Today was a good day, the weather was beautiful, 76 with a gentle breeze. The cow feed is growing strong. Which has nothing to do with this post, it's just that it's an old habit to look at the feed situation on any given day...
My folks landscape has been molly hocked or ignored by the sometime yardman that comes. He is a nice man, but his knowledge is in mowing turf, which they have none of.
I have been taking on small sections, as time allows, to renovate. There is a large pine that has been topped & sheared, so most of today was spent candle pruning it in the hope that I can train it into a more natural shape. I'm fairly sure the neighbors think I'm demented... walking around and around a pine tree, talking to it, pinching a candle here and a candle there...
When Dad and I went up for his birthday present flight, one of the places we flew over was the Song of the River house.
It was one of my first big landscape design jobs. With a few minor exceptions I was given free rein to design what I perceived the owners wanted and would fit that large property. They also wanted my little company of one, to do the over site on the install. No pressure there.
In those early days I did all the design, drafting, printing and more often than not a good portion of the over-site of installs. Or on small jobs the install its self. What can I say, I was a young mom on a mission.
The most memorable bones of the Song of the River house landscape were: The big pines (I found in large boxes in an old fellow's yard in a neighboring town) that looked like they had been shaped by the wind. The design spec for a black mica flecked bottom swimming pool (nothing reflects the sky and clouds and extends the swimming season better), to the large boulders placed (partially buried so they looked like they had always been there)... All seemed to speak to the property at large, and the needs of the owners.
The true test of a landscape design is how it holds up over time. Flying over that property brought wonder and comfort to see that my design has stood the test of time. It has good bones. It was a good day.
