landscape design: a creative process

landscape design: a creative process

Hello everyone, and welcome back to our world for a few minutes. We just wrapped up the concept plan phase (above) for a family in San Elijo Hills, CA, and produced a video (below) to demonstrate the process. We’ve partnered with John Kennedy, of Nature Designs (no, not THAT John Kennedy, silly. THIS John Kennedy..), and they will be performing all of the construction services on this project. Upon completion, we will have the tangible product here in full for your viewing pleasure, in the form of another video short. Things have been busy-busy here, as you can tell not only by the pace of this video, but also by our extended absence from here. We hope to be more present in this space, and realize we have some unfinished business in our other endeavors here too (i.e. ‘the avoidable alphabet’ and ‘go.give.feel.great.’). So, we promise to tie up those loose ends shortly as well. In the mean time, we present to you: “Landscape Design: A Creative Process”, so sit back, relax, and enjoy. Thanks for your patience and continued support. See you...
Backyard adventures

Backyard adventures

Thanks to two recent articles in the Pittsburgh (PA) Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, I am reminded of the alternatives to backyard amenities such as a pool/spa, BBQ/outdoor kitchen, fireplace/fire pit,  etc. Even though these elements can be big hits with the little ones (you know you wish you had a dime for every time they’ve asked you to dig a pool),  they require adult supervision at the least, can be much too expensive or impractical to implement and maintain on a regular basis, or require more space than is available in your kingdom. For those with kids, you know that the simplest of things can sometimes offer hours of entertainment. Aren’t convinced yet? Do you remember a few birthdays ago when your child paid more attention to the packaging and wrapping paper than the $100+ toy that came inside, that you went to four different malls to find? With a little creativity and not a lot of money, you can provide an endless array of attention getting (& keeping) ideas to not only keep them busy, but also encourage them to learn about their surroundings. Below are some low-cost, highly interactive strategies to get your kids outside learning about their natural environment, and away from the television and video games they so desperately rely on. Sandbox: A sandbox is simple to build or inexpensive to buy compared to the enjoyment and imagination it will provide. It’s not quite the beach, but with a little water and some buckets, the castles can be just as grand. Keep in mind that they aren’t the neatest things in the world, so...
Adjectives, or whatever

Adjectives, or whatever

I recently found a survey that I had filled out for my web guy/good friend, Jesse Watkins, over at Cybernetic Visionaries. I was drawn to one particular question that read, “Adjectives: Please list 5 (or more) adjectives that you think describe your company in order of relevance.” As I read through the following list, I began to expand on each. Then, with a little sarcastic guidance from my better-half, I realized I had come up with a list of transitive and intransitive verbs instead, not adjectives. Sorry, Ms. Cavanaugh, I never really did grasp that part of grammar. All I know is that my new company would sound much more interesting through verbs than adjectives. Nevertheless, I began to expand on each, to really figure out why or how these words, whatever-the-hell you Lit-majors call’em, were important to not just my company, but to the entire field of landscape design. If you find yourself in conversation with someone involved in some capacity in the landscaping industry that uses these words, you know you are in good hands. Since some of the words and definitions overlap, I’ll save you the redundancy, but here they are, in no particular order (I know, this breaks the only other rule in the original question): Inspire – This one is first because it appears in our slogan, “Inspiring Solutions For Every Environment.” This may seem obvious, but if you’re about to drop tens of thousands of dollars on a renovation project for your property, you better be inspired, at least to some extent, by the design. Anyone can go to Home Depot and buy...
Let the games begin..

Let the games begin..

..And so, here we are, finally bringing you all of our words of wit and wisdom from in and around the landscape design industry, and beyond. We hope you get as much out of these posts as we’ve attempted to put in. And we hope you have a good time along the way. With lots of advice and inspiration from my new buddy, Jason Markow, of think (here) media, I’m finally getting this blog off the proverbial ground. Although, Jason recently stated that I should skip this whole ‘Welcome to my stupid blog’ effort, and even justified the sentiment very nicely in a recent post of his own. However, I still feel compelled nevertheless to at least introduce this channel and give him BIG UPS for helping to (implicitly) create this monster. This blog will mostly be about landscaping, landscape design, landscape architecture (believe me, there IS a difference, and we’ll touch on that in a later installment here.), landscape construction and project management, landscape maintenance, veggie gardening, and the various events, techniques, technologies, materials and machines that control these interrelated industries. But, from time to time, we’ll go out on some limbs to entertain, humor and/or educate you on unrelated topics of our interest, and hopefully yours too. So, sit back, relax and enjoy!! (oh, and welcome to our stupid blog too.) See you soon.. Square Root Landscape...