Casa Wallace

This was a project that I did for school almost 8 years ago. I had the privilege of studying in Italy for 6 weeks over the summer and we stayed at an amazing little villa/winery while we were there. One of our projects was to create a comprehensive plan for the villa and vineyards that included some wetland reclamation, garden space, an increased number of paths throughout the property, a children's garden, a grotto at the site of the old pool, and other requirements. Living in the space you're designing for is an enjoyable but sometimes overwhelming experience.

Two areas that we concentrated on were the courtyards at the villa. One was completely paved and enclosed on three sides by the villa itself, with the owner's private residence partially covering the fourth side. It got incredibly hot in this courtyard, so I added a fountain with night-lighting and some edge plantings to soften the harsh lines of the space.

The second courtyard was bounded on one side by the villa and the rest was surrounded by an old wall with a little terra cotta roof that was as charming as it was unnecessary. They didn't have a lot of water for irrigation, so I used brick pavers and pea gravel set in organic lines  and curving shapes to create a more "natural" feeling environment and added a few strategically placed berms of native plants to make the sparse plantings more visible. 

As an aside, if you're looking for a place to stay in the Piedmont region of Italy, you can stay here. Visit their website here.

Soil Amendments

A common problem here on the Palouse is our soil. Sometimes "soil" is too kind of a term - it's more like heavy clay. I once had to use a pick axe to cut away the soil to create a new retaining wall. You can use great websites like the USDA Soil Maps to find out exactly what kind of soil you are working with, but most of us have some type of silt loam. I spent a semester in college studying soil (they really hate it when you call it "dirt"). We looked at composition, drainage, maximum slopes, etc., but pretty much anyone with a yard here can tell you that we're not working with the best stuff on earth. The soil maps say that our Palouse silt loams are "well drained", but I've seen trees drown and suffocate in holes that essentially served as concrete pots in the ground with zero drainage.

So, what do you do? You have to work with what you've got. Some people try to truck in topsoil, but that doesn't work because it's usually just what local construction companies have dug out for foundations and if you live in a newly constructed house it could be the same exact stuff you're already dealing with! So unless you actually need to increase the volume of soil on your property, topsoil is out. The best option is amending the soil that you have in order to improve drainage and increase nutrients. Over large areas, this can become expensive. Here are some general tips:

: : If you can take care of large areas all at once, mix in about a 5 gallon bucket of sand and four 5 gallon buckets of compost (like EKO compost or any other compost that you can buy by the cubic yard at a garden center) for every 25 square feet. Some places even have something like a 3-way mix of mulch, compost, and sand which also works well.

: : If you have an already established yard and can only amend in each new planting hole as you go, then mix in about an inch of sand into the bottom of the hole and use a 2:1 mixture of original soil to compost as back fill (soil that you put back in the hole around the root ball).

: : If you just want to amend your planting beds and aren't planning to plant anything new, spread an inch or two of compost on top of the soil and work it in as much as possible without tearing up any roots.

: : The best top dressing for your planting beds is mulching bark. It doesn't stay in place like river rock and you have to replace it every year or two, but as far as quality of your soil goes it's the best thing. As it breaks down it adds nutrients to your soil and improves drainage. This obviously won't work if you put a weed barrier (the black plastic/fabric type stuff) between your bark and soil, so if you can resist, don't do that. If you make your bark layer two or more inches thick, that should work in two ways to prevent weeds: it will keep sunlight from reaching the soil where the weeds will usually grow and whatever weeds do happen to pop up in the bark are very easy to pull because their roots are just in the loose bark (as long as you don't wait till they're a foot tall!).

mulching bark

: : And last but not least, my very favorite soil amendment is Whitney Farms Soil Conditioner. It is my favorite because a few years ago I set up two planting beds, one with Whitney Farms Soil Conditioner to amend the soil and another with a basic planting compost. I planted gladiolus bulbs in both beds and after two months the bed with the Soil Conditioner produced much taller, fuller blooms than the other. Because of the cost, this is probably the sort of thing that you would want to mix in to each individual planting hole, again at a 2:1 ratio of native soil to conditioner.

Littlejohn Residence

This project was a recent construction with very minimal existing landscaping. The clients wanted two basic things - a plan for some quick fixes that could be done to improve the look of the property, and a more long term plan of things that they could implement over the next few years.

Here are the drawings for the quick fixes which were basically the entryway planter at the end of the driveway and the planting bed right next to the entrance to the house.



Here are the drawings for the long term plan. These included a border along the east side of the property, some slope solutions on the southwest corner, and then the installation of an informal playing field in the lower back yard.




Time: 15 hours

Nightingale Residence

This project was a new construction with some significant slopes to deal with. The front and back yards were flat, but the back yard was a good 10' below the front yard, and then there was a large slope down from the back yard to the rear property line. The theme of the front yard was mostly "cottage garden" with lots of perennials and flowering shrubs.



The North Side (the North Slope) was going to be the least used portion of the yard, so we kept it simple, low maintenance, with some drough tolerant plants.


The South Side was more visible so we put in more perennials and shrubs.


I usually abhor junipers, but sometimes they really are the best option. This back slope was steep, and with a small shrub border along the top, it was not going to be visible from anywhere else in the yard (and barely noticeable from the house). Junipers were a cheap, easy, no maintenance solution. They would be able to survive from the run-off that the sprinklers on the lawn above gave.

Time: 18 hours

Wingers in Moscow

I have no pictures, but I designed the landscaping for the new Wingers in Moscow a few years back when I was working through Crossroads Nursery just west of Moscow. As is typical with businesses, they wanted something virtually maintenance free and with low water requirements. I used lots of rock, grasses, roses, evergreen boxwoods, and virginia creeper to soften the architecture and bring some color and interest to the little island in the middle of the fifteen acre parking lot. I cannot, however, take credit for the lollipop trees to the right of the entrance.

McDonald Landscape

This project was a bit unique in that the clients wanted mostly ideas, rather than specific measured plans. There was a lot of property to work with (it's a dairy farm) and a lot of new issues to tackle. For this client, I put together a book of my sketches and suggestions. It's a bit difficult to show online, but what I did was print pages with the picture of the problem area, and then I printed an overlay on transparent vellum that included my suggestions and the sketches of how I envisioned the area after the improvements. Here are three of the fifteen areas I put together suggestions for, with the picture page on the left, and the transparency on the right (you'll just have to imagine the right pages laid over the left ones).




At the end of the book was a list of recommended plants for the clients to use divided by type (perennials, small shrubs, large shrubs.)

Time: 12 hours

K. Johnson Front Planter

This client had a house with mature landscaping that needed a bit of revamping. The big trouble spot was a planter in the front of the house. Here's a photo of what was there, and the sketch of my suggestions.