That last post made a good point — sometimes the leftovers in a landscape can be used as a feature in and of itself — but I much prefer the photo here. This hemlock is very much alive, and lives outside of Boston on private property. Carl Cathcart, Consulting Arborist, took me to see this [...]
Archive for the ‘Deb's posts’ Category
Thriving live hemlock
Posted in Deb's posts, Gristmill, Miscellaneous, Plants, What we're thinking, tagged hemlock, landscape, Plant management, Plants, sensory experience of landscape, tree planting, trees on October 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Hemlock root flare excavation
Posted in Biodiversity and Biophilia, Deb's posts, Gristmill, Landscape architecture, Plant management, Plants, Working Landscape, tagged air spade, Carl Cathcart, innovative arboriculture, landscape architecture, Matt Foti, Plant management, Plants, root excavation, root flare, tree planting, trees on June 20, 2011 | 2 Comments »
It has been a while since I’ve written about root flares. I got some photos from my friend Carl Cathcart the other day, showcasing the excavation of a hemlock root flare. This tree is one of a hedge of 7-8′ tall hemlocks planted two years ago. Its owner had noticed that while the hedge wasn’t [...]
Dappled willow
Posted in Deb's posts, Gristmill, Landscape architecture, Plant management, Plants, What we're thinking, tagged landscape, landscape architecture, Plant management, Plants, pruning practices, shrub pruning on June 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
About ten years ago, I noticed a mild fad rev up in the gardening world; all the garden centers around here started carrying Salix integra ‘Hakuro Nishiki’, usually trained into standard form with a 3-4′ high stem and a pompom of foliage at top. Hakuro Nishiki, also known as Dappled Willow, is a fast-growing, twiggy [...]
Renaissance view
Posted in Deb's posts, Gristmill, Landscape architecture, Places, Plant management, tagged Crane Reservation, engage with landscape, landscape architecture, Plant management, spatial design, The Trustees of Reservations on June 18, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Don’t you love that new header? Toby took the photo at the Crane Reservation in Ipswich, a property of The Trustees of Reservations. He said that for him it has the quality of an oil painting; I agree completely. It has that same dark/light/dark sequence, that same frame/focal point/background flavor as a painting by an [...]
If a tree falls in a garden…
Posted in Deb's posts, Gristmill, Landscape architecture, Places, Plant management, Plants, tagged landscape, landscape architecture, spatial design, tree planting, waterfront on June 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Following up on the list post item from June 9, about what to use to replace a lost Norway maple: it will be a honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos inermis ‘Shademaster’), placed slightly upslope from the Norway stump. Last week I visited the North Shore seaside site (where last year we revamped the drive court planting [...]
My phone applications
Posted in Deb's posts, Gristmill, Landscape architecture, What we're thinking, tagged landscape architecture, technology on June 14, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Voice. That’s it. My phone lets me talk, and listen to someone on the other end; if I’m working, I can plug a headset in or hit the speaker phone button. And use the ‘Mute’ button if necessary. I opened Toby’s iPhone app post with reservations, having felt saturated recently with iPhone app ‘articles’ that [...]
Grist for the mill — landscape architects talk
Posted in Deb's posts, Gristmill, Landscape architecture, Toby's posts, Walls, What we're thinking, tagged ASLA, ISA, landscape, landscape architecture, LID Center, native plants, North End Parks, Rose Kennedy Greenway, spatial design, stone walls on June 9, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Every now and again Toby and I get together at a local coffeehouse to talk about our practices and about landscape architectural issues in general. Conversation never lags — as we did when we worked together at Copley-Wolff, and over meals with other LA friends, and even before then, when we were both grad students [...]
Memorial
Posted in Deb's posts, Landscape architecture, Places, What we're thinking, tagged commemoration, engage with landscape, landscape architecture, memorial design, sensory experience of landscape on May 31, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Downtown Boston teemed with people this past holiday weekend. Stroller brigades patrolled the streets, the scent of sunscreen wafted through the breeze, and a general air of well-being rested like a pleasantly warm blanket over the city. Friday, I had walked through Boston Common and seen the simple and remarkable memorial to Massachusetts’ fallen military [...]
Ceci n’est pas un arbre
Posted in Deb's posts, Gristmill, Landscape architecture, Miscellaneous, Questions, What we're thinking, tagged landscape architecture on May 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Or, ‘This is not a tree’. Thinking again about, and then past the pollen issue, I wonder if humans had such strong allergic reactions in pre-industrial times. In much the same way that we have been using the world’s oceans as a dumping ground for every substance we don’t want to deal with, we have [...]
Pollen’s only part of the story
Posted in Biodiversity and Biophilia, Deb's posts, Plant management, Plants, What we're thinking on April 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
ZZZZZZZZZZZZSSSSSSDDDDchew!! Excuse me; Toby’s photo of the pollinating pine in that last post just makes my nose tickle. His points about pollinating trees make sense to me; wind-pollinated trees are different in nature from insect-pollinated trees, and have quite different effects on those allergic to fine particulates. I have to say that Mr. Ogren’s original [...]