Also this fall...

So, a number of years ago, my husband and I were eating at a local restaurant with very tight seating, and we struck up a conversation with this really nice and fun couple at the next table.  Eventually they asked what I did, and they told me they had recently had a consultation and estimate (HUGE!) from another designer to remove the back deck and revamp the back yard.  The cost and scope kind of scared them off the whole project.  I said I had a feeling I could do better, and they ended up hiring Calafia, but we did the front, creating the landscape of the white "castle" you see on my website.  Never did get to the back, until this last fall.  

Here you see the path along the side of the house, leading into the back yard.  Below that, the monstrosity that was the old deck.  Honestly, it wasn't safe to walk on, and looked like a yacht had been beached in the yard.  And see that gorgeous, HUGE old elm?  Poor thing was surrounded by the enemy, and really struggling.

                       And one look at this old yew and I was salivating...  Where is my chain saw?

The clients love their front yard, with its controlled wildness, and wanted something similarly naturalistic, with a smaller deck of some kind.
One thing I don't like about a lot of decks is the way they can cut one off from the landscape.  It kind of makes you feel like you're in a playpen, and all the real action is "out there" somewhere.  And this one in particular made the yard feel really claustrophobic.  Plus it was red.  Why on earth...(the clients had inherited it when they bought the house).

NEXT POST will show the afters...

Perusing the work of late summer and fall...

So some cook things happened the second half of the season.  In Park Ridge, we enclosed a porch to make it a three-season room, adding a new, larger stone patio with lighting, a gas line for the grill, and new plantings.  Below, you see the entry to the garden along the side of the house, and a view of the house from the back yard.

Below you can see the newly enclosed porch.  We actually raised the floor, so that the porch was at the same level as the rest of the first floor.  The step down now happens outside the back door rather than inside the porch.  

The new patio is a beautiful stone called Provence, with rust and mossy green tones, perfect for the house.  It is not often I have such adventurous clients, so this was fun!  

We did reuse some of the old boxwood.  Now it creates a partially enclosing curve on the east side of the patio, giving a seat wall feeling without the expense of the masonry (warning, don't sit on it though, heh heh).

 This is the entry to the garden now.  Much more welcoming, with the sturdy lattice fence supporting honeysuckle vines as well as concealing the neighbor's chain link.

 A little water in the garden makes a beautiful difference, creating light and reflection.  The magnolia is one of the Little Girl hybrids called Jane.  Nice and small.

 I have to add that my dog is cute.  And she does love a car ride.

Here is a project updated recently.  I planted this garden was in '06, I believe, and it has held up well as far as the overall structure of the garden.  But two active dogs will take a toll, and there was a rehearsal dinner to prepare for, so starting in May, we added raised beds along the side fences with Green Mountain boxwood, and many, many new perennials.  And a few annuals.  And we got the fountain running!  We also added an irrigation system (irritation system?) because the huge, mature maples suck the life out of everything left after the dogs compromise it.  I am not a big fan of irrigation, since it can be very wasteful when done improperly, but this system is mostly drip lines directly into the roots of plants (actually saves water over usage of an overhead sprinkler, where UP TO 50% OF WATER IS LOST TO THE AIR!!).  But installation is an expensive and destructive headache.

No matter, American National Sprinkler did their best to make things as tidy and surgical as possible, in the wake of a very rainy, muddy week.  And we elves fixed everything, and laid down a new layer of mulch.  See below.  You can see the original garden on my website, www.calafia-design.com.

August

What a spring and summer! The heat, the wind, it has been exhausting and stressful. I mean for the plants, of course, but I have also never looked so forward to Thanksgiving in my life, when things are slower, dormant and we can cross our fingers for more snow cover and a cooler spring for 2013.
But in the meantime, we have installed some VERY cool jobs - - my guys are wonderful!

   

Two weeks ago, we completed a local property that had been overgrown and neglected for years, if not decades. Neighbor kids called it "The Haunted House," but really, you could barely even see the house. My neighbor, Trish Stieglitz, a general contractor, bought it, renovated it, and has turned it into the cutest rental ever. New from top to bottom. Neighbors disagreed with the idea to paint it simple white, but once the landscaping was in, it looked just perfect! We put in a compacted bluestone screenings driveway, same material for a round patio in back, privacy plantings, bluestone steppers, some small flowering trees, and even landscaped the parkway, creating a berm for some interest for commuters. In fall, we will put in some perennials and ground cover (pachysandra) so the whole thing will, eventually, be lush, low maintenance and use little water. That's my whole game! See the following photos. Drive into the McCulloch Park neighborhood at Livingston and Green Bay and see this beautiful new welcome mat we have out!

The above photos are "before," but the true "befores" wouldn't even show the house; overgrown with weeds and weed shrubs, rotting trees, a falling down fence, no pathways save one of broken concrete.
"AFTERS" still to be posted.
                                                     

Hot day, in the garden with a beer.

Happy Memorial Day weekend to all. This is my neighbor's beautiful Japanese maple I "borrow" for my garden. So lucky to have it.

Visiting an "old friend"

This is a garden I planted a couple years ago. It is always nice when I happen across a former project and it looks this happy. The request was for a naturalistic garden with a lot of low maintenance and native plants.
And what a perfect spring day.