Ornamental Grasses and Perennials can bring projects to life! In this article we and two other leading landscape design firms speak about how we use perennials and ornamental grasses in the Front Range Area. We welcome you to review this article, which can be found here, and also encourage you to browse through the latest edition of Colorado Urban Home, which can be found at this link.
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This article features the various creative approaches of four leading firms to the creative use of hardscape elements in four distinctly different fields of design and construction. We have had the privelige of working together with each of the other three firms, whose exemplary work is also shown. We welcome you to view his article, which appeared in early June, at the following link We are currently working on a very large, even spectacular landscape design project. One landscape feature we have already created is a rock feature involving boulders weighing up to 24 tons.  Here is one of the massive boulders for this landscape design before installation. The installation was a technical challenge. We weren’t even sure if we could get the crane in there, and we had to demolish part of the house before the crane could get through. Fortunately, the house was going to be demolished anyway. The crane had to lift the truck carrying the boulders over a bridge because the truck was too heavy to cross the bridge. We also were not entirely certain how deep we could dig without hitting the water table, but fortunately we had no problem with that. Below you can see one of the giant boulders being set into concrete. Whenever you see a really massive boulder in a landscape, if it is properly installed, generally about 1/3 to 1/2 of the rock is under ground so that it is securely planted in the earth. In this particular case, we added concrete underground, connecting the rock to the concrete foundation with heavy rebar, grounding the rocks securely even though there is less than 1/3 of the rock underground on the side away from the house. In this way, we are preserving the looming height of the rock which juts dramatically upward 14 feet from the ground on that side. We handled these 24-ton rocks very gingerly because they are moss rocks and the client really wanted these mossy surfaces to be undamaged by the installation process.  Here is the same boulder being set into concrete re-enforcement. And in the picture below we can begin to see what the final product will look like from the house. From this side, they present a much more modest six foot tall form, which is something of an optical illusion. As you walk around the rocks, you suddenly find the rocks are 14 feet tall on the other side. Not only will this provide a main focal point from all aspects of the property, but it will also provide a backdrop accenting different forms of the garden.  Here is the final product as seen from the house. I always enjoy projects that involve inclusion of massive boulders that incorporate the surrounding landscape and nature with what has been created within.  Chautauqua Area Garden Design This landscape design is a tiny little garden near Chautauqua Park in Boulder, Colorado. The Chautauqua area has been a great area for us: we’ve done at least a half dozen garden designs, ranging from really big to very small, in the Chautauqua neighborhood. A big part of the garden is water, and we also put in a nice arbor. In the foreground above on the left side of the photo, you can see a portion of a very interesting bridge-like construction across the water with three panels, perpendicular to each other, with the big panel going crosswise. It’s kind of a Japanese motif of crossing water. The owners cross the water at least a couple of times every day, when they go from their house to their garage, and when they come home. And here’s another shot of this special private garden:  Garden Design Deck Photo This is a new project I am working on, which I have dubbed the “Boulder Shangri-la”. It is a project that could not be built today, because it’s very large, and Boulder does not allow building that size anymore, but as a renovation it can be done. It’s right up against an extraordinary cliff rock formation, so when you step out of the back of the house, you are 30-35 feet from a sheer vertical rock wall. In Feng Shui, this formation is called a “dragon’s back” and usually monasteries are located in such places. The cliff ridge forms the back edge of the property. It’s very dramatic. Much of the rest of the property is on a steep slope. Coming up the driveway to the house, you get an amazing overview of Boulder and the plains. As the driveway goes up the steep slope, it makes a hairpin turn and doubles back, and then you see above you the house along the cliff. From a distance the house literally looks like a Tibetan monastery up there against the cliff. There are also some very large, beautiful Ponderosa pines among many smaller ones for which we will be doing fire mitigation. I am really excited about this project. I was fortunate to be introduced to the general contractor at a friend’s party, and it just happened that he had also looked at some landscape design work I had done near Chautauqua in Boulder. This is the first of several posts I plan to write about this project. Here is a photo of the entrance to the property as it is now:  "Boulder Shangri-la" Entrance Before Design Changes We want to create an entrance that is really in keeping with this remarkable piece of property and the whole of the building and landscape architecture, which will be even more remarkable once we’re done with it! Here is a sketch I’ve done on tracing paper for the entrance design. In the background, you can see the same photo as above showing through the tracing paper, with changes and additions sketched on top:  Entry Gate Design for "Boulder Shangri-la" More to come! |
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