Some examples of recent landscape designs done for Streng mid-century modern homes in the Sacramento area. Minimalist, contemporary landscape for homes of the same style.
Category Archives: Design theory
Got birds?
Many species of birds enjoy the wildlife garden in winter, moving through the garden’s different habitats in their daily routine.
Cat-Friendly Gardens
A landscape’s design can make it cat paradise or just a ho-hum place to go when you’re not inside. Cats like choices, since they prefer some areas by season, others by time of day and everything else seems to be according to their mood.
When design goes bad… very bad
An alternate design for a difficult concept, an exercise in what could have been.
Transforming outdoor spaces with lighting
One of the best things about landscapes is that with a bit of lighting, you can have two for the price of a bit more than one. All it takes is lighting. This applies to interiors, too – but that’s another subject. The niches shown below are darker than the wall during the day. It’sContinue reading “Transforming outdoor spaces with lighting”
Bad irrigation
We see this a lot: all kinds of different heads stuck almost randomly on the same lateral line. I guess some people think that installing irrigation heads is just like plugging things into a socket. As long as the circuit breaker doesn’t blow, everything is good. Well, they’re not. Instead of something shutting everything off,Continue reading “Bad irrigation”
To Remove or not to Remove, that is the question
Sometimes a design hinges on one decision, in this case to remove a tree or keep it. The tree is healthy, but leaning ominously toward the house. It’s also a species that we know first hand can come crashing down without warning in a storm. Yet, it’s beautiful, provides a wonderful view from the secondContinue reading “To Remove or not to Remove, that is the question”
The artist’s garden
Artists know that a light color only looks that way when surrounded by dark colors to give it contrast. Likewise, artists use form, line and texture to keep things interesting and depict their subject. These things work in the landscape, too. Most of the time, we start with foliage color, since it’s present most orContinue reading “The artist’s garden”
Spring is coming!
Flowering quince blossoms in February
Where should the outdoor kitchen go, anyway?
There seem to be two schools of thought for outdoor kitchens: they should either supplement the indoor kitchen, or they should duplicate it. In the supplement option, the kitchen moves smoky or messy functions outside. This obviously applies to grills and barbecues, but can also work with wok rings, wood fired ovens, and other equipmentContinue reading “Where should the outdoor kitchen go, anyway?”