set of curved steps, and only some of the removed soil was brought back.

The project for which I was called: Prior to the new wall’s construction, the homeowner had an 8-10 foot wide level piece of lawn in front of his porch. Since the wall builders didn’t bring all that soil back, it now plunged off like a ski slope. The homeowner, therefore, wanted one or two natural stone retaining walls built behind the big wall to level off the yard, new landscaping, and new low voltage landscape lighting.

Wowsers. The client wanted to have a sense of the budget, so my masonry contractor and I sat down, had some coffee, and talked it over.

The challenges:

– Access. Parking in DC is a challenge, and with the sheer wall right at the sidewalk there would be nowhere to stage materials. Everything would have to be hand carried up the steps and staged at the top of the lowest wall. If the steps were a straight shot, we could have laid boards as ramps and wheeled materials up – but that wouldn’t work on the curved steps. Getting concrete up to the wall footers would require a pump truck.

– Work area. The only space to stage materials and mix mortar is a small flat pad at the top of the new retaining wall. That means a lot of shuffling things around every day, reducing efficiency.

– Backfilling our new walls. Again, the material that was here originally never came back. This means that we would need to bring in between 40-60 cubic yards of fill dirt and topsoil. To put that in perspective, a full load in a standard tri-axle dump truck is 12-14 cubic yards.

So how would we get this quantity of soil up to the top of the site? As mentioned above, wheelbarrows were out. Hiring a ridiculous number of laborers and doing a bucket brigade would be just… ridiculous. We settled on having Sislers Stone put the soil in super sacks (sturdy bags that can hold a ton of bulk material), truck them to the site with a flatbed, and lift them into place with a rented crane. Logistics!

– Safety. Any time you have a retaining wall on a slope above another retaining wall, there’s a possibility that it will exert forces on the wall below. I let the client know that as part of the landscape design process I would have a structural engineer look at my drawings, and if he felt it required his involvement that would be an additional cost.

After all this, the landscaping and lighting were a small portion of the project cost, but it all added up. In the final analysis, we figured it would cost a minimum of $30,000 to complete the project. It was more than the homeowner wanted to spend, so we’ll hopefully revisit it later.

The unfortunate thing is that this is a $30,000 landscape installation project that could have been avoided, or at least reduced. The company that rebuilt the wall clearly didn’t work off of detailed plans or specifications. I know this because the client told me they built the steps in the wrong place, and there was clearly no communication up front about the soil hauled off site being brought back. This is yet another case where starting with a landscape designer – someone who could create a detailed set of drawings and a complete scope of work – could have saved thousands of dollars.

I would love to save you thousands of dollars! If you’re looking for a landscape designer for a project in northern Virginia, DC, or Maryland, contact us for a consultation!

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Who cares for your landscape? That’s the last step in the design!

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 or all of that, and we want something that will look as good in two years as it does today. But wait, landscapes don’t work that way.

culpeper landscape design

If you have an interior designed for you, maintaining that space comes down to keeping it clean and tidy (and maybe the occasional fresh coat of paint). If your landscape was well designed, it doesn’t look its best the day we pull off. It looks its best a few years down the road when the plants have all started to fill in and mature and create that beautiful, layered, effortless look. However, the wrong person caring for that landscape can inadvertently keep it from ever reaching its potential. As landscape architect Michael Van Valenburgh stated,

If you leave plant management decisions entirely to horticulturists who remain on the site after you, you are surrendering too much of your design. On the other hand, your design will be ill fated if you don’t collaborate with people who know horticulture. Collaboration—this is the unheralded key to management.

I came up through maintenance, then construction, before coming into design. I feel pretty comfortable designing with the long term in mind and I personally handle the pruning for a few clients because it allows me to guide the landscape in the direction I want it to go. I can’t do it for everyone in the nation, though, which is why I think it’s important to talk about what you’re looking for when seeking someone to care for a designed landscape. It’s not complicated:

  • Knowledge – can they identify what you have?
  • Skill – Do they know proper pruning techniques?
  • Vision – can they tell (by looking at the plans, looking at the landscape, or talking with you) what the goal is and how to get you there?
  • Professionalism – proper plant care is going to take more time than a mow and blow approach. Do you feel confident that they’ll use your time wisely? Can they provide you with a synopsis of what they did after each visit?

Whoever you select will play a large role in shaping your garden now and in the future, so I recommend selecting someone with whom you’re comfortable and with whom you can communicate well. Do that and you should have an easy relationship and a beautiful landscape.

Is your landscape still a great design away from needing a guiding hand to maintain it? Contact me to set up a consultation! I’d love to learn more about your project.

 

 

 

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Does great landscape design make us happier?

Ever since starting my landscape design firm I’ve had an opportunity to meet with a lot of people, look at a lot of yards, and have a lot of conversations about how they want to get more enjoyment from their landscapes. There are recurring themes, no matter where my clients are (geographically or economically): they often want a space that they can live in and share with others.

happy family

It was with interest that I learned of a study of the positivity of the English language. Using computer analyses the researchers scored over 10,000 commonly used English words and assessed the perceived positivity of the words. In other words, what are the happiest words in the English language?

If you scroll down through the article, you can click on the link to Table S1 to download a list of the 50 most positive words. Here are some words I wanted to highlight:

  • laughter was #1
  • love was #3
  • celebration was #20
  • music was #23
  • weekend was #26
  • friendship was #34
  • holidays was #36
  • sunshine was #43
  • beautiful was #44
  • paradise was #49

Some of these words, or permutations of these words, come up in my client consultations. Many of these, even if they’re not actually spoken, are a part of how we envision spending time in a space. Celebrating, laughing with loved ones and friends, listening to music in the sunshine in our beautiful backyard paradise… according to how I’m interpreting this study, a beautiful backyard can lead to happy times!

It may sound sappy but what I love about what I do is we’re actually helping people live their dreams. Whether or not your favorite word made the list, I’d like to help you and your family create a space that will make you happy every time you see it. Call me or drop me an email and let’s get started.

 

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Travertine Paver Patio Installers in Virginia – What to Know

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, I started seeing travertine pavers make an appearance.

These are really cool because they’re an inch thick and are laid just like a concrete paver. You build up with a base layer of compacted gravel (21A or crusher run), then use a one inch layer of sand as your bedding layer. Once the pavers are in place they’re compacted and polymeric sand is swept into the joints. That’s it. It’s a beautiful finished product that has the ability to flex and move like a traditional concrete paver patio in Virginia. From the test data I’ve seen online, travertine pavers have a compressive strength similar to concrete pavers and can even be used for driveways!

The biggest challenge I’ve found with designing travertine paver patios in Virginia is making the materials make sense. Travertine in California or Arizona doesn’t look out of place. It can look a little foreign here, though. I recently designed a fireplace, seat wall, and travertine paver patio as part of a winery landscape design project. I used a plum-colored flagstone to tie in with the warm tones of the travertine and the rich reddish colors in the fireplace stone, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. All those color theory classes have finally paid off.

I’m starting my next travertine paver patio project this week, and I may have one more in the pipeline as part of a swimming pool project. The travertine pavers are a great product that (unlike concrete pavers and flagstone) aren’t in every other backyard. Making it work requires someone who can integrate this new material in the landscape design while blending all the colors harmoniously. In other words, you need a landscape designer. Contact me to set up a consultation if you’re looking to build a travertine paver patio in Virginia, Maryland, or DC and I’ll be happy to talk with you about it!

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Understanding Flagstone: Sawcut, Thermaled, and Chiseled Edges

You’ve decided to use flagstone in the landscape. Good call! You may not be done making decisions, however. If the stone will be used in an application where you see the edge of the piece (step treads, wall caps, etc) you’ll have to think about the finished look.

Thickness

The first thing to consider is the thickness of the stone. The typical stone we use for a wet-lay patio can vary in thickness, from a hair under an inch to over two inches. When building steps or a cap, you want to see a consistent thickness of stone all the way across.

Something else to consider is that often a thicker stone will look better. That 1″ thick flagstone can look wimpy. A 2″ piece has a lot more heft to it. In some cases you may want to go even thicker, but just be aware that now you’re looking at significant additional costs.

The Edge – Sawcut Flagstone

The most common edge “treatment” isn’t really even a treatment. The rectangular slabs of flagstone are cut with a giant saw, and you can often see the marks from the blade on the stone. It’s fine, but it’s certainly not an aesthetically exciting finish.

The Edge – Thermaled Flagstone

One of the most common edge treatments (and one that I think looks great) is thermal-treated. This is accomplished by taking a piece of sawcut flagstone, wetting down the edge, and heating it with a torch. Done correctly the water turns to steam and pops off small pieces of the stone, resulting in a smoothly textured and very consistent surface. Done incorrectly, the piece overheats and splits. This is why most stone yards offer to provide thermaled stone.

The Edge – Chiseled Flagstone

Another way of treating the edges of flagstone is to give them a chiseled appearance. It’s another technique that’s simple to describe and more difficult to do: the mason uses a chisel to remove small, evenly sized pieces of material from the edge of the stone until it has a very cool, consistent rock-faced look across the edge. Some companies do this on site, but most get the stone from the stoneyard like this.

When designing with stone there are so many variables to consider. While it seems inconsequential at first, the right edge treatment can make the difference between a good result and a great result. If you’re looking for help achieving that great result, contact me for a design consultation!

 

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Drainage and Infrastructure Are Not Like Milk Duds

I’m still recovering from Halloween – 538 trick-or-treaters is a LOT Of kids – and it’s still framing how I look at things. Of the nearly $200 we spent on candy we have a bowlful left, and as I was pawing through the bowl for a mid-morning snack I kept encountering Milk Duds. Boxes and boxes of Milk Duds. They’re ok, I suppose, but I’ve never met anyone who got excited about them. It takes some amazing skill to be able to combine chocolate and caramel, two awesome flavors, in a way no one loves.

A lot of people look at the essential foundations of the landscape as if they were Milk Duds, something that you can’t avoid but don’t love. It doesn’t have to be that way! I’ve already gone on and on about dry streambeds as an attractive way to move water through the landscape. It’s also possible to move stormwater in a more formal way, using it as a water feature. When I took care of the grounds at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, I got to see a really neat way of handling rainwater. Here’s the wide-angle view of the buildings:

Every floor has a balcony overlooking the central courtyard, but what architect Louis I. Kahn did was he stepped each balcony back as they got higher, so that the rainwater flowed off the flat roof onto the edge of the balcony, through the scuppers, and onto the balcony below that, and on and on for the six floors of the building.

Source: tourguidetim.com

The idea was to create a series of cascading waterfalls, and it was a really cool idea. Now, ideas do come down to execution. If you worked at the Salk and wonder why you never really saw this, sadly, the reality check is that clearly the concrete company who poured the floors didn’t get the memo. In a heavy rain, water pooled on the balconies and flowed the wrong way, right into the labs. Rainy days meant all of us – landscapers, carpenters, plumbers – grabbed long-handled squeegees and saved Science from Nature. Hm. Is there an allegory in there?

Regardless, Louis I. Kahn’s design intent shows that drainage and infrastructure can be handled artfully. Where a lesser architect may have channeled the water into drains and hidden plumbing runs that daylighted in the scrub above the cliffs, he made them a feature. That’s a testament to what design can do. Thus inspired, I’m off to see if maybe microwaving Milk Duds makes them better.

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Deer-Resistant Shade Perennials for Northern Virginia

When I design a landscape for a brand new home in a subdivision that was until recently a hay field, I rarely get to use shade plants. Then there are loads of established landscapes all over northern Virginia, with towering trees shading the entire property and hogging all the water. There’s a magic to these properties that you can’t buy (unless you can somehow afford to transplant 80 foot tall oaks). Unfortunately, there’s a pest that often accompanies these majestic wooded properties:

Source: fcps.edu

Yep. Deer. Don’t let those pretty lashes fool you. They’ll devour your daylilies, have a meal of your hosta, ruminate on your rhododendron… nasty buggers. What’s a gardener to do?

This is a list of shade perennials that historically have been relatively safe from deer, in my experience. Why so many disclaimers? Because deer don’t read this blog, and in a tough year all bets are off.

Aquilegia (Columbine)

Source: Unknown (please advise of photo credit if known)

Astilbe

Bergenia

Source: Unknown

Convallaria (Lily of the Valley)

Dicentra

Ferns (most)

Galium (although a client in Vienna recently told me even this joined the buffet)

Helleborus (Lenten Rose)

Iris

Ligularia

Pachysandra

Tiarella

Source: Unknown
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What is a Concrete Turndown Edge on a Patio, Anyhow?

Sounds so fancypants, doesn’t it? I have a few projects underway that need one, and it’s a simple concept that sounds more involved than it is.

When installing a patio, you want it to have a slight pitch so water doesn’t pool on the surface. If we’re lucky, the grade slopes away from the house at a similar pitch as the patio, so we can prep the base and pour the slab on grade. If there’s a massive difference in grade, we may need a retaining wall at or just beyond the edge of the patio. What about the middle ground between the two?

A turndown edge lets us build up the edge of a patio without the expense of having to build a retaining wall under it. We simply form up the edge, shape the gravel under the slab to create a shape similar to the image, and pour the concrete. Now you know what a concrete turndown edge is, should it come up as part of your northern Virginia landscape design.

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Landscape Inspiration: Brick Details

I grew up in New England which means that the most commonly used landscape material was stone. Oh, did we have stone! I maintained a love affair with stone throughout my career, played with some other materials, and moved here. As a landscape designer in Northern Virginia I was quickly exposed to brick, brick, and more brick. Let’s be honest, a lot of homes around here have, at the very least, a brick facade. All too often I mention the possibility of using brick in the hardscape and get eye rolling and bored sighs in return. The thing is, brick is amazingly versatile, and when designed and built well… amazing. This is why I like to look to old buildings for inspiration when designing with brick. Those old masons could bring it!

Brick mixes with stone in these great arches. The newer one (background) is probably precast concrete, but it’s still a great look.

“Brick columns are boring.” No way! They needn’t be. They can be awesome like this. Look at what a difference those stone “panels” make.

Chimneys and columns are where brick can really shine. The idea of stepping the bricks in and out adds a lot of interest and detail to chimneys,columns, and walls.

This wall amazes me. It was hard to get a great shot of it, but the brick is laid so so so perfectly as the wall wraps down that it almost looks organic. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, squint your eyes as you look at the wall. Doesn’t it have the fluidity of movement that you would expect from adobe, or even a tree root? Too cool!

“Brick walls are just too visually ‘heavy’.” Not necessarily!

Now, I have yet to build a brick water feature – but after seeing this I want to.

I think the hangup comes from people hearing brick and thinking of nothing but rectangular solids (that there was geometry talk!) in boring patterns. I haven’t even gotten into all the odd shapes and sizes available, but this should show a sample of why brick rings my bell.