Hello everyone, thanks for tuning in on this lovely Thursday. Sorry about the crunched spacing in this post – all of a sudden wordpress is a fickle friend. Dear wordpress, please do what I tell you to do; you’re digital technology, not my cat.
I’m going to keep today’s post brief due to the info overload from yesterday. Instead, I’m showing a couple pretty plans I’ve done. The one above is a current project and the one below is from about a year ago. Both share something that is pretty much unavoidable when working on any outdoor space – the need to improvise as unexpected challenges come up. Some examples include unmarked utilities, tree stumps hidden below grade, mysterious patches of concrete or asphalt long-buried, and myriad other pains-in-the-butt that require the ability to take a step back and thoughtfully change the original landscape plan. In these scenarios I try to sit down with a pencil again and think about how to shift things, delete things, and adjust to the new constraints. Sometimes decisions need to be made on the fly, so some bit of aesthetic and functional intuition is necessary. If you’re working on making some changes to your space and come across a game-changer (in my yard: behemoth concrete footers scattered everywhere – like maybe there was a whole village back there?), I suggest taking a breather and thinking about alternatives. Maybe you can plant those trees five feet to the west, rather than sledging up what could be hundreds of pounds of concrete. Who knows, you might come up with something that looks far better in the end.
Okay, I’m stopping here. Have a wonderful day! See you tomorrow for a couple thoughts on finding a daily groove, with a sprinkling of craigslist treasures.
