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