Landscape design has a multi-layered nuanced language of its own complete with colloquialisms and slang. It’s much more than botanical Latin. This language encompasses the technological terms that landscape designers need to communicate to effectively to clients, nurseries, contractors, engineers, and a host of others we interact with on a daily basis.

In the early stages of my landscape design career, I would go enthusiastically to seminars and trade shows and come away shell shocked. There was so much to learn, so many interconnected disciplines with so many terms I didn’t understand. What did B&B mean? What was an ogee? What was rise and run? What does GPH have to do with the waterfall I was designing? That beautiful plant was a Rhododendron what? What do you mean ‘green side up’?

When working with a woodworker on-site the other day, I realized that I had once again, become fluent in another language. I was discussing the construction detail of a pergola using words like ogee, facia, stringer, mortise and header. Then I moved on to the planting crew and at the client’s request asked them to order additional plants using the botanical Latin names that now flow easily in my conversations about plants. After I had finished, another contractor, who had been eavesdropping while waiting for me to talk to him, approached me and asked…’How do you know all of that?’ I answered, ‘I have to I’m a landscape designer’.

This particular project has been challenging due to the laundry list of elements to be included as well as the stone that we finally chose to use. Since bluestone was not an option, we settled on local granite that is quarried in upper New York state. It’s got lovely texture and color and is available both as wallstone and flagging. Below is a photo of the patio seatwall, firepit and stone carpet in progress.

The patio is raised one step up from grade to create a better transition from the house to the steps I’m stood on to take this photo. We ordered custom salt and pepper granite curbing to create that transition. Each 8″ wide and 8″ tall piece was snapped on three sides to work with the rusticated look of the stone. The dark spots in the photo are dirt…not defects.

I’ll continue to post on this one as more progress is made.

Now that the depressing news has been dispatched, I’m moving on to proactive and positive news.

I’m going ahead full throttle with my foray into Web 2.0 marketing techniques. I don’t have any expertise and there’s a lot out there to learn. I’m a bit late to the party, but the party is still going strong. Like anything else, all of this takes time to set up, become fluent with and maximize for its full potential.

Here’s a great tool for landscape designers and anyone else who loves gardens to discover, use and connect with each other:

Landscapedia is an online community, developed by fellow APLD member, Michael Franklin. It has plant databases, portfolio and project development, communication and management tools, a professional directory and lots of cool features for landscape designers to explore and use. It’s one of the top 10 applications for the iPhone so you can take your projects with you…

Well, I’ve never been one to wait for the other shoe to drop without doing something, I’ve decided to turn to social networking to promote my ‘brand’ through the winter months. Because of that decision I’ve spent the past day or two entering passwords, tags, info and posting photos. I’ve also reconnected with people–that’s the fun part of it all.

So today, I have a Facebook profile page and my business has a separate page. I’ll report back on this later when I’ve figured out how to link to my blog from that page.

So much cyberspace, so little time…

I’ve been working on the project I last blogged about. It will be the last one that gets built before the deep freeze. I’ve been lax about taking photos. Anyway that’s not what I wanted to talk about today, but the subject is related.

Being a creative nutcase, I go through periods that force me to evaluate where I’m at and where I want to be. Anything can set off these re-evaluative creative but not necessarily productive moods, and this time it was the rapid fire changes in my personal and professional lives the past three months. Empty nest, empty wallet (related to empty nest by virtue of tuition), and empty retirement account. Add to that nasty stew exhaustion from a very busy season and I came to a semi-stop.

Well I’m back and inside so it’s time to blog again and do all those other things that will help move me and my design studio forward.

Talk to you next week some time.

I did a down and dirty color rendering. It’s not very high res so the detail gets lost. There’s a large patio/pergola area that is connected by a walk from the driveway, a formal(ish) sculpture garden and a huge playing field for the boys.

The great news is that I’m working again instead of just pretending to work…I guess the slump is over.