Style, Vision, Light, Structure, Form

Interesting, and thought provoking words don’t you think?

As a designer these are forefront in my mind whenever I am shown a new project. Each new site is an exciting challenge, and every client I work with has different likes, loves, and dislikes.

Being a good designer is about having the vision, and the experience to create your landscape design, but most importantly designers need to listen to our clients, and create a garden for them – to facilitate their vision, while ensuring that the landscaping enhances and compliments their house design, as well addressing practical issues such as privacy, environment and accessibility.

With this in mind, my design process is to have an initial onsite consultation with you, then provide you with a written brief document outlining our discussions for clarification, as well as providing plant types, and landscaping finishes, and style for your consideration. Once I have your feedback, I can create a concept design sketch – hand drawn of your site.

We then sit down together and discuss this, making any changes. From this I can create a detailed landscape plan for pricing, and for a landscaping crew to work off. I can arrange quotes for you, recommend trades, and project manage your landscaping.

You may not need a detailed planting plan, and may simply need an onsite consultation with ‘brief”. This is sometimes the case especially if clients have an existing garden that needs inspiration, or has some problem areas.
 

This site was refreshing for me to design for.  It is very large, and being at the back of Omaha it already had lots of lovely topsoil, and wasn't as dry as other areas of Omaha. My main challenge with this site was a large overland flow path running through the property, right where we needed the most privacy, so the garden shape next to the tennis courts, and out to the road is largely dictated by this. The house style lends itself to lush tropical plantings, so given that my clients had a large number of plants they loved, it was exciting to be able to incorporate many different specimans in the design.  The front entrance is more formally planted with beautiful high standard hibiscus, murraya paniculata hedging, liriope, date palms, and masses of star jasmine, with a feature double planted bangalow to lend some instant height next to the entrance.  The curves of the grassed driveway lined with star jasmine, set off the strong lines of the house beautifully, and two single leader evergreen magnolias will gain height to lead you towards the stunning entrance.  A feature phoenix reclinata palm is underplanted with star jasmine in the middle of the turnaround.  This will be allowed to multi stem, and the lower foliage will be removed so that the brown trunks will compliment the huge tonka posts surrounding the house. The rest of the landscaping is less formal, with nikau and kentias, karaka, puka, griselinia lucida and evergreen magnolias, underplanted with more hibiscus, and dramatic iresene for colour, blended through with more subtle lomandra grass.  Tucked into the front of the mounds are patches of ajuga, and at the back of the house there are masses of star jasmine with more nikau, and griselinias as a backdrop for privacy, with another large speciman bangalow against their house for height.  In a couple of years this landscaping will be colourful and full with the hibiscus blooming beautifully amongst the lush tropical plantings.

This site is small, with privacy issues relating to a number of two storied properties adjacent to the boundary, and directly in the line of vision of the main outdoor living area.  The soak pit was also unfortunately directly in front of the courtyard, where we needed to plant large plants into, and the site was pure sand, so I had some challenges to overcome.  I worked closely with the clients and their architects over a number of months, and the results speak for themselves.  This landscaping definately has the wow factor, as well as overcoming the privacy issues, and creates the illusion of a much deeper and larger site.  The Palms are underplanted against the fence with lush tropical foliaged specimans that will fill the gaps once the palms get higher to keep the house private, and I have mass planted gardenias for a peaceful white ambience that compliments the house design, with mondo grass mass planted in lines through the pavers.