In our continuing series of conversations with our favorite landscape architects, designers and contractors, we were really happy to talk to Paul Hendershot of Paul Hendershot Design, Inc. in Ojai, California.  All of us look forward to seeing Paul and his big, beautiful dog, Chief, walking through Eye of the Day.  Here are some things we found out when we talked to Paul.

Paul: I have great passion for landscaping.  I listen closely to what the clients want for their outside space and I am committed to creating a landscape that fits the style of the house. I have had great success with all my clients because I work to make their dreams come true and be sure the design fits the property

Eye of the Day: What do you consider your signature style?
Paul: I am very fond of courtyards; rooms and spaces that are meant to be lived in as opposed to spaces that are simply decorative and consequently unusable. I have been using permeable elements such as pea gravel for many years.

EOD:  Has there been anything in particular that has inspired your style?
Paul: I was inspired while traveling mainly in Europe where I saw courtyard settings that had a recurring use of the same and similar plants that I use now. This creates that lush look with very low watering and a permeable ground.

EOD: Have you encountered any obstacles with your clients during the drought?
Paul: My main obstacle with clients has been convincing them to give up their lawns.  But I show my clients many of the gardens that we have done throughout the years that have no lawn to help them recognize what it could be like to give up their lawn.  After they feel the lushness and peacefulness of these gardens, they are convinced that they can live without a lawn.

EOD: What do you see for the future in the world of California landscape design?
Paul: The next developments I hope to see is more courtyards, patios, tree plantings, and permeable grounds. In other words: spaces to live in outside.

EOD: What are your short and long term goals for your business?
Paul: We intend to continue to work closely with our clients and focus on their dream gardens.  During this process, we will continue working with the clients with lots of fun in mind. We want to continue to design gardens, courtyards, and patios that use very little water, keeping abreast of the latest permeable options. We are full of gratitude for the great clients that we get to work with.

…and we’re full of gratitude for Paul and Chief.  To contact Paul, see his website: Paul Hendershot Design

Book Review: The Inspired Landscape: Twenty-one leading landscape architects explore the creative process by Susan Cohen

I planned on liking this book before I opened it, but it had me at the dedication:

“For landscape architects – whose works, grounded in the practical, are elevated by their imaginations.”

Since we opened our business in 1994, we have met many, many landscape architects and some have been using Eye of the Day as their source for Italian terracotta, French Anduze pottery, Greek pottery and American concrete since our first year. This is a well researched book that I wish I could give every one of those loyal customers.  The Inspired Landscape by Susan Cohen features professionals from around the world and with drawings, plans, photographs and resources attempts to portray the creative process experienced personally by these individuals through specific projects.

The landscape architect forms a plan by taking cues from topography, light, client style and natural conditions.  Included in this book are designs of public places, botanical gardens, modern landscapes, country homes and on top of structures.  Cohen spots and magnifies the initial flicker of creativity and follows it through to the resulting design.  This book is a series of investigations into the inspiration and process of these twenty one specific designers, and a great resource for anyone looking for insight into and inspiration from landscape design.

And this is Interesting about Susan Cohen, too: besides being a landscape architect herself, she is a teacher and lecturer on landscape design and history and is the coordinator of the Landscape Design Program at the New York Botanical Garden where she founded the Landscape Design Portfolio Series.

Right-sizing your Garden and Saving Water
By Deana Rae McMillion, Garden Enthusiast and Master Gardener

Right-sizing our gardens in order to reduce water usage is imperative. Just taking out your lawn isn’t necessarily the answer. Many people who do remove their lawns aren’t doing the necessary research and are planting water thirsty plants or invasive plants that use more water or rob their soil of nutrients.

If it seems overwhelming to remove your entire lawn, one thing you can do to save water is let it go brown. In this severe drought the most important thing to save are our valuable trees. But why not look at this as an opportunity to right-size your garden and plantings? California is a summer dry climate and that is not going to change even when the drought is over.

11 Ways to Conserve Water in Your Santa Barbara County Home Landscapes

1. Select water-efficient plants that grow well in your climate and microclimate.
2. Be hyper-aware of plant selection and be sure not to choose invasive plant species
3. Hydrozones: Place plants with similar water needs together and irrigate them accordingly (high, medium, low, and very low zones).
4. Let roots of established plants dry out between irrigations, water deeply and infrequently slightly below the root zone.
5. If you do not use or enjoy your lawn consider replacing it with drought-tolerant plants. If you decide to keep your lawn – water it based on University of California’s “Drought Irrigation Tips”
6. Mix soil amendments (compost, etc.) evenly and deeply into sandy and clay soils (40% or more by volume) before planting.
7. Spread a 2-3” layer of mulch on top of the soil around garden plants and trees.
8. Water early in the morning.
9. Control weeds.
10. Avoid over-fertilizing.
11. Sweep walkways and driveways; do not hose them down with water.

Have a home landscape or gardening question? Contact the Santa Barbara County Master Gardener Helpline at 805-893-3485 or email anrmgsb@.

Please allow 3-4 business days for a response as the Master Gardener helpline is staffed by volunteers. Please be as detailed as you can in your query when leaving a message. Photographs are also helpful in our responding to your gardening concern.
Resources:
Santa Barbara Master Gardener Program
California Garden Web: Drought Gardening Tips
Plant Right: Home Gardeners

This is Part 2 of our interview with Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture with the principal architect himself. To read the first part, please visit here.

EOD: Based on your portfolio that definitely seems to be a case. It can be difficult to make sure all work in harmony, but your clients must know who you are and seek you out for those specific reasons.

JGS: Right, I don’t think I want to be the landscape architect for everyone. I tend to be a pleaser, but I’ve realized you can’t make everyone happy (laughs). I’ve been very fortunate, I feel, that we created this signature or style that people gravitate towards. I’m sure there are people who know they don’t like this style and I’ve learned this is okay. It’s kind of a Buddhist approach that hey, there’s always going to be change and not everyone is going to like you. So, looking back the one thing that has tied a lot of our work—that three-prong approach—is really hard to put a finger on. One of the things we are fortunate in the area we are working in is these amazing sites and getting to derive power from those places and turn that volume up. It’s almost like place making and tuning into the site. Being sensitive to the offsite: the colors, environment, and extract out and almost paint with plants and materials that feel that are of the place where it doesn’t feel contrived.

We had a project in Garden Design magazine and someone from Minnesota emailed me who were inspired by my work and wanted to make their backyard like the one in the magazine. They ended up having to bring most of it inside for the winter and I felt it missed the point. That’s what’s difficult with print; you only get a small sliver of the whole project. So much of the true nature and heart of project gets stripped out and they lose what’s really behind the project. They lost the whole impact of what the project was about: Using what you got, living where you are and celebrate where you are. I love the idea of a regionalism philosophy like that. The whole idea is to celebrate where you are even if you like a Mediterranean climate and landscape and you live in Minnesota. You can celebrate Minnesota.

EOD: That’s really about respect of location. You’re based in California and drought has been a concern the last few years. But based on your work, the projects continue to still feel lush. There’s water features, flowers, trees. How do you keep designs sustainable and still incorporate all these features despite the California drought.

JGS: I’m not a big sustainable, green flag waver. I’ve always believed we should tread on the Earth with the smallest footprint possible. I’ve kind of always done that in my work by playing up where you live and work with what you’re given. Paying homage to understanding the soil, climate, sun and wind exposure and work within those parameters rather than shoving something that doesn’t quite belong. We’re always trying to pay attention to the soil and guess what would be the happier plant environment. First understand the soil then the water you’re given. Most of our landscapes are drought tolerant just by working off with what we’re given. Sometimes we get requests for a tropical garden in an oak woodland. How would that work? We really try to open up their appreciation for where they’re at and try to get them to celebrate their location. We definitely have conflicts and I do tell them I’m not a “Yes person” but I’m not a “No person”. I’ll give them what they want but at least tell them what I think. And hopefully through that I hope we’ve educated clients, or at least pushed them outside their comfort level. I think again, it’s about becoming more sensitive to what’s around you.

With the drought, I’ve had lots of clients request water features and what not, but I’m not a big default water feature person. If a client requests it, we try to design something unique. The big thing I’m worried about is, Is this just a blip or will this be the next environment that California will be? I try to forecast it, looking at new plants and pushing the next edge. I’m always looking for plant material that works here and we can use as a new medium to transition into. I’m looking at Arizona for a lot of plants and similar areas that require almost no water and trying to push further out from the current environment.

We’re constantly probing and testing new plants to see how successful they are in certain projects.

EOD: When you do designs outside of California do you bring some of that sensitivity to the environment or do you judge each space on its own?

JGS: It really is trying to tie into place. We’re not always using strictly native—the cat’s out of the bag on that one. The true California landscape was let out when invasive European species were introduced. It would be unrealistic at this point to create a true California landscape. But I do like to rely on natives. I did a golf course in China and met a botanist there. The only common language we shared was Latin and we could discuss plants with Latin descriptors. They essentially had to create a nursery for the golf course. I suggested they use a roadside weed and they probably thought I was nuts. They saw it as a weed where I saw it as a native plant that grew very well and looked like it was at home. They thought I was completely crazed for wanting to use that weed but it could have propagated well. Working in another climate can be a challenge, even within California with all the different zones. If I were to work somewhere else I’d put the time in researching plant material and who is growing it. It’s not an easy profession to do well in many locations (laughs). If I was an architect I could grab a window, a door, or roofing material from any place and ship it across the globe it would be fine. But the plant material is the thing that could make or break it.

EOD: Are there any personal favorite projects of yours? And finally, what is your hope for the future of Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture?

JGS: I sometimes fear, how are we going to do better than what we’ve done in the past? But each year I look back there’s always another project that one ups one of the last ones. But it’s not really about one upping but there are qualities of that project that resonate and hold for itself. There was a perfect poetry of this project that connects to that space. Then you get another project and wonder how you’re going to pull that off in this one but you find some other element or other aspect to it that you can pull that kind of power as well.

A lot of projects we’re looking at we’re trying to develop a narrative. An example is Seven Sisters. There are geologic features that surround this area called the Seven Sisters which are volcanic plugs. They’re two mountains that are part of the chain of mountains—they say seven but there’s technically eleven—that are in the background of the project. That’s where we got the different heights for the seven posts in the pergola. They’re sort of talking to place and kind of telling the story of the Seven Sisters. There’s a spa area just beyond here with another four which would be the missing sisters. One of the sisters is more of a rock, Morro Rock which is out to sea, but beyond that is the Davidson Seamount which sits about a mile out underwater and they’re smaller mounts along the chain which aren’t as well know. It is a little tongue in cheek story, but it’s how we create these unique spaces by trying to come up with a narrative or purpose for how things are made.

It’s a story the client might not even know about. What I love about this project, it’s kind of poking you in the side. Neighbors and friends who come to see the fabulous backyard might wonder what happened with the carpenter today, like what happened? Everyone wants to cut them off to the same level. But that’s the thing that makes the garden unique to this place and is celebrating the place. Someone could have torn this image out of a magazine and built it somewhere but it wouldn’t relate to that place.

Another project, Pacific Rim, the client wanted a Japanese garden. I had studied Japanese gardens but to avoid the kitsch aspects we instead try to reflect back on Japan from California. The idea was to use plants that work in this coastal stress with salt laden air that goes in this dune area with the nearby Pacific Ocean. One amazing thing about Japanese gardens is the borrowed landscape and how they create a reflection of their surroundings. Like a rock garden that represents Mt. Fuji. So here we are painting the landscape beyond. That deck is done in a parquet pattern which reflects the farm fields below. We designed raised planters which I call bonsai planters and are planted in crop rows like the farm fields. This landscape is reflecting and has references. There’s even a spirit walk which you would see in a typical Japanese garden, but not so kitschy. We’re still celebrating and having a nod towards Japanese style in some details.

Finally, there’s Backbay Retreat, which I kid around that we could have taken a Yahtzee cup and thrown plants out there and anywhere they landed would have been perfect. It was a really amazing setting. The client bought an empty property next to theirs and instead of building another house extended their garden. We spent a lot of time out at this site. It’s pretty sacred and we wanted to understand what the space wanted to be. We borrowed this curve of the bay’s shoreline and designed the deck around this curve—it’s kind of mimicking it. For the deck we used polished concrete so we could get a really glassy, super reflective quality because it relates to the water. The client had requested a fence for their dog so we disguised that fence as backing for the bench which is also designed with a nautical theme to connect back to the water.

We used Mexican pebble between the stone because it’s the same color of the dunes. The estuaries which are like fingers feeding into the bay match the stone and pebbles. Connections are being made with the side including the selection of materials. Even the rock that terminates the bench is a small version of Morro Rock. I don’t think anyone is going to the site saying this means this and that but you can leave a site or place with an experience that it just feels good or right and you’re not analyzing why that is, but it just feels like it is. We’re hoping as designers we’re evoking and tapping into those feelings to make connections to place. That’s what I’m trying to do when working on a project.

EOD: And what was your hope for the future?

JGS: World domination (laughs.)

EOD: That would require a lot of research.

To view more of the work of Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture, please visit their site here.

Blue Agave Landscape Design Project

After whetting your appetite for planting your own meadow and inspiring visions of golden grasslands,  we want to show you a different way of using the “no lawns” concept.

Adan Venegas of Blue Agave Landscape in Santa Barbara used lots of Italian terracotta rolled rim pots for planting (surprise!) agaves and placing them throughout the area which was at one time planted in lawn.

Also in place of green grass, there is now the lovely soft golden hue of decomposed granite, offering an interesting textural and color contrast.  The lines of the fountain feature complete  the design with a complementary architectural edge.

Adan, along with photos of another of his designs is featured in our Look Book as well. See the rest of his Designer Profile here.

“We’ve reached a stage where we can no longer follow past practices unthinkingly, particularly when those practices are wasteful and injurious to the environment. It’s time to get rid of the old-fashioned lawn and embrace a sane and healthy future: the designed meadow.” – John Greenlee

In The American Meadow Garden: Creating a Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn, “grass guru” John Greenlee leads us into a new way of thinking about grass.  He uses the words “glade,” “grassland,” “mead,” “savanna,” “pasture,” “sod,” and “meadow” among other terms, to describe areas around the world that are largely treeless, grass-covered landscapes.

These words paint an image of golden or green grassy carpets, rippling in a breeze. In this beautiful book, we are given a portfolio of meadow gardens and a guide to grasses for meadows and how to maintain them.

We’re constantly looking for ways in which to cope with our water-challenged world in California and Greenlee offers alternatives to our lawn habit. In many areas, aquifers are dwindling and water is increasingly scarce. There is no longer enough of it to supply lawns. Growing populations and dwindling supply is our scary future and our landscapes must change with the times. The American Meadow Garden was published in 2009, but the relevance of the information and ideas within its covers increases every year.

The American Meadow Garden: Creating a Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn, by John Greenlee, Timber Press 2009