Our Plants arrive.

The Swedish Columnar Aspen goes into place at the corner of the house. The tree will eventually fill out to about 8 ft in diameter.

The front rain gardens get their first row of native plants—Little Bluestem. Down the middle a tall white spikey native called Culver’s Root will sit. Both of these plant do well with lots of water which is perfect for the rain gardens.

Both natives and non-natives fill the bed off the side of the patio. The non-native in the center area is a grass called Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass and is common in organic designs. It’s perfect for us because it’s height (3′ to 5′ at full growth) and feathery texture softens the visual lines of the concrete pillar. The plant on the outside is a native called Blazing Star.

Our landscape plan has had almost as much thought put into it as our entire house. Although the initial conceptual design played out rather quickly, the fine details of which plants we would select has been a rather drawn out one.

Our landscape Designer (Dustin Halverson) had planned for a tree to be placed close to the front windows of the house on the southwest corner. Although the tree was designed to provide some shade to the larger windows on this side of our house, its main purpose from a design perspective was to provide a sense of scale. For this reason, we opted for a Swedish Columnar Aspen. Its tall column like shape, gives the complementary height we need to tie the landscaping and the house together, without impeding on the actual structure itself. After mulling over a half dozen tree options this would prove to be one one of our easier design decisions.

There is so much to take in when selecting plants for your landscaping, grasses vs. flowers, native vs. cultivars/non-natives, size and shape, bloom time, soil type, and even color all come into play. Adding to the mix, we have committed to making our landscape be a functional piece of our homes “green friendly” design, and have received a grant from the Ramsey Washington Metro Watershed District to do so. This means, that native plants will need to be a large portion of our plantings in order to meet our obligation with the RWMWD.

Stacy and I both wanted plants that would work well with the lines of our house by having some similar sense of control and geometry. At the same time we knew (and Dustin reinforced the fact) that we would need to utilize these plantings to soften some of the lines and allow us to merge our home in with the surround landscape. For this reason, we have picked a mixture of natives, cultivars/non-natives. In some cases we have segregated the natives to specific areas like the rain gardens. While in other cases we’ve mixed the two, for either a sense of texture or or to create some variation in height or color.

After some negotiation we had settled on an initial planting plan, but the day before the plants were to arrive we started second guessing some of our choices. We both were hoping to have some nice bright oranges or reds out front but for the most part these are cultivars and we wanted to keep the rain gardens filled with natives. Our second choice in this case was some geometric looking bulb like plants called Allium (members of the onion family) but the ones we had seen and liked (in white) proved to be a cultivars as well. Although we had found a great resource for selecting native plants (bluethumb.org) having not seen many of the plants in person we were still feeling a bit uneasy. We decided to make a trip out to the Watershed district building, to look at their collection of plants, and see first hand what they might look like. This proved to be a huge help. Our contact at the watershed (Julie) proved to be incredibly helpful, not only showing us the plants we were interested in, but showing us many of them in various stages of growth. We also discovered several new plants like Culvers Root which we decided to integrate into our design. Ultimately, our trip to the watershed building validated many of the plant selections that Dustin had suggested, but also proved to be invaluable in helping us find some new options. We were also able to see how our rather small plants will blossom and grow into more substantial and prominent elements of our design over time, and see how the various combinations of plants will work together. I’d highly recommend you make a field trip of like this of your own if you’re going to make a substantial investments in your landscaping.

The 24″ x 24″ pavers appear to float away from the main structure, helping to maintain the our designs overall theme of sliding planes, that mimics the lots natural landscape.

The odd pie shape of our lot and the relatively strange shape that it provided for a our yard, meant that we needed some way to connect the house to these outlying spaces. In my initial drawings/sketches that we provide to our landscape architect Dustin Halverson I sketched out the idea of a series of concrete pavers that appeared to float away from the main structure of the building and towards the larger side yard. This would ultimately be an access path to a potential firepit/BBQ as well as the badminton/lawn bowling and playground areas. Dustin agreed that this would be a good solution to the challenge and with a few minor adjustments we made this apart of our plan.

After waiting roughly a month for our sod to set it’s roots, Dustin and the landscaping crew returned to start the next phase of the process. The pavers were laid out in the desired pattern and then flags were placed to mark the corners of each stone, so the sod could be cut away, allowing them to set the pavers flush to grade. The tricky part is setting the pavers square as well as not breaking the 24″ x 24″ pavers, which are surprisingly fragile. Tomorrow the crew returns to set the pavers into final position.

When I saw my first picture of a rain garden I was by no means enthusiastic about some kidney shaped, cedar chipped  planting, randomly placed in my yard. However our Architect (Micheal Huber) wasn’t envisioning anything even close to this in his head, when he suggest we use them. Instead he designed these beautiful geometric concrete beds that would work as rain gardens but look more like an extension of our homes design. Today the concrete forms were removed and we got our first glimpse at what I have to say is something really incredible looking. The plywood sheeting that was used to form up the sides left a great texture in the concrete and the open spout that was thought of and built into the mouth of the design (by our concrete guys) looks incredible. They were so cool that Fred Lutz (our main concrete guy) took photos of the work himself and then asked us to let him know when they were completed with the plantings, so he could come back and take some more photos.

One of the Lutz boys knocks out the foam they used to create the overflow spouts in the forms.

I loved seeing this photo that Stacy took, because when I went out to look at the back rain garden this afternoon their was no dirt around which means they cleaned it up and laid the sod down along the side of it.

Next step, planting.

I love how neat their forms are and how they used a piece of plywood to shield our lawn from getting splashed with concrete.

Fred puts the finishing touch on the second of two rain gardens, off the back of the house.

Our concrete guys (Fred Lutz and his sons) were back this week to frame up and ultimately pour our rain gardens. Typical rain gardens are kidney shaped, organic depressions cut into the ground. However, in an effort to keep with our geometric theme, our architect Michael Huber had designed the rain gardens to be a series of step downs poured from concrete.

The rain gardens purpose is to manage rainwater run off from the two largest surface areas of our house, the roof, and the driveway. By trafficking the water from these two areas into the garden we help to minimize erosion, flooding and pollution that reaches ponds, streams and ultimately our drinking water.

The gardens had been designed with an overflow spout at the front of the forms but as we started forming them up, one of the concerns we had was that it would need to be very deep to hold a fair amount of water and not dump it back onto the driveway, before they reached the overflow point. In order to do so the overflow spout was starting to look a bit too exaggerated in my opinion. As a solution, one of Fred’s sons suggested we use a piece of rigid foam insulation and create a scupper like opening in the mouth of the garden, an idea that I love and can’t wait to see, once the forms come off this weekend.

The open side yard to the west of our house is a nice 30′x45′ rectangle, that is well sheltered on three sides by trees.

On Tuesday Redline Tree Service came and removed a large dead Oak from our side lot, along with a few piles of scrub brush from our originally clearing. It was the last remaining large Oak that had suffered the devastating effects of Oak Wilt, since we had originally purchased the lot. We were affraid that when they came in to removed the tree and some of the other Buckthorn, that our yard would seem a bit too open. We were pleasantly surprised to see that this was not the case. This newly cleaned up area will now be the home to our children’s playground and rectangular area of turf, perfectly size for badminton, lawn bowling or my (highly illegal but largely sought after) antique Jarts set.

The large timbers for our landscaping arrived early Friday morning but the wet weather prevented anyone from doing any work to install them.

Sticking with the Timber theme, Dustin Halverson (our landscape architect) had the first shipment of landscape materials delivered today—large timbers to frame up a retaining wall and steps. I think Stacy and I both initially had some hesitation when it came to using timbers. We wanted to avoid the 1970’s railroad tie lookk, that we had worked so hard to extract from our previous home. I was please to see that these were actually a really nicely color and nothing like the ones we had dealt with before. Just to ensure that they keep their interest and to add a little something extra, I have an idea that I think will really make them seem that much more different. Hopefully by the end of next week the timbers will be in place and I can add my little touch but until then it’s rock, edging and lots of mud.

When most people think about landscaping it generally takes two formats:

1. Classic and ornate styles such as Vicotorian gardens that work with highly controlled forms such and repetitive and detailed materials e.g. herringbone paver patterns and vibrant colors.

2. Organic landscapes that utilized free form shapes and loose natural elements such as boulders and flowing grasses.

So what does modern landscaping looking like? What kind of plants and materials does it use? These are the big questions that surround what we are doing next with our house design. For me modern landscape design is about the use of simple materials minimalistic and repetitive forms.

Trying to wrap my minds eye around what our next step will look like I stumbled on some images of what I consider to be great residential landscape design work. Often times great examples of this style of Landscape architecture is only found on the grounds of commercial and public billings so I was excited to find some examples that were on a smaller scale. The first comes from Design and Architectural firm Marmol Radziner with their minimalist and simple line work complemented by the use of straight lines and modular forms, that integrate interior and exterior spaces.

Simple materials, modular elements and a blurring of indoor and outdoor materials and spaces make this project a great example of modern landscape design. (photos by: John Ellis)

The second example comes from a the 2007 ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects). Design firm Andrea Cochran landscape Architecture, designed this space as a part of an affordable housing project. The space merges functional elements like the rooftop garden planters (for those of you not from farm country those are cow watering troughs) with more aesthetic pieces like a center garden water feature.

Functional yet non-traditional elements like the cow through used as planter boxes, are contrasted by aesthetically pleasing elements like the water feature in the court yard. (photos by: Brian Rose)

In our project we’ll be implementing a lot of similar elements and ideas as the aforementioned projects, with the hope of integrating the material elements of our home (such as concrete, wood and steel) into our landscape. The intent of our design is to blur the line between the two spaces and make our home blend almost seamlessly into it’s surroundings.