As you can see from the lead image of this story, we love using stone, and other forms of hardscape elements to give emphasis and spacial definition to our gardens and landscapes.
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
Here’s another article by Bonnie Driscol which includes an interview with me. She asked me what the most common mistakes are that I see in landscape designs around the Denver area. This was a different way of thinking than I normally use in my day-to-day work; I generally am focused on what we’re creating, rather than what we’re avoiding. However, it is true that certain types of mistakes cause big problems for people–including very expensive problems, and ones that limit the potential for a beautiful, deeply satisfying garden design. Those problems are certainly worth avoiding by applying the “best practices” of landscape design work.
Although we started out thinking in terms of mistakes made in the Denver/Boulder area, these turned out to be universal errors, in that I’ve seen these same mistakes made all over. Anyway, here’s the article:
Denver Landscape Design: Which Of These Three “Universal Errors” Is Most Important For You To Avoid?
by Bonnie Driscol
There are few large investments that can yield great joy which endures and grows through time, and one of these is a beautiful garden. Because it is such an important investment, it is essential to avoid common mistakes that can be expensive and can reduce the “return” on that investment, which is the joy and delight that can result from a truly inspired landscape. According to acclaimed landscape designer Tom Altgelt, “In my sixteen years as a landscape architect and designer in the Denver/Boulder area, there are certain errors that I have seen over and over, which can easily be avoided with good planning. I’ve seen these universal mistakes made in New England and Europe as well, during my many years of practice there.” These mistakes include designing for the warm seasons while neglecting fall and winter, beginning a small project without having a master plan, and assembling a group of professionals which lacks good teamwork.
First, even many seasoned designers make the misstep of designing only for the warm seasons. It’s an easy error to make, because people typically pay most attention to the flowers in a landscape. However, if the fall and winter|winter and autumn seasons are overlooked in the design process, the garden may appear bleak and desolate through those cold months, which may be just when we need beauty and joy the most. Altgelt explains, “This is especially problematic in our climate here in Denver, Boulder, and throughout Colorado, with harsh weather off and on for almost half the year. Many of these winter days we could actually derive great joy from a beautifully designed garden, not only by viewing it from indoors but by being in it.”
Altgelt lists four elements for creating a beautiful four-season landscape: sculpting the earth itself; creating rock formations as though they are emerging naturally from that sculpted earth; utilizing evergreen plants; and also including deciduous plants which show interesting colors and shapes after they’ve lost their leaves. Altgelt says, “Combining these four elements artistically will create a beautiful fall and winter garden, while synergistically adding to the spring and summer interest!”
“The second mistake I often encounter is that people typically design in a small-scale, fragmentary way, rather than creating a master plan first.” If a homeowner only has a budget to do one part of the landscaping right now, that one piece needs to fit with the long-term vision. Otherwise, it could end up being very expensive.
“A good design can be executed initially with very inexpensive materials if the master plan is thought through in detail,” says Altgelt. For example, a patio or walkway can be put in using crushed rock and later changed to brick, sandstone, or precast concrete pavers. If you want to add a different surface later, then initially you would be wise to take into account that you’ll be adding three or four inches in height down the road. So, you initially set the patio lower so that later you can raise it up without creating an issue of the patio being at a higher level than the doorway. However, if you didn’t think it through in advance, when you are ready to upgrade your patio you would have to first remove a bunch of work, making the end result more costly. Tom points out, “With good planning, you can save money by starting with a cheap solution, and then later you can still do a beautiful expensive patio without paying extra to remove the first solution.”
The third most common mistake Tom sees, for those who hire a team to help them, is assembling the wrong team. “To assemble a good team, of course you need to see samples of each individuals’ work and get references, but it doesn’t end there. The key ingredient, which is often missing, is teamwork.” How they communicate and work together, how they inspire each other – their “chemistry” – is crucial.
How do you know whether a team has good teamwork? “One key to good teamwork is: do the professionals truly listen to their client?” The design professionals may need to help the client express his desires for his garden, in a spirit of co-creation. “Without that co-creative relationship with the client, the landscape designer is more likely to fall back on standard solutions that he has done multiple times in the past, rather than designing a truly inspired work of art that is specific to the people and place the landscape is being created for.” For the best outcome, the landscape contractor and the architect (for new construction and major remodeling) also need to be involved with the landscape design process. Ideally, this team is put together at the very beginning – even before the house is designed.
Altgelt sums it up: “By avoiding these three common mistakes, not only can the homeowner save money, but the end result can be an artistic expression of the homeowner’s deepest dreams for his or her garden.” What a great way for an investment to pay off!
This landscape design on the Denver Country Club golf course was the first of four Denver projects we did with Bryan Pulte, renowned interior designer. It was a major, major remodel. For starters, we completely tore out the whole existing driveway and part of the related retaining wall, and changed the elevation and grading in major ways.
Before it had been very awkward driving in, as the whole driveway was a straight shot down, creating a very, very poor sense of arrival. Instead, we created a winding, meandering flow that brought you to the arrival plaza. In this photo, you can still feel the curvature of drive behind you, and get a sense of that from looking at the photograph.
New driveway for Pulte project on Denver golf course
Now, instead of the old straight shot driveway that took you immediately to the left side of the house, we created a driveway that curves in such a way that it initially blocks the house from view and then reveals it, giving different glimpses of the house as you enter the property. It’s a long driveway.
We tore out a very large planting bed in front of the front door to create the arrival plaza. In doing so, we sunk the area down by at least 18″ to 2 feet, creating a level plaza. In the photo below, on the right you see both part of the original brick retaining wall and also a new dry stack retaining wall in front. We wanted to keep some of the brick retaining wall for aesthetic reasons, because it reflects the brick used on the house itself. The dry stack wall accomplishes two goals: it is visually attractive and it also covers the foundations of the old brick retaining walls, preventing a frost heaving of those foundations. In some places, we tore out the preexisting retaining walls, building huge freestanding walls to hide the neighbor’s garage doors. This was very tricky in a technical engineering sense.
This is the arrival plaza for the Bryan Pulte project on the golf course in Denver, Colorado
In the arrival plaza above, what we have here initially are some concentric circles, spiraling out into vortical movement. We utilized hand-smoothed colored concrete made to look like natural stone slabs, alternating with precast concrete split-faced cobble. The cobble looks very much like natural stone, with lots of modulation and color, and it also provides a real grip for tires coming down the steep driveway. So it both looks good and it provides a very important function. As the pavement flattens out, it goes into stamped colored concrete. We were working around a lot of mature existing trees to preserve them, another big technical challenge.
Here is a view of the decks and paving for the Pulte project
In the back, up on the left side of the photo above, you see the preexisting deck which had no connection to the ground, so we created a staircase coming down with intricate carpentry bringing people gracefully down from this deck which had been isolated. As one comes down the stairs, one walks around a water feature that is the focal point for this small garden space. The upper pool of this water feature finds its source underneath the staircase coming down. As one gets down to the ground, there is sandstone paving, and then one goes back onto what looks at first glance like a bridge in the photo, but it’s simply a lower deck where one can put a table and chairs. From that deck we look down into the lower pool of the water feature. The lower pool is a deep pool with the deck cantilevering over it. We brought in massive rocks, so it’s a very intense rock and water feature. Again, we were working around huge existing trees, and we had to work these 5-6 ton boulders carefully so as not to damage the roots of these trees. We were really pushing the limits, and had to work very carefully.
From the decks, one looks to the north for a view of the Denver Country Club golf course.
I recently was interviewed for an online article about the challenges and opportunities of designing a landscape for the Denver area, which is also applicable to the whole Colorado front range. This fits nicely with the video I recently posted on the same theme.
Denver Garden Design: How To Design A Landscape Uniquely Suited For The Colorado Front Range
by Bonnie Driscol
Here in the Denver/Boulder area, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, we have unique challenges for landscaping, starting with our unusual climate. According to Tom Altgelt, an award-winning landscape architect who designs landscapes and gardens in the Boulder/Denver area, “We have to contend with everything from high wind to hail. It is very dry and high up, with winter November through March.” We love those sunny winter days, but off and on, we have harsh weather for many months.
With our long Colorado winters, wouldn’t it be best if our landscapes were interesting and beautiful even during the cold months? As Altgelt remarks, “We may walk out into the garden on some mild days, and even on harsh days we can see the garden through the window.” This year-round interest does not happen by accident, and it is often missing, even from otherwise well-crafted landscapes. Tom offers three ways to create a beauty that flows and changes through all the seasons.
For Tom Altgelt, the first step is to sculpt the forms and shapes of the earth itself. “Ideally, the bare landscape will feel as though it has been sculpted by wind and water. We want the energetics of this sculpture to have a pleasing and dynamic flow and movement, so the eye will perceive forms that are beautiful, animated, moving, uplifting as it is animating us.” By artistically forming the bare land and rock formations, a beauty can be created that will last through the seasons.
Looking at photos showing examples of Tom’s landscapes, it is remarkable how similar a designed and created landscape can be to a dry creek bed with rock outcroppings found in nature. “In some ways we will work with what is naturally occurring here in our local environment and recreate some of that in the garden.”
Once the landscape is sculpted artistically, the next step is to include some evergreen plants into the larger sculpture, for color during the cold months. Both dwarf and larger evergreens are available to accentuate rock formations. “There are also various native drought tolerant broadleaf and blooming evergreen plants like the creeping mahonia that relate beautifully to boulders.”
The third step is to include deciduous plants that keep our interest in winter even after they lose their leaves. “For example, there’s the service berry, with a multiform windswept display of trunks and branching twigs. There are incredibly beautiful plants that are sometimes even more beautiful without their leaves or flowers.” The red and yellow twig dogwoods show off their colored branches in winter. There’s the Canadian redbud with the sculptural form of its bare branches. And, of course, the list goes on and on.
Altgelt comments that there are fewer trees and shrubs that will grow here, with our harsh climate, compared to New England or Germany where Tom began his landscape architecture career. “At the same time, It is remarkable what we can do here with perennials. After the long winter, they will come back up again in the spring, and this is an important component of beautiful gardens here.” When Tom first came to the Denver/Boulder area from Germany, he was surprised at how little attention is often paid to perennials in this region. When incorporated artistically into a landscape, perennials can really bring a garden to life!
The one element that is missing here is water. Because our climate is so dry, according to Altgelt, water in a Colorado garden can be especially appreciated. “A large and dramatic water garden in Florida may not be as special and appreciated as a far more subtle water garden here in Colorado.”
Although many of Altgelt’s designs are naturalistic, inspired by native forms and plants, he often expands beyond what is found naturally. “We start with what is unique to this area, and depending on the land and the desires of the client, we may also blend a foreign theme with a native theme, so the garden appears or feels as if it were almost transported from a different place.” For instance, a Colorado garden could, ultimately, have the look and feel of a Japanese garden, an Italian courtyard garden, an English cottage garden, a Moorish garden or a French formal garden. These foreign design modalities can be modified and adapted to suit Colorado conditions.
Altgelt then adds various man-made artistic elements-sculpture, a bench, a gazebo, a fence-which can add the human touch to the beauty of nature. Just as the house was added to the natural setting, these other man-made elements can harmonize with the sculpted earth, rocks and plants, as well as the architecture. “We can accept and respond to and elaborate on the beauty that was here to begin with, and the result is a uniquely Colorado garden.”
The project featured in this ad just won both a grand and an excellence award in the Colorado Landscape Contractors competition. Click here to see the ad up close.
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