Landscape Design With A Little Help From My Friends...

Sometimes I am just astounded by the wonderful FREE events that are offered in my community.  Last night at the local library hosted a Home Design Road Show – from an organization of lovely ladies called Women Design. 

Women Design is a collaboration of local women landscape designers, architects, interior designers and real estate professionals who get together to offer up free advice to fixer-uppers such as me.  It’s a fabulous idea!  They host the event and offer short consultations to whomever shows up – you just bring your photos, questions and any inspirational magazine clippings you might have.  It’s really a genius idea – I get awesome feedback and not only do I have a new resource if I decide to hire the project out but if all works as it should these professionals get referral business from those who I tell how great they were (and they were).

This year with the exterior of my house topping my never ending project list - painting, new front steps, raised bed garden removal, back yard total renovation, etc… the main question I had was “what on earth (no pun intended) do I do with the mess that is my yard?  A landscaper I am not…




This raised bed garden creates a border between my yard and my
neighbors...unfortunately it's in really poor shape with rotting railroad
ties and full of weeds (I've moved anything that is not a weed and
transplanted them to another garden already).
So, IT HAS TO GO!

 


These bushes abutt my house and line the driveway.
Unfortunately they also scratch the paint on my car
when I park too close & haven't trimmed the hedge...
So, THEY TOO HAVE TO GO

 


My back yard, over grown and full of weeds.  Not only
is there a wishing well behind those bushes but there
is an actual well below it.
Yes, you guessed it it all HAS TO GO



My sad front stoop - stairs are extremely
steep & close and not up to code.  Under
these wood steps are disintegrating cement
that will be replaced this summer!



 I arrived at the event about 30 minutes after it started and I was just one in a long line awaiting my turn with one of the landscape ladies when Heather Deschenes, from HND Architects had a few minutes free so I meandered over to her table to discuss my front stoop.  Holy cow she had great feedback!  I was really struggling on whether or not to go with stone steps or wood – Heather suggested a Azek composite decking product (i.e. no maintenance) that I think will look fab!  Heather also gave me the right questions to ask the building inspector for my town so I can make sure I’m all legal before we start the construction.  Her information was really invaluable.



The "inspiration" picture I brought - it's
actually one of my neighbors stoop.  Nice
but I needed help making it my own (don't
want to do a direct copy...)



The sketch I left with giving me basic measurements
as well as the perfect suggestion to go with a tapered
column instead of 2 straight ones as well as using
the composite decking material instead of stone. 



Once I was done with Heather I was back awaiting my time with landscaping and after just a short wait Susie Talbot from Forget-Me-Not Garden Services welcomed me to her table.  Now, by this time it was really toward the end of the evening so everyone had been hard offering advice for a couple of hours.  This didn’t at all impact my time with Susie – she was so pleasant and helpful.  She gave me some great advice on which plants will make it through a transplant and which just need a good whacking (whacking of course being the technical term).  She also made some wonderful suggestions on some border shrubs to replace some of the raised bed gardens I am removing.



Susie suggested California Privet to
replace the raised bed garden in my front
yard to create a natural border that is mostly
maintenance free



And peonies to replace the scratchy shrubs on
the side of my house/driveway.  I LOVE peonies
and Susie told me how to stake them so they
don't droop into the drive.  I am so excited
to make this change!



 This turned out to be such a fun evening and I got to spend an evening of receiving FREE great advice I have one piece of advice to pass on to you…if you see an announcement of any kind informing you that your community is hosting something similar to this – GO!  Now I just have to call the guy with the machines to do all of the digging in my yard and find a nice charity to donate some of the fully mature plants that I will not be using.