Archive for Landscaping

The long view vs. shortsightedness, pt. 2

June 12, 2010 · Filed under Landscaping · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

During the last meeting with a problem client on June 9th, he complained that designers don’t create designs that are “buildable”. Honestly, I don’t know from what mental pit he dug out this particular bone to pick. I was hands-on long before I even started designing. That’s how I learned to design based on functionality rather than on pure aesthetics alone. (You can have a “pretty” garden that’s a maintenance nightmare or select a plant palette that looks great until it starts to grow out into maturity. Oops.) What’s more, I don’t see a point in creating a garden design that can’t be implemented.

This client is a retired general contractor in Sherman Oaks, CA and not a garden or landscape specialist, certainly not a designer by any stretch of the imagination. He wouldn’t have contracted my services if he was able to do the design himself. Had I known beforehand that he had burnt through a series of designers over the past ten years and had a disparaging view of them, I wouldn’t have worked with him. As a former service provider himself, he knows fool well what it’s like to encounter predatory clients who try to pick his brain clean like mental piranhas.

I’ve run this problematic scenario past other professionals in other design/consultation fields and the conclusion they draw is this: the man’s trying to see how much he can get away with. In short, he’s behaving like a bully.

I listened carefully to this client, as I do with all design clients. I paid attention to their lifestyle and aesthetics. The client and his wife like curves and to encounter little surprises in the garden that enchant them. I included a lot of edible plants for wildlife since the client and his wife are fond of watching birds and other animals in the garden and I made all the regular access points of the garden easily accessible from the pathways since the couple are in their golden years. Maintenance was going to be relatively easy due to the design.

The couple was so friendly and they were a dream to work with at first. It seemed like a perfect match between what I could offer and what they wanted. The final meeting to review the design went off without a hitch – they were over the moon! I asked if they had any changes they wanted to make to the garden design. They had none and made no other requests for any other renderings. From what I was told, the garden design met their expectations and it had benefits and features that they hadn’t even thought to ask for. Because this client and his wife had been so sweet (they had had even invited us over for wine and appetizers and loaned us the DVD of “Dirt: The Movie”) and because they were so excited about getting their garden started, I told my client and his wife that I was giving them a complementary bonus – a detailed writeup on the first steps to launching their garden project.

Things suddenly changed after that May 30th meeting for the worse. The first sign of trouble in the first week of June was that the client was trying to pump me for more consultation via e-mail. I gave him a few more relevant and timely tips but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Truth is, when entitlement mentality is present, even giving everything would not satisfy someone under its thrall.  I offered ongoing support and consultation online for a very reasonable monthly fee and he never bothered to respond. Instead, he ignored the offer. The only thing that had changed between the end of May and June was that the client was not able to pump me or my colleague for free expertise. That’s what upset him. Rather, he upset himself because he feels entitled to more professional expertise and advice that he has no willingness to pay for.

Another thing that I noticed was that the client was selectively cherry picking through the advice I gave him, choosing to only do the tasks that he wanted to do and what interests him. (He was eager to get started on the garden trellis, even though that should come long after initial site preparation and after the pathway is laid since the trellis was designed to match the shape of the pathway below it.) Never mind that site preparation can make or break a garden. Shoddy preparation means shoddy results, analogous to the computer programming aphorism, “garbage in, garbage out”. The last we heard, the client told us that he had stopped doing any site preparation.

For reasons that don’t have anything to do with the clarity of the instructions or the quality of the information, the client has shortsightedly refused to follow the detailed directions he has been given that would ensure the long-term success of his garden. Rather than doing what he needs to get the results that he (claims that) he wants, the client confirmed my worse suspicions when he complained on June 9th that he isn’t getting the full specs he wants, i.e. specifications for the trellis materials and curvature; the pond construction materials, equipment details, and how to build the pond from start to finish; permeable pathway layout and installation; CA native and edible plant selection and acquisition; planting locations and optimal spacing, etc.

Unfortunately, he’s skipping steps that would make the garden less weedy in the long run, not for lack of good information, but for want of receiving information to his liking that wouldn’t require work he would dislike. On top of demanding build out specifications, he also complained that the lack of perspective drawings made building impossible for him.

I don’t care what contracting or building service profession you’re in, no one will provide full build out specifications for free. NO ONE. If by “buildable” my client means that he hasn’t been able to extract any specs from any designer for free, then truly no garden design is buildable according to his expectation. Moreover, no designer will provide extra drawings for free, especially when they weren’t requested and paid for. What’s worse is that he modified my intellectual property – the design – without permission and against my recommendations. He has complained that the text labels on the plants are no longer there. They are. It’s just that he reduced the scale of the drawing to 1/4 of its original size, thus he made the text impossible to read.

This client has managed to dissipate whatever goodwill my colleague and I had towards him through his self-defeating two-faced behavior. His behavior is confusing, foolish, upsetting, and contradictory, to say the least, and his inability to “play well in the sandbox” guarantees poor results in the garden while perpetuating his frustration. It also allows him to rationalize passive aggressive blame for not getting the results he wants although ultimately he is responsible for getting in his own way. Because the client refuses to follow the advice he has already been given, my colleague and I can only interpret his collective choices as lack of interest in and no authentic commitment to the garden’s long-term success, sustainability, and integrated function. Permaculture sounds great to him in theory but the real work is apparently distasteful and it doesn’t interest him as a dilettante. He wants all the great garden results without possessing the systems thinking to get those results and he wants to enjoy the bounty of the garden without the work. What my colleague and I find fundamentally offensive is that this man believes that he is somehow entitled to much more than the design service that he paid for and received. Add to that the slime factor for friendly overtures made as a pretext for getting what he wanted at our expense. In the end, this client’s contempt for my and my colleague’s livelihoods as professionals is apparent, as is his lack of respect.

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The long view vs. shortsightedness, pt. 1

February 16, 2010 · Filed under Landscaping · Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Clients can sometimes be a complete pain, especially when there is a mismatch between what a client expressly claims he wants versus what he actually wants. It may be instead that the true mismatch is between what the client was willing to be forthcoming about versus what he really wanted and silently expected.

If you pay for a garden design, that’s exactly what you’ll get: a design. That implies no warranty on the ultimate expression of the design as manifested in real-life. When the rubber hits the road, rendered garden designs have to be modified to reflect changes that are dictated by actual site conditions as they are uncovered when garden creation begins. A good designer expects the unexpected and can adapt a design appropriately.

Think of it this way: when you pay an architect for a building design, do you then expect to pick his or her brain ad infinitum for all the details and specifications in addition to expecting him or her to build out the design…for cheap or for free?

If what you want is a complete build-it-yourself “kit” complete with step-by-step instructions, but you don’t ask for that kit forthrightly yet expect it anyway and you don’t intend to pay for it (knowing fool well that you’re infringing on the livelihood of your service provider), then you’re just being a slimy, dishonest git steeped in entitlement mentality.

Straight up, few things destroy trust and social capital faster than entitlement mentality.

In this case, the client was expecting and feeling entitled to much more than he had paid for. He wanted the 70′ x 90′ edible landscape design that I created for him AND expected full build out specifications too at no extra charge. Mind you, at no point did the client say that build out specs were what he wanted from the start. Had he asked for it and paid for it, that’s what he would have received. Now this client is less likely than ever to get what he wants because what he wants is at my expense and at the expense of my landscape contractor colleague.

I’m not in the habit of giving clients complete and full instructions on how to do my job so that I’m rendered obsolete as a service provider, especially when the dissatisfaction with the design is expressed after the fact as an insult delivered backhandedly. This is particularly true when a client seems to think that my work can be brainlessly duplicated, as if no skill, experience, perspective, knowledge, planning, practical thought, or reflection goes into a design. Think about it: if someone was picking your brain, would you freely give away every last detail on how to do your work so that someone else can appropriate it in order to avoid paying you for your expertise, experience, and perspective?

That said, I have no problem teaching someone how to do what I do if they appropriately pay for the service and if they respect what I have to offer. That respect makes all the difference. When someone picks my brain, disregards my advice or applies it poorly only to later passive aggressively blame me for their failure, that’s where my patience, goodwill, and tolerance end.

A well-considered design is ultimately a balancing act – a sustainable landscape design has to match what a client wants, what a client needs, and what the garden can actually provide for the plants. Soil type, solar exposure, companion planting, the client’s visual aesthetics, the client’s lifestyle, and more all receive consideration in tandem. Good working relationships are also a balancing act, but when someone plays the entitlement card, all bets are off for seeing eye to eye.

Entitlement mentality demands that someone else caters to you. A profound lack of respect is made evident through the demand.

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Minimize tillage, part 3

February 5, 2010 · Filed under Gardens, Landscaping · Tagged , , , ,

Tillage and soil disturbance brings one other thing to light – weed seeds. I can’t help but think about weeds at this time of the year since I’ve casually observed plenty of patches of weedy hell just traveling through residential neighborhoods.

Weeds will get away from you if you don’t stay on top of them. That’s just what weeds are consummately equipped to do thanks to their genetic heritage and reproductive strategy – live fast, die young, and crank out seeds in vast numbers. The seeds then bide their time near the soil surface until the conditions are right to replicate the growth cycle all over again.

The plant species we call “weeds” are really nothing more than plants we have judged as unwanted because they’re the wrong plants in the wrong places. For one thing, they tend to be non-native to the places that are being colonized. For another, weedy species tend to not encounter built-in biological controls that keeps their population growth in check in their native ecosystems. That means that nothing in their new host environments has learned to exploit the weeds as a food resource…yet.

For lack of natural controls to keep weed populations in check, it’s on us to impose that constraint in our gardens and landscapes. It’s late April now in Southern CA and the majority of weeds have set seed. The best time to set the weeds back is just after the first winter rains. Let the weeds grow up a bit but and then pull (deep tap rooted species like dandelion, wild radish, or cheeseweed) while the soil is still moist or mow them (grasses only) when they’ve set flower (inconspicuous on grass species) but don’t wait until the weeds set seed. Like many things in life, timing is everything. If you’re wondering why it’s not helpful to wait until the plants set seed, it’s because the seeds of some species are viable plant embryos long before they’re separated from the parent plant. When you wait, you inadvertently add to the weed seed “bank” in the soil.

Tillage makes things worse. Some weed seeds no doubt are killed in the process but the majority are just “warehoused” by tillage. It’s like putting them in the equivalent of a bank security deposit box. Without tillage, most seeds will remain at the soil surface. Ants carry some seeds away, earthworms consume other seeds and redeposit them in castings, and gophers and other animals move seeds through burrowing. Broad scale tillage helps foster an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. Sure, the weeds for that season or that year may be gone but the seeds of their ancestors lie in wait to return with a vengeance.

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Minimize tillage, part 2

February 2, 2010 · Filed under Gardens, Landscaping · Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Did you know that the top foot of soil has more 7 to 50 times more life than the next 3 1/2 feet? (Source: Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally by Robert Kourik, Metamorphic Press 1986). When soil is tilled or plowed, too much air is introduced all at once.

Life thrives in a zone of ‘enoughness’. Now I realize this is a foreign concept to most people, who as a rule want more, more, more of everything and then some. (This proclivity has led to such pop culture aphorisms like, “Too much of a good thing is just about right.”) Think about it though: more consumerism leads to more waste and more waste leads to more plastic waste as a proportion of that overall waste stream. More plastic waste leads to larger oceanic garbage patch gyres, of which there are currently five. But, I digress. More oxygen in the soil introduced like a shot of steroids does not lead to more life but to less. You may think you’re taking care of one problem – say for instance a pest outbreak – but you’re unintentionally creating a lot of new problems for yourself. You’re also destroying the soil’s structure, especially if you are tilling over and over from year to year. (There are techniques to aerate the soil less violently, but those may be introduced in later posts.)

Imagine taking a whole block of any given urban development – New York, Paris, London, Scottdale, Tokyo, Los Angeles – and upending that entire block, buildings, streets, and all. What used to be the tops of buildings are now underground and beneath everything else that used to be above them. Don’t you think that would be quite disruptive, to say the least?

Turning the soil is no less deadly. Soil flora and fauna tend to live in specific strata in the soil and tillage disrupts this order. For instance, there are some native California earthworms (yes, they exist! – check out this paper) that tend to tunnel deeply and other species that live closer to the surface. If you’re smart and letting nature do the heavy lifting for you, the only creatures that are turning the soil the vast majority of the time are earthworms and other ground dwelling animals that tend to tunnel. You may not like the affect these creatures have on the visual appearance of your landscape or your plants, but the truth of the matter is that tunneling mammals have their roles to play in nature. They introduce all-important organic matter, for one thing.

For those of you who grow edibles, especially produce that commonly graces our tables, you have a sense of humus. This is organic matter that has been consumed and altered by soil fungi and bacteria into large amorphous molecules that tend to resist further decomposition. Humus does break down but it does so very slowly. The introduction of too much oxygen through tillage burns up organic matter quickly and most of the nutrient value is lost. If you’re a gardener, why would you want to engage in a practice that is counterproductive and against your own interests?

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Minimize tillage, part 1

January 26, 2010 · Filed under Gardens, Landscaping · Tagged , , , , ,

Are you one of those property owners who tills? Why do you till? More importantly, what do you believe that tillage achieves?

Maybe you think that the soil needs more oxygen. I’ll grant that soil life, including the plants, needs a combination of moisture and oxygen to survive, but soil with good texture already has oxygen in it! Soil that isn’t compacted from constant foot or vehicular traffic is just fine as it is.

Imagine a clear plastic or glass container filled with ball bearings. If you shake that container, the ball bearings will settle into an arrangement that minimizes the spaces between the bearings. This is what soil compaction would look like if you could magnify soil particles. But soil isn’t composed of only one particle size! The magical stuff that is soil is composed of varying particle sizes. If you go back to the image of the container with the ball bearings, now picture those ball bearings mixed in with kumquats, ping pong balls, tennis balls, and the occasional basketball. Those varying particle sizes allow for air and water to infiltrate the soil.

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Is brown the new green?

December 11, 2009 · Filed under Landscaping · Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Did you ever stop to consider the legacy of the lawn and its origin? What does having a lawn mean to you personally? Would you keep your lawn even if you didn’t have pets or children? Brown has invariably become the new “green”, not by choice but by mandate in Southern CA as lawns that were never drought resistant in the first place manifest the inevitable dieback that is the consequence of only being able to water once or twice a week.

Believe it or not, dieback is not inevitable for all lawns. For one, you need the right grass species. There are some lovely CA natives that work well for smaller patches of lawn. For another, the lawn has to be “trained” to become drought resistant by slowly diminishing the amount of irrigation it receives. Not all species of grass are going to be appropriate for this training, which is not for wimps!

Change offers the valuable opportunity to reconsider what is valuable and necessary as we sift through the detritus of habit. I for one am voting for end of the era of ornamental lawns.

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