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Picture Perfect Photographing Your Designs for the Certification Process Build a Better Business:
Tips for Getting Paid on Time, Every Time
The Lesson of Soils Observations of the Spring Season: Color
We Define Landscape Design
www.apld.org
Observations of the Spring Season: Color Cathy Carr, APLD, Certified Professional Member
Yellow, pink, and green are the essential colors of spring. YELLOW is an emblem of hope and happiness. The color of our sun, it illuminates and brightens.
I’m sure you’ve noticed: there are lots of yellow flowers in the spring. Most years in my garden, winter aconites (Eranthis) are emerging and even blooming by February. Oregon grapeholly, Mahonia spps., blooms fragrantly nearby. These harbingers of spring precede the softer yellow blossoms of winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum), which punctuate bright green stems. Forsythia bloom later than the jasmine, in sunnier shades. Of course, daffodils (Narcissus) are also usually some shade of yellow, as are many crocuses.
Because the sky is so visible is early spring, the soft haze thickening the branches of deciduous trees is quite noticeable. The delicate, quiet, buttercup yellow blossoms of Corneliancherry dogwood, Cornus mas, and fragrant winterhazel, Corylopsis pauciflora, are especially stunning when fronting evergreen trees. Pink is another recurrent color of spring.
Photo by: Anya Blakeley
PINK is a soothing salve, suffusing us with peace and contentment.
A pinkish-red haze appears high in the sky in early spring, where shade maples command the distance. And about the time the big maples (Acer spps.) begin their show, more pinks arrive; the blooms of Japanese apricot (Prunus mume) and Okame cherries (Prunus x incamp) add soft and variable hues to greet the waning cool. Later, maple flowers carpet paved surfaces and dark pink calyxes of the Okame extend the flower’s rosy glow.
Cover Landscape Design: Patricia St. John, APLD
Snowdrop and summer snowflake leaves both have a bottle-green hue. Careful observers will notice subtleties between otherwise look-alike forms: daffodil foliage is blue-green while the less-shiny stems of daylily (Hemerocallis) are yellow-green. Later, varied green shoots arise on allium, peony, and astilbe, the skinny leaves of naked ladies, and myriad other perennials.
In April, the tissue-paper-thin petals of Yoshino cherry blossoms create cotton-candy clouds. It seems amazing that these delicate Prunus x yedoensis flowers survive our still-harsh weather. The waxy, cupped petals of saucer magnolia (Magnolia soulangeana) echo the color of Yoshino cherry blossoms, adding texture and depth of hue; the cheery muffs of Prunus serrulata ‘Kwanzen’ follow. Crabapple flowers, Malus spps., offer more rich, clean tones of pink. GREEN is the color of youth and new beginnings, of fertility, growth, and renewal.
The apple-green glow of the budding weeping willow is another sign of spring on the horizon. The tree’s graceful movement brings attention to the color, so hopeful and shy after a long winter. At eye-level, deciduous shrubs like viburnum and fothergilla fatten up and unfurl their olive-green tips, while Manhattan euonymus puts out bright, Technicolor green leaves. All new leaves are thinner and more translucent than when fully mature. Meanwhile, on the ground plane, the downwardfacing green and pink-ivory hellebore flowers emerge, urging us to pay attention! The foliage of spring garden bulbs like snowdrop (Galanthus), daffodil (Narcissus), and summer snowflake (Leucojum), emerge in various shades of green.
Clematis bud strong, as do roses that bask in sunlight. There’s a gray-green tint to the soft and fuzzy rosettes of lamb’s ears (Stachys), catmint (Nepeta) and Sedum spps. Ferns, hosta, and grasses produce prodigious quantities of lush, dewy green. There are many examples of white and blue flowers in the spring garden, also, but for me, yellow and pink prevails, and green, my personal favorite, rules. CODA: Color does not stand alone in the garden. As important as color is in the spring garden, it does not stand alone. Texture, form, and the quality of light all affect our perception of color and enhance the feelings we attribute to it. Because of the influence of the sun’s arc, the brief brilliance of green fades as spring develops into summer. There are many observations of the spring garden: which are yours? This is the first in a series of OBSERVATIONS OF THE SEASONS. Cathy would be pleased to hear about your seasonal learnings. She can be reached at: CathyCarr_APLD@ me.com.
Cathy Carr, APLD
Picture Perfect:
Photographing Your Designs for the Certification Process By Melissa Clark, APLD, Certified Professional Member
As any APLD member applying for certification knows, photographs of the gardens on which you are basing your application are required as part of the packet of materials you will submit. Remember the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Photographs bring the garden to life in the way a plan or narrative description simply can’t, so this is part of the process you want to “give your best shot.” As most of my friends and design colleagues know, I’ve been photographing gardens for pleasure and on a semi-professional basis for over ten years. I’ve learned from that experience, as well as from workshops with experts like Roger Foley and Alan Detrick. And I’ve been through the certification process myself, as well as submitting gardens I’ve designed for various awards. Here are some tips I’d like to share. First, make sure that the garden(s) have grown in. My own experience is that most gardens don’t look full and photograph well until they have been in the ground three years. In any event, photographs of beds with large areas of mulch between the plantings may cause the committee to conclude that the garden in question is not sufficiently mature to justify granting certification. In fact, the “Criteria for Certification” guidelines expressly state: “Photos should be taken after at least two growing seasons. Be aware that your submission may be returned to you without a score if your photos show immature landscapes. These submissions cannot be adequately reviewed and scored.”
These photos illustrate the value of including parts of the garden that have been transformed but might not be as evident from looking at a plan. This is a county culvert that is on the edge of a dry streambed. Melissa created this as the central element in the landscape to deal with drainage/ runoff issues. She tied the dry streambed into this area and disguised the culvert. The after photo was taken in late afternoon light, which is one of Melissa’s recommendations.
On a related note, make sure that the garden has been well maintained and doesn’t need weeding, pruning, or removing/ replacing struggling plants. See if the client will spring for infill planting, if necessary, and a visit by a maintenance company you trust prior to photographing the landscape (and offer him or her some photos of the spruced-up garden in return!). Give yourself time to assess the condition of the garden and have it “prepped” if need be, before you photograph it. If you want photos of it in mid-May, take a look at it at least a month beforehand so you can see what areas might need attention before you shoot. On the day you photograph, make sure hoses, etc. are out of sight or at least neatly coiled – you want the judges to focus on the plantings, not a bright green “snake” stretched out in a bed! Second, photograph the garden on an overcast day, or in early morning or late afternoon. Harsh mid-day light not only doesn’t show most gardens at their best, but may also result in photographs with areas that are “blown out” or have such deep shadows that the viewer can’t tell what is planted in those sections of the garden. Third, since the guidelines state than no more than two photos can appear on a page (before and after shots make nice pairings, see below), make sure the camera you are using has its image quality set to produce photos with a resolution of at least 240 dpi. Many point-and-shoot cameras (which can produce excellent photos) have default settings of 72 dpi (or ppi), which results in images that are fine for Web display but which may or may not print well as 5” x 7” photographs (two of which fit nicely on an 8-1/2 by 11” sheet of paper in your certification materials binder).
What kind of photographs should you submit? “Before and after” photos (required by the guidelines) are probably especially useful for highlighting how you dealt with difficult topography/grade changes, or screening offsite views or structures. Try to take the “after” shots from the same location as you took your “before” shots, for maximum effect. While “photo maps” are no longer required, they can be very useful in providing orientation for the judges studying your plan. (Suggestion: use a reduced size plan for this and hand-write the needed information in a colored marker to make it easy to spot.) Vary your shots. Be sure to include both “vista” views of the garden and more selective views of distinctive areas. Take photos that show what the judges are looking for in a design – order, unity, scale, repetition, etc. I would recommend that if possible you photograph the garden in more than one season, especially if it has strong fall or winter interest. (Views of the same part of the garden in spring and fall, if you have designed with year-round visual interest in mind, can be arresting.) Similarly, if the garden has had lighting installed, try to include some early evening or night shots of up-lit trees, beds or path areas to highlight this aspect of the design.
It’s a good idea to include photos that show the use of repeating patterns of plants and/or hardscaped areas, as shown in this image of a small seating area with lateblooming Robin Hill azaleas.
Most of all, enjoy taking your photos. You’ve worked hard to design beautiful gardens, and your images will show it if you take a little time beforehand and think about what views will show off the garden at its best. Who knows, like me, you might even find a second calling behind the camera.
These photos illustrate the advice to shoot (from roughly the same vantage point) the garden in different seasons when possible.
Melissa Clark, APLD, has been designing gardens since 2001 and photographing them for almost as long. Two of her gardens have received awards in APLD’s design awards competitions (in 2004 and 2009), and her photographs have appeared in The Washington Post, Home and Design (DC/MD/VA), Bethesda Magazine, The American Nurseryman, and Great Backyards. She writes on garden design and photography on her blog Garden Shoots (www.melissaclarkphotography.wordpress.com) and practices landscape design with a design/build firm, Landscape Projects Inc., in Bethesda, Maryland.
Melissa Clark, APLD
Build a Better Business:
Tips for Getting Paid on Time, Every Time By Kelly Fore Dixon, Professional Member As we all know, being paid well for our time and talent allows us to stay focused on being creative. As a business owner and designer, nothing is more counterproductive to creativity than pleading for past due payments, spending time on the phone with an attorney crafting a payment demand letter, or worse, sitting in small claims court. Before spring spins all landscape design professionals into swirling dervishes, let’s take a moment to review a few tips to help eliminate these frustrating tasks from our To-Do list:
Become an expert communicator and conflict manager.
The best way to avoid conflict, which leads to slow payment, is to reduce the possibility of conflict. Continuous and detailed communication with clients, staff and contractors becomes the best course of action. Be proactive and request a face-to-face meeting within 24 hours of any sign that a project is off track. Implement a “No Email Policy” when someone is unhappy, as it is very easy to misread tone and intention.
Revisit your contract terms.
Make sure payment terms are clearly stated, detailed and itemized in dollar amounts. Then, at your first meeting, verbally restate these terms with your client. Reiterate the terms at each meeting where project finances are discussed.
Clearly and specifically detail your scope of service.
Include any requested additions to your design deliverables and expense reimbursements. Add their requested project amenity and the number of rounds of revisions necessary to fulfill your client’s request. If the client asks to add a fire pit to an existing design, follow up quickly with a written change order. An email will suffice here as long as it includes the added service or amenity, the additional price and the length of time this addition will delay the project.
Collect progress payments on schedule, as outlined in the contract.
No exceptions. If payments are not being received as requested, stop all work immediately and schedule a face-to-face meeting with all participants. Remember, design professionals are not financiers – leave this to the banks. Send an email reminder several days before payment is expected, as a reminder. If the client is being evasive about issues he is unhappy about, verbally and in writing, tell him that all work will cease until payments are made current. Agreed, this is a bold move that will cause many to argue about the cost of down time to a construction crew or whether the past due amount is enough to ruffle feathers, but nothing is more deflating than working hard and not getting paid for that work; and, the time it takes to collect on past due invoices can never be recuperated.
Discuss money, progress, accomplishments and expectations often.
Share your project “To-Do” list with all project participants. Add scheduling expectations and the name of the responsible party to that list. Send an email once a week to share this information. If your contractors or clients don’t use email, hand deliver, fax or mail this document.
If a point of conflict is related to poor performance, fix it, pay for it and move on.
No need to point blame or wallow in self-pity. Resolve the issue as quickly as possible and move quickly to more profitable work. The client will think better of you and you will be able to clear your head to be creative once again.
Be proactive.
Some people tend to avoid difficult conversations at all cost; as a business owner, you can’t afford to be one of them. Pick up the phone daily, if needed, and reinforce that clearing up a past due invoice is of the utmost importance. In a world where the devil is in the details, design and construction projects offer plenty of opportunity for crossed wires. When these details are resolved, your creative energy will soar. Now, go do good work. Kelly Fore Dixon, ASLA, is Sales Manager for Nature Designs Landscaping and co-owner of Make Fabrication in San Diego, CA (www.naturedesigns.net, www.makefab. com). Her 25 years of business experience includes landscape design, construction and maintenance. She is licensed in the State of California as a general building and landscape contractor and is a Continuing Education Provider for the American Institute of Architects, American Society of Interior Designers and Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Kelly Fore Dixon, ASLA, Industry Member APLD
The Lesson of Soils By Garth Conrad, Professional Member
I have a large estate client I’ve acquired (the estate is large, not the client), and the parallels between the client’s landscape and the fate of all our soils over time are hard for me to ignore. It was a MELA (melaweb.org) conference last February that conveyed a most telling message I had not realized: the deeper fate of our soils. Three quarters of the Eastern deciduous forest (just about everything east of the Mississippi River) and the overwhelming majority of the Midwestern prairie are now gone. Setting aside hardscape-covered urban and other non-crop areas, the majority of what remains is now farmland, turfgrass and the small balance of the built landscape. The difference between the two, native vs. modern, is black and white concerning soils. Our soils have moved from massive, fertile, deep-rooted water-breathing carbon sinks that have root depths averaging three to four feet (even more in the case of trees) to a compacted, collapsed, washed-away medium planted with root systems, mostly annual, hitting depths of 12 to 18 inches or so on average, four to six inches for turfgrass. No wonder run-off is something to control; we have spiked it beyond anything remotely historical by massively altering the plant communities that reside here. Our problem is not just the loss of topsoil, but also includes the extensive loss of root systems that interplay directly with soil, climate and water. Our soils used to be an extended organism inhaling and exhaling water deep into and out of the earth. Now, it’s just a shallow shell of its old self. I’m not even talking about the loss of sub-surface carbon storage. Like the bulk of human achievement, there was no intention to diminish the benefits of our soils. It just happened. It’s the de- facto plan and it’s the status quo now. Back to my client. He has a large residence and several associated ponds built on the property. As is custom with building construction, soils gets moved around,
compacted, and rebuilt from less than optimal sources. Building a native landscape plant community on blended subsoils without rebuilding the soil food web is not a winning path to landscape success. When I was brought in to look at the three-year-old native-based landscape, I was looking at 30% to 50% mulched open ground. Something was wrong. The fact that he had big name Chicago hotshots design and plant the place was telling, but that’s another discussion. They all should have known better. Nobody paid attention to the soil. Needless to say, we analyzed the place with a full spread of chemical and biological tests and worked at correcting the problem: compaction and lack of organic matter. The critters were there; they were just starved for air and food. We ended up drilling 2.5 inch cores, 16 inches deep and 18 inches apart over about an acre of ground and then applied compost, compost tea, and a number of humate additives to start bringing the soil back to a supportive level. We worked all that in during the fall of 2009 and the place jumped in 2010. Even I was surprised at the results. The client was very pleased, and we are still tweaking it overall. We are expanding the landscape into new areas to really make the place shine. I’m still struck by the fact that we live on a planet where the natural systems that sustain us are totally organic, totally powered by sunlight, and recycle everything. We have to incorporate human endeavors into our planet’s existing natural systems if we are to ever achieve sustainability. Soils are the inheritance of our accumulated natural capital. To ignore them is to tempt fate. Garth Conrad is a landscape designer and landscape general contractor working throughout the Michiana area. His 35 years of experience has spanned from the vacation cottage to large scale estates. Garth’s focus is native-based landscapes and sustainable methods and materials.
Garth Conrad, Professional Member, APLD
About APLD The Association of Professional Landscape Designers is an international organization that was formed in 1989. The mission of APLD is to advance the profession of landscape design and to promote the recognition of landscape designers as qualified and dedicated professionals.
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