Michael Cooks Senior Project Final Paper

Two months ago I embarked upon a sustainable landscaping endeavor. The goals of the project were to:

• Reduce amount of mowed lawn
  
• Reduce irrigation 
  
• Reduce overall maintenance
  
• Improve the quality if the yard
  
• Incorporate native and beneficial plant species
  
• Incorporate edible and medicinal plant species 
  
• Incorporate artistic, non plant elements
  
• Design a landscape that would improve with negligence

I spent the first month designing and the second month implementing the design. And while the 2 months of my senior project are over, the project is not complete and will probably take a year or two for the flower beds to reach maturity and possibly 10 years for the evergreens to reach their full size. But that’s how it is. Nature moves slowly and I don’t think it’s a good idea to rush nature. Because while many landscapes require constant maintenance for as long as they exist, my design should require less and less work as time goes by. We’ll see.

I would like to start by saying that I am very proud of the work I have done. I worked about an average of 6 to 7 hours a weekday for the last 7 weeks and while I feel that I could have accomplished more, I am very happy with the experience. There is no doubt that It was worthwhile, but I do have doubts about the success of the project. I discovered early on that sustainable/native/natural urban landscaping is not a particularly well explored or popular field. It goes against many of our conditioned opinions of what landscaping should be and required a lot of guess work and postulation on my part do to the lack of available information. I was very lucky to have the support of many friendly, knowledgeable people in my community. One of the main things I learned is landscaping really is, and should be, and community project. From sharing resources, to plants, to propagation tips, to friendly comments and compliments, I couldn't have accomplished what I did on my own. I was happy to find that it was such a community supported thing and I hope it becomes even more so in the future. I’m beginning to think that it has to.

I am not interested in landscaping because it's a hot and trendy scene promising a quick path to fame and wealth. I am interested in landscaping because I am quite disgusted with its current state and I have a vision of the potential it has to benefit society and facilitate the restoration of the developed world. landscaping, for most of us, is our interface with the natural world, It’s the link between the city and the wilderness. Most of us don't think very much about it though. That makes me very sad. To many people landscaping is tulips, some mulch, and an stubby evergreen. Even worse, to many people landscaping is sitting on a rider mower and mowing their grass for the second time that week. For the most part, people these days view landscaping as a sign of status, if not simply a hassle and a chore. Keeping up with the jones', we do what we do to our yards because other people will think poorly of us if we don't.

But landscaping can be so much more. Landscaping can be healing and productive. Landscaping is one of the most powerful ways that we can make improve the health of the planet. As the saying goes, if we all swept our doorstep the world would be clean. 

Our yards are incredible assets and we should all be taking advantage of them. Most people think that our yards are just for standing in and occasionally have a BBQ but we can be doing so much more. We can grow food! What a concept! Instead of growing plants that just sit there and look pretty why not grow vegetables and herbs? Spend less time at Hy-vee and more time at home, enjoying the outdoors. Save money, save time, reduce emissions, improve the environment, and get wholesome exercise all at the same time! Most people have adequate yards for substantial production. Conventionally, landscaping places huge stresses on the environment by reducing biological diversity and destroying habitat for wildlife, but this doesn't have to be the case. Landscapes can be beneficial to both humans and the rest of nature. 

As I learned in ethnobotany, plants are the material basis of almost all society. Even though we may be considerably isolated from them they are still just as important. I envision a world were we will return our attention to the basis of production and partake in it, right in our own yards. Why not? Rather than spending all our time to make money to buy the things we need why not cut out the rat race and just do it ourselves, as a community. Now, there are certainly things that most of us wont be able to or want to do but we can and should be doing more. It's a new paradigm of landscaping and it has a long way to go to reach maturity. We have a lot to learn about the ecology of urban ecosystems and about working with nature rather than against it. It's a change that I think needs to happen and I look forward to facilitating it. The work I did during this project has been a great entrance into the field for me and has shown me just how much work is involved in landscaping. 

I should make it clear that this paper represents only a fraction of the work I've done these last 8 weeks. It's really just the tip of the iceberg. its been a very busy two months and I've had a lot of good experiences and a lot of bad experiences. All of them, however, were educational and appreciated. 

I would say the best part of the project was coming up with the design. I liked designing something that was both very artistic and very purposeful. I enjoyed meshing my own creativity with nature's creativity and I enjoyed the experience of bringing my design to a realization. I look forward to designing increasingly functional and beautiful landscapes in the future.

The worst part, though I thought it would be the sod removal, turned out to be finding a working chainsaw. It was definitely an unanticipated difficulty. I would say that I spent almost an entire week of finding chainsaws, struggling with them, failing to get them to work, and setting out to find another one. On my 5th attempt I was successful and Im very glad it worked out because I was getting remarkably frustrated. So I didn't get all my chainsawing done, but when I’m done with this paper it will be sitting there waiting for me! What did I learn from the experience? Well I now understand the importance of a landscape contractor organize and coordinate everything! I spent much more time hunting down things than I would have liked. This just strengthens my belief that landscaping should be community oriented project where everyone shares tools and resources. 

I learned a lot in the last 8 weeks.  Once I finally got a working chain saw I got some good practice slice tree trunks into flower pots. That was fun. I learned that a poor chainsaw is really really poor and  good chainsaw is OHHH so good. They're really not as scary as they seem. I learned how to use a roto-tiller. I know that they're pretty frowned upon in field of sustainable living, but I must say that it made the project possible. But my reliance on the tiller was mostly do to my lack of time and site preparation. If I had known I was going to do this project earlier Im sure I could have employed a more gentle and equally effective technique. But it definitely showed me that, like grass, the roto-tiller is a useful machine with a legitimate purpose thats simply been overly and inappropriately implemented. I learned how to use a hammer drill, a tool that I don't look forward to using ever again. All I can say is I can’t imagine using a jackhammer. I learned how to dive a car. I felt kinda bad about it but it's a really good thing that I did, and my girlfriend thought so too! I learned how to use Google Sketch-up, a really simple and useful computer program that was a tremendous help during my design phase. Im pretty sure it's not what professional landscaper architects use, but it's skill that Im sure will be very valuable. I learned how to divide and transplant plants, which is a pretty easy process but I had had relatively low experience in it considering that I'm a sustainable living student. I learned how to make mulch beds and like transplanting, it wasn't hard but its something that every landscaper should be able to do. I learned how to sow wildflower mixes. Hopefully some day I will know enough about wildflowers to be able to formulate my own mixes for greater appropriateness and integrity.

Besides learning many practical skills and bits of knowledge I also learned a lot about myself and how I work as well as ways in which I will need to change in order to be successful in landscaping. One of the main areas that got a lot of attention was my patience! Easily the most important thing I got out of the project. I have a feeling its something I will be learning for the rest of my life. Things actually went pretty well for the first 5 or 6 weeks. But in the last 2 weeks, especially with the deadline coming up I began to experience considerate amounts of frustration, anger, and anxiety. Needless to say it was not very enjoyable. 

My main concern was that I wasn't going to finish what I had planned to do by the end of the month. The first thing I eventually realized was that worrying about that was not helping the situation in the slightest. The second thing I realized was that I had distorted the purpose of the project and the meaning of the deadline. For some reason I had gotten the idea into my head that the project needed to be finished by the end of the 8 weeks. That was a silly idea. The purpose of the project is to learn about landscaping, so the deadline is really more about this paper. The actual landscape is going to take a year or two to come to full fruition anyway. I made this realization just into time to allow myself to let go of the remaining tasks I have and work on this paper. Also, Im kind of against the idea that landscaping is just something that you plop down on your lawn and POOF it's all done! There should be space for interactions and adjustments. I have a whole month more to work on it and I'm sure I will be adjusting it every time I visit for years to come. I certainly don't think I know enough to get it perfect the first time so its better to view the project as an ongoing process rather than a one time installment. 

I’ve spent a long time hating grass and a long time attempting to not hate it. Grass is obviously a huge, huge part of landscaping. Im not sure if it should be. In short, I feel that lawn is a very useful landscape innovation but is overly and inappropriately used. Before I talk about why I don't like it we can talk about what I do like about it. 

Grass is very useful ground cover for social areas. It is very hardy and can withstand a lot of abuse. When compared to having bare, exposed soil, it is very good at preventing runoff and soil erosion. With the right species in the right climate, grass will turn green early and stay that way well into winter with relatively low maintenance. And while I still don't like it very much, I have yet to see a more widely suitable ground cover.

But maybe thats part of the problem. The one size fits all paradigm that has become prolific in this industrial age is really not how nature works. Rather than finding a holy grail of ground covers we should be looking to our native ecosystems for local solutions.

Mowed grass is over used. Like I said its very reasonable to have it in social places like picnic parks, sport fields, and places where people walk often, but these days mowed grass is the default. Everywhere you look, at least where I am, is an endless field of manicured lawn, places where, for the most part, people never walk. 

Now its true that it doesn't take very much gas to mow a single lawn, but in the same way that the price of an apple in the grocery store does not actually reflect the true cost of the production of the apple, the cost of gas and the pollution produced by one mowing of a lawn does not reflect that true damage of the mowing of one lawn. The are many hidden costs that we and/or our children pay, such as all the energy and non-recyclable materials that go into the production of each lawnmower for each yard. That is not a small amount. 

The solution? Rather than focusing on more efficient ways to mow our grass focus on more effective use of our land like mowed or landscaped pathways.

For my project, the lawn was a major aspect and the choice I made (basically to do nothing to it) was a difficult (as undifficult as it sounds) choice to make. Its very easy to look at the lawn and say, "Oh, how cute, he's not mowing the lawn because he's lazy and messy." For this situation there's a thin line between laziness and purposefulness. Because I have, In fact, given it a lot of thought and I am very capable of mowing it.

I chose design the landscape with unmowed lawn for multiple reasons. Most obviously, it saves money, about $100 a month. That alone pays for the entire project in about 2 years. But more importantly I planned to leave the inner lawn unmowed because it had never previously been used and has even less likeliness of being used in the future. Except for when I have given people tours of what I have been, I am the only one who has walked around the yard. This is not a bad thing. It's ok that the lawn isn't used very often. It's just not ok that it was being mowed every other week when it isn't being used. The only reason it was being mowed was for social acceptance and because it was supposedly appealing. We don't frown upon  a woman who chooses not to apply makeup that is chemically hazardous and uncomfortable even though its socially desired and supposedly appealing. We don't frown upon her because we see the inherent silliness in the current state of cosmetics and feel that we should be appreciating her natural beauty. Now replace the word woman with the word lawn.

By not mowing the lawn I am making a statement and a stand. When it is discovered that a practice is not only not necessary but also dangerous it is not acceptable to continue the practice simply because other people are still doing it. people must learn to mow responsibly. 

But it's also not a good idea to just boycott lawn mowing and let out yards become a riot (GET IT?!). Just because we're rebelling doesn't mean we can't be tasteful and composed. That is where my wildflower beds come in. The idea is that they, basically, hide the unmowed inner lawn from view. It’s simple enough, most people won't even know that the lawn on the inside isn't mowed. The wildflowers on the inside, being shorter than the fence but taller than the grass will round out the yard’s growth. I feel that It will give the yard a rich and full feeling, a comfortable feeling that you wouldn't get from a mowed lawn and which will be much easier to express through pictures when the flowers have grown in. Until then I agree that the inner lawn looks a unkempt and I will be trimming down the grain heads and dandelion puffs for the time being. While I feel strongly that the lawn will be a success, it is indeed an experiment and I look forward to seeing how it goes. 

I really do look forward to seeing how it goes. My life up until now has been moving quite fast, everything change and reorganizing with each new stage of my education. But now as I enter into the adult stage of my life I look forward to watching things grow. That part of what intrigues me so much about landscaping, watching nature change and interact and grow in its surroundings. Maybe by seeing how nature interacts with our society we can get some insight into how we should behave in it. I want to learn how to let nature solve my problems and fulfill my desires. I want to learn how to invite nature into my home without dominating or suppressing it. I view landscaping as a partnership with nature towards a brighter future and I look forward to it.

THE END!

Michael Cooks Senior Project Report Week 6

It has begun!

This month I started the implementation. I didnt write up a report last weekend because I was so busy. And this one is late because Im so tired. But the project is coming along very well and Im having a lot of fun and learning a lot.  I began by simply cleaning up the yard to familiarize myself with the area and get rid of everything that didn't need to be there. One of the main areas to clean was the shed. I didn't get a before shot of it, but you can trust me when I say it was a right awful mess. I also moved the rain catchment barrels into more appropriate places. 

The shed is much more usable now and and I moved a barrel from the northwest corner where there are no plants to be watered to the southwest corner where I plan on having a squash and cucumber garden. 

I also plan on having garden beds in the plant boxes by the front porch. These two beds will be for greens, beans, and herbs. This is an idea spot for a garden like this, because its very accessible and protected. In permaculture design, this location would be a zone 1, a spot that you visit many times a day. But the garden boxes at the beginning of the month were in a sorry state. For some reason they were only half full, with shredded plastic lining flapping ugily (new word I just made, how do you like it?) in the wind. And in each in box was  a little evergreen that could barely be seen. The whole things didn't make much sense. The first thing I did was rescue the evergreens from their imprisonment. I had been planning on buying some evergreens for the front walkway, but now I don't have to! I just popped these guys in, and they've been doing well ever since.I filled the boxes with more soil and mulched them with the mornings grass clippings. In the picture you can see some native perennials that I bought at the farmers market. These will be going in the tree trunks in the mulched beds in the corners of the yard. 

The next thing I did was mark out all the beds with hose and derelict marker flags. I had a lot of fun with this, working with the shapes of the curves and the flow of the landscape. I think my concept design will be very apparent in the final version, but while I was marking out the beds I made a lot of spontaneous changes that came to me during the process. After I was satisfied with the lines I went around with the lawnmower at the lowest setting to prepare the areas for sod removal.

Once the grass was cut, I went around with my handydandy sod kicker and removed the top inch and a half of sod in all the areas where there would be beds. Most of the bed area will be inhabited by wildflowers but there are also a handful of beds that will be mulched and occupied by native perennials. Some of the perennials will go straight into the ground but a lot of them will be arranged in pots made out of hallowed out tree trunks that I have been collecting for the last month. The mulch came from a big free pile behind an abandoned grocery store. Not surprisingly I shoveled the perfect amount into the truck without any prior calculations.

For the bird village I gathered a couple wheel barrel loads of pebbles from the piles that have accumulated at the end of the driveway. 

I also got to work on renovating the pond area. I started by draining all the water out with a bucket and watering my plants. Then I drained it again with a bucket when it rained later that week. Then I drained it again with a bucket when it rained the next week. Then, when I had finally procured the hammer drill and masonry bit I started drilling some holes. Unenjoyable.  Thats the jist of it. I can't even imagine what a jackhammer feels like! So I've been drilling one hole a day for the last week and I have about 9 or 10 so far. When Im satisfied with the amount of holes I will fill the bottom with large stones, then smaller large stones, then dirt, then topsoil and compost and some lamb's quarters. Rachel also recommended taking a picture of the pond from afar to show how beautiful everything has gotten since I stopped mowing the inside of the yard. It feels so wonderful to walk around the yard now because the grass is so silky and smooth, not like that spiky rough grass that you get from mowing. I don't think so, but I can imagine some people might consider it to be "funky" but once the wildflowers are up no will see the grass to complain about it. Though we should never underestimate the suburban American's ability to complain about things that they do not deserve to complain about. When all of our neighbors start mowing their lawns with small herds of goats or rabbits I will be more inclined to cut the grass. 

Wildflowers

I spoke with local native landscaping expert Steve Brower and he liked my plans so I went ahead and ordered enough wildflower/prairie grass mix for 1000 sqft. It has arrived and now Ive been waiting for the tiller to get fixed and the ground to dry out. Ive had an interesting journey towards a working roto-tiller. during the first week of the month, as I was finishing up my sod removal I was really worried about the state of the tiller because it hadn't been used in so long and I was certain it was broken or something. So literally half an hour after I finish my sod removal and am cleaning up for the evening this farmer guy comes up to me and asks if I have a tiller that he can borrow. I told him I had one but it was broken. So he offered to orchestrate its repair. Now, an interesting week later I have a wonderfully functional roto-tiller! Id call that support of nature.

So there we have it, my last two weeks. In these next and last last two weeks I will be sowing the seeds, planting my native perennials, building the bird village, carving the rabbits, and constructing the stegosaurus. Sounds like fun!

Michael Cooks Senior Project Report Week 4

Reflection

The last week of my design phase has come to an end. I am quite proud of the progress I have made. As I predicted, there is still more that needs to be done but I know enough to begin implementing my plan. Lots of the planning was not so much for me but for the client and for practice in professional landscape design. Having said that, I really have no idea how professionals make their designs. Make such a concise plan helped me pin down exactly what I needed to buy and how many. It was a difficult process for someone as spontaneous and free-flowing as me, but that's why I feel it was so valuable. 

Local Landscapers

Last weekend I mentioned that I had finally contacted some of the landscapers that I wanted to talk to. I ended up only talking to one this week and have been unable to get a hold of the other two. This is probably because I am very passive and have a hard time requesting things of people. Im sure that that want to talk with me but are also very very busy and if Im not determined enough to pin them down then they're not going to go out of their way to meet with me. Today I plan on being more assertive. There isn't too much I need to figure out, but I want to get some sort of confirmation that my plan will work and some tips on the best way to execute it. I should have enough time to finish everything, but it would be nice to have more time. This week I created a table of all the things I would be doing this month, how long they would take to complete and what their prerequisites are. 

Plan of action

ID task                   eft(days)   prereqs

a purchase seeds   0.25

b clean up yard       0.5

c remove sod          2              b

d work soil             2               c

e sow worm casting 0.25          d

f sow seeds            0.25          e

g lay mesh              0.25          f

h get mulch             1

i buy plants             0.5

j plant plants           0.5           i

k mulch beds          1              j

l make wood frames 1

m rebuild shed       1              b

n carve rabbits       2

o stegosaurus        2

p build bird village  2

q build picnic area   2

r vegetable bed      1

s plant trees           0.5

total time: 20 days

So 20 days of work. Thats five days a week for four weeks. I plan on things taking longer due to weather or complications or stupidity on my part. Some of the tasks have no prerequisites and can be done if the weather is bad or if I have to wait for some reason. So there should be something for me to be doing everyday. 

Progress

I didn't get everything done that I had been planning on doing, but I did make good progress. Besides filling out my timeline I also greatly increased the specificity of my plant list and more importantly, their place in the yard. Its now much more simple and concise. Here is the map:

Native Perennials

The native perennial arrangements are going to be very fun. I have been collecting and will continue to collect large slices of tree trunks which I plan to hollow out and fill with soil. They will then be arranged in the mulch beds and have the native perennials planted in them. The plants that I will be using include:Lavender, Camomile, Sage, Fennel, Yarrow, Comfrey, oregano, tarragon, Burgmont, and Lamb's Ear. Some of these plants I will be gathering from the woods, some from friends and some I will be starting  from seed. 

Bulb Arrangements  

The bulbs have also been refined. I spent some time researching each specific bulb that I had on my list for each season and pruned it heavily, keeping on the hardiest varieties. Once I was down to one or two per season I then made a little diagram to show how they will be planted. I have animated it to show which plants will be visible during the course of the year.

these are the flowers that will I will be using:

early spring:

Glory of the Snow

mid spring:

hyacinth

daffodil

late spring:

allium

summer:

Day Lily

iris

autumn blooms:

meadow saffron

The placement is rough as I have not taken into account each plants specific size and planting guidelines, but this should give you the over all idea.

Remaining Tasks

There are still a number of things I have yet to figure out. But I will still have a couple days next week to figure them out. Pricing is one area. I wish I could have reached a more precise budget, but unfortunately I have been trying to comprehend so many different aspects of the project that my mind is filling up and when that happens my way of coping is to lay off the details and focus on the wholeness. I am still confident that The project will cost no more than $400. No matter what the cost is, my plan is still to charge $1000 for the whole thing and subtract the costs from that (that would be approximately $6 an hour assuming the $400 cost and 100 hours of work). 

The other issue I have been tackling is how to smooth the boarder between the wildflowers and the lawn. I had originally intended to use some sort of boxwood or evergreen shrub but soon realized that at $15 a plant, it would be waaaaaay to expensive. The next idea was to find some native early-green-turning shrubby-bush-leafy plant. But I and the people I have talked to have been unable to think of something that would be cheap and easy to plant. I was feeling down in the dumps so to speak. I was also having a lot of difficulty trying to figure out how to seed the grass and the wildflowers and the boarder plant with out getting them mixed. And there were many more complications. Then, today at lunch I spoke with Dawn Hunter, a local gardener, and asked her what see would use for the boarder. She thought for a bit and then suggested Buffalo grass. I laughed, that was silly. "Buffalo grass is what's in the lawn right now!" And then it hit me. Buffalo grass! Its already in the lawn! Buffalo grass is a hardy, clumping, non-spreading prairie grass that reaches a maximum height of 1ft. Using buffalo grass will save a lot of time and money and make the entire lawn and wildflower seeding process much much easier. I will simply leave a foot wide strip of the grass along the boarder of the wildflower bed. This way I will be able to walk around the lawn without disturbing the sprouting grass and wildflowers and there will be a lower chance of having the seeds getting mixed up. It will also catch soil and seed runoff when it rains. I am very happy with this solution. Do less and accomplish more right?! 

Conclusion 

Ive had a lot of fun designing this landscape. I enjoy being able to express myself creatively in a way that brings nature and society closer. Next week I begin by cleaning up the yard and then start removing sod. I intend to continue figuring things out as I go. I also intend to write up a more professional design proposal in the next couple days. 

Michael Cooks Senior Project Report Week 3

I spent this week locating and budgeting the materials I will need, refining my plant selections, working on my master plan, designing the irrigation, and contacting local knowledgeable landscapers and gardeners. 

Over half of the items on my material list have been located and given a cost. The current total cost of the project is roughly $205. I would say that the final cost will be around $375 with an accuracy of $25. My uncertainties are: the price of wood, how many bulbs I will buy, and whether or not I will want to buy a load of compost. All in all, this is a pretty cheap project. 

Wildflowers

Oh, one big change Ive made since last week. I have decided that the main focus of the garden will be beds of dense self-seeding wildflowers. I feel that this plan, while not without drawbacks, is much more appropriate for my project, my client, and the environment. The bulbs and native perennials will still be included, but will be a secondary element to the wildflowers. 

The difficulty with the wildflowers is creating a contained space for them to self-seed in. My philosophy will be to create spaces that the wildflowers will and will not want to grow, as opposed to dominating their growth with herbicides or high levels of maintenance. More specifically, making the wildflower beds very appealing to the flowers and the surrounding lawn very unappealing (very dense and well fertilized). 

I have found a couple sites that sell what seem to be, good wildflower mixes. I plan on getting three, mixing them and seeding them all together. This way nature can pick which flowers are best for the different microclimates in the yard. I haven't looked at the specific seeds very rigorously and it may end up that I only need to be one or two of these.

Midwestern Mix

Deer Resistant Mix

Drought Tolerant Mix

If it works out, I think that the wildflowers will add the richness and volume to the landscape that I have been envisioning. It will create a garden that is self-maintained and always varied, It will add to the natural environment, and it will be much cheaper than conventional land

scaping. 

Materials

Here is the unfinished list:

Grass seed: $15

Clover seed: $5

Mulch: Free!

Bulbs: Unknown

Wildflower mixes(3): $40

Boxwood shrubs(6): $90

Large conifer bushes (2): Unknown

Herbs: Unknown

Native perennials: Unknown

Plywood: Unknown

Wood beams: Unknown

Logs: Free!

Pebbles: Free!

Stones: Free!

Soil/compost: Unknown

Worm casting: $15

Irrigation lines: $40

This list doesn't include every little detail, but I think it includes all the important or costly items. 

Interviews 

Next we can talk about how my interviewing the landscapers went. It didn't really go. I started trying to contact people last sunday, and by thursday I still hadn't been able to get a hold of anyone. I was pretty distraught. But somehow, on friday I managed to get a hold of literally everyone I had b Knowledgable een trying to reach. So things didn't go exactly as I had planned, but it will still work out. 

Here are the people I am going to meet with next week: Steve Brower, a local landscaper who specializes in the use of native and prairie plants. Jim Shaw Local  horticulturalist. Gary Garles, local landscaper and nursery owner. Brian Robbins, local urban landscaper and permaculture enthusiast. Grover Stock, local longtime landscaper and permaculture instructor. I think that between the five of them I should be able to get all my questions answered.

Design

In the time I spent waiting for replies I made quite a bit of progress on my master design. I fixed some of the lengths and put in more of the landscaping elements. Most of my time went into creating the bed shapes. I also started putting in some plants. We will now compare my old versions to my new versions and then we can take a moment to bask in the awesomeness that radiates from my being...

Old renders:

Oringinal sketch up from memory (15 minutes without color)

First renders (couple hours spent figuring out the program and getting the measurements of the house correct)

And now the new versions:

So there we have it. I think its coming along well. Its pretty much all there, all I haven't included is the specific plants and things like the bird house, bird bath, and picnic table. But the most important part is the bed placement and size.

Art

One of my goals for this project was to create an outlet for my creative and artistic nature. So one of the ways I plan on doing this is with two guardian statues at the entrance of the pathway. Like those gargoyles at gothic churches or stone lions at wealthy estates. It was really tough for me to decide who would be there to great us. The two finalists were a stegosaurus or a rabbit. Im still determined to put a stegosaurus somewhere! But I realized that rabbits would be more appropriate. So rabbits it is! I have already located the wood I will be using and a chainsaw to do the carving. I'll probably do it when its either too hot or too rainy to work outside. Here is a rough idea of what they will look like. Bare in mind that these renders are made to be as simple as possible so that I know how to cut the rabbit out. And because Ive never done anything like this before.

Future Plans

And there you have it. Thats what Ive been doing this week. Next week will be very busy for me and I anticipate that I will continue working on my design during next block as well. Next week I have to talk with all those people and make sure my plan will work. Then I will finish the budget and sourcing. Finally I will create a plan of action and make the necesary preparations to begin working bright and early monday morning. Good, great. I guess thats it. You can leave comments below.

tata.

Michael Cooks Senior Project Design Report: Week 2

This week I focused on Assessing the property, brainstorming ideas and researching possible plants. Progress is going well, and aside from some non-critical problems, the project seems very feasible.

 

I spent the first day measuring the house and recording the dimensions to get an over all feel of the size of the project. Then I made two drawings. One was a quick sketch from memory showing the basic idea of what I want to create and the second was the beginning of my master plan, a 3D rendering of the property, to scale. T

he rest of the week I have spent researching shrubs, bulb flowers, then  perennial natives, and the differences between redoing a lawn by reseeding or by sod. Next week I will interview some local landscapers to get a better idea of what I am doing and to make sense of the research I have done. I think the the mos

t challenging part of the project will be deciding exactly which plants I want, and how many of them to get. But I hope my interviews with the landscapers will help that. The other problems Im having are deciding what to use to edge the garden beds, how to incorporate self-seeding flowers while keeping irrigation needs down with heavy mulching (mulch and bed liners will prevent seeds from reaching soil), how to get enough (or know if I have enough) pressure from the rain barrels, and how to hide dead plants from view with blossoming plants. 

Again, once I speak with the local landscapers and nurseries I will be able to narrow down the plants I want to use so that I can finish the design and calculate the budget in the third week. 

Bulbs:

Gardening with bulbs:

All spring-flowering bulbs, such as tulips, daffodils, snowdrops and c

rocuses, need a period of cold to flower well.

The key thing is to plant them about six weeks before hard ground frosts in your area. This timing allows plenty of time for root development.

Use of bulbs for my project:

A big focus of my project will be the use of bulb plants. Bulbs are hardy perennials     with strong colors and interesting shapes. The flowers themselves may be short lived but different bulbs bloom at different times. I plan to use this in my design to create waves of flowers that will bloom through out the year. This will add a great deal of diversity to the garden. Many bulbs are rabbit and deer resistant and can take a lot of abuse in general. Even when the flowers have passed the leaves remain, keeping the garden full and green . The leaves and flower heads ca

n be clipped when they turn brown, which is good because my mother doesn't like seeing dead plants.

Early Spring Blooms:

Chionodoxa (Glory 

of the Snow) 

Galanthus (Snowdrop)

Eranthis (Winter Aconite) 

Crocus (Crocus) 

Mid-Spring Blooms:

Hyacinthus (Hyacinth) 

Muscari (Grape Hyacinth)

Narcissus (Daffodil)

Tulipa (Tulip) 

Anemone (Windflower)

Scilla (Bluebell) 

Late Spring Blooms:

Allium (Allium)

Convallaria (Lily of the Valley) 

Trillium (Wood Lily) 

Early-to-Mid Summer Blooms:

Iris (Iris) 

Hemerocallis (Daylily) 

Lilium (Lily) 

Autumn Blooms:

Colchicum (Meadow saffron) 

Use of Native Plants:

The second botanical focus of my project will be native perennials and self-seeding plants. Native plants are much more adapted to the soil and require much less irrigation. Aesthetically I will be coming full circle, creating a new and fresh look with very old plants. The native plants will greatly enhance the ecology of the landscape and help promote biodiversity. I also intend to include various edible and medicinal native plants. The plants I have chosen here are all perennials with high drought tolerance and are resistant to rabbits. While the bulbs are generally spring and summer flowers, these plants are either longer lasting or late blooming and while be the main features in the later months. 

Native plants (grownative.org):

Spigelia marilandica

Common Name: Indian pink

Indian Pink is quietly spectacular, growing in naturally open wood edges and along streams. This perennial is easy to grow and is rated as a "Top 10 Hummingbird Plant". Foliage is glossy green all season. Flowers in late spring to summer with dazzling displays of upright bright crimson tubular flowers that have yellow throats that look like cream-colored stars as they open.

Senecio plattensis

Common Name: Prairie Ragwort

Bright yellow daisy-like flowers in flat-topped clusters from mid-spring to early summer. Leaves grow fairly low to the ground and often have white cobweb-like hairs on them giving a grayish appearance.

Callirhoe involucrata

Common Name: Purple Poppy Mallow
Showy, cup-shaped red-violet flowers bloom from June through frost. The trailing stems will hang over walls and make an excellent ground cover. This pretty ground cover is a Plants of Merit winner

Allium stellatum

Common Name: Wild Onion

Delicate showy heads of small deep pink to red flowers, held in perfect globes by a single stem from midsummer to fall. The onion-like leaves appear quite early and typically are gone before flowering time. Grows from small bulbs, all parts smell like onions....

Asarum canadense

Common Name: Wild Ginger

A deciduous ground cover with soft green, kidney-shaped leaves and inconspicuous green-brown flowers in the spring. Forms large colonies in cool moist woodland areas....

Aster novae-angliae

Common Name: New England Aster

This tall aster produces hundreds of large purple or pinkish flowers with yellow centers in Sept. and Oct. The flowers are a favorite nectar source for migrating monarch butterflies....

Aster oblongifolius

Common Name: Aromatic Aster

One of the last wildflowers to bloom, this aster is loaded with blue-purple daisylike flowers that persist into late fall. This aster grows into a tidy, compact, self-supporting mound and is a Plants of Merit winner...

Lobelia cardinalis

Common Name: Cardinal Flower

Strong, upright stems bear dozens of brilliant red flowers in late summer. A favorite source of nectar for hummingbirds. This striking plant is a Plant of Merit winner....

Lobelia siphilitica

Common Name: Blue Lobelia

Stout spikes of two-lipped blue flowers bloom in September and October. May self-seed in optimum growing conditions, forming attractive colonies....

Cimifuga racemosa

Common Name: Black Cohosh

Graceful stems (up to 7' tall!) hold spires of fragrant, tiny white flowers in early summer over mounds of green leaves that resemble those of astilbe or ferns. Very showy plant for any shade garden. Also called Black Cohosh or Snakeroot....

Vernonia fasciculata

Common Name: Ironweed

Large, irridescent, red-violet, flat-topped flower heads on top of tall, strong stalks from mid-summer to fall give a rich display of color. Dark-green, lance-shaped leaves....

chizachyrium scoparium
Common Name: Little Bluestem
A small, non-spreading, clump-forming grass with blue-green leaves that turn reddish orange in the fall. Fluffy silver seed heads are ornamental through winter.

Polystichum acrostichoides

Common Name: Christmas Fern

This beautiful native fern has glossy, deep-green, lance-shaped fronds that emerge upright, then proceed to arch gently and eventually 'lay down' to cover the ground as they mature. This evergreen fern has 'hairy' brown leaf stems and fiddleheads at its crown and is one of the first to emerge in spring....

Goals and Aspirations

One of my teachers likes to call the society we've developed "maintained disorder". I think its very fitting, especially for landscaping. One gets very mixed signals when observing the landscaping process. We begin by flooding everything with fertilizer, but as soon as it begins to grow we cut it down, then water it more. It's a very cruel torture, and its also a very expensive one. Urban landscaping uses more herbicides and pesticides than agriculture, and we don't even get food from it. But Im getting off-topic. The thing I want to point out is this silly situation we've put ourselves in of setting up horrible ecological systems that need ridiculous amounts of energy to maintain. And they're not even useful (pragmatically speaking), in most cases they disrupt or damage the regional ecology. 

So my main aspiration is to design a landscape that improves with negligence. The fact that this could seem even the slightest be revolutionary or radical is really quite sad. In nature, this is the norm. Ecosystems strengthen overtime, developing greater diversity and deeper integration, producing more and consuming less. There's no reason why this can't exist in our own yards. My greatest adversary for this project will be society. 

Society and my lack of landscaping knowledge that is. An important permaculture principle is that the theoretical limit of a system is potentially infinite and is only limited by the ability of the designer. And I fear that while my creativity is strong enough, my specific knowledge and technical ability greatly limits me. Hopefully I can find someone who can help me improve those areas.

This is a very lengthy introduction. Lets stop being so abstract. 

The first month (this month) is my planning phase. The goal is to have an accurately budgeted plan within half a week of next month (that's a week and a half from now!). Next month I will work my ass off to install everything and create a presentation of what I have done. I will however, have the month of june to finish up anything that takes longer that I anticipated. 

Here is the Project outline I created:

Project: Residential landscape design/implementation with emphasis on sustainability and permaculture principles

Design objectives:

Minimize long term maintenance (fertilizer, water, pruning)

Minimize cost (recycled materials, native species)

Use artistic bed shapes and sculpture to create a flowing and pleasing landscape while also minimizing turf. 

Initial ideas:

Use sets of seasonally sequenced bulb flowers, which are frost and drought resistant, so that flowers do no need to be replanted each year and for continuous blossoming. 

Use mainstream lawn around outside of fence (for public approval). For the inside of the fence I will reseed to natural clover that does not need to be mowed and reduce the amount of lawn with artistic mulch beds and landscape features such as bird baths, chairs, and stone walkways.

Rent a wood chipper and make mulch from foraged wood and fallen trees.

Month 1:

Asses property

Research possible plants and features

Interview local landscapers and nurseries

Locate materials and resources

Create design and digital mockups

Calculate Budget

Plot implementation sequence

Month 2:

Implement design

Implement design more

compile project portfolio

Presentation