Hillside, below, at a client's yesterday.
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Retained with groundcover.
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Retained with great success for decades.
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Her neighbor had the same slope, the builder put in railroad tie walls. Of course they rotted & collapsed. Worse, the 'fix' was more retaining walls.
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No need to be an expert to understand the math, aka expense.
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Aside from which is more beautiful.
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It is not uncommon for a percentage of my clients to go with another contractor, because they trust the 'guy' saying they must build a retaining wall. The comfort zone of manhandling a situation.
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Across Europe, studying historic beautiful landscapes for decades, eye/brain, aka beautiful/functional, noticed 'details'. Especially in Italy. No place better to learn about beautiful easy landscapes, surviving thousands of years. I trust historic beautiful landscapes, and copy them.
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After my longtime contractor died, and before my current dream contractor of several years, I had the guy-in-a-truck. Good, but fearful of what he did not know, and crunching/squeezing numbers with every 'sale'.
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He refused to drystack stones into a slope I had designed. Told client, and me, it could not be done.
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Really?
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Found the pic I had taken in an Italian olive orchard, over a thousand years old, and emailed guy-in-a-truck. With a note, 'do the drystack wall or I'll never use you again.'
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Because he had been an honest contractor at several jobsites, I continued to use him after this project, beautifully executed, as drawn.
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My bad. He defaulted on money he owed his partner, and me. Two clients, who did not know each other, called me on the same day, saying he was a misogynist, and they had paid him all his money and never wanted him back on their property.
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Only tell you this little story as a heads-up if you are in the industry, and if you are hiring someone to help you in your landscape.
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Hope the back story is as helpful as the landscape design picture.
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Let me know. Oddly, I'm hesitant including it.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic shot yesterday in client garden.
For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction. Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC. 3 decades of service.
9 comments:
Of course you should share it, my dear! (Long time reader, rare commenter.)
What I love about your blog is how it reveals the inter-twinings of LIFE: vanishing threshold, old houses & their grounds, inherited (and found) treasures, stories of ex-husbands & learnings from that era, stories of pulling in clients' husbands so that they salivate over French doors, lol.
Seems quite fitting to also share with us the realities of your work.
Your writing & photos are a treasure, and much more than a guilty pleasure; a life-saver, in many ways.
nancy v-b
Back story is helpful. Education is always useful, especially 'heads-up' education.
Keep it simple. Thank you for the reminder!
I agree with all of the comments above. As for drystacking vs mortared stone walls, I am firmly in the drystack camp. Here in Kansas with its drastic temp changes and clay soil, drystack and tons of gravel do much better than mortared walls. I had an 8' grade change from sidewalk by front door to curb, and I terraced with drystack stone walls by myself!
As an almost 65 year old woman, my stone stacking days may be over. I still marvel that I have done what I have done. And yes, many men said, "No, that will not work."
As I have a failing retaining wall staring me in the pocket book, I am very interested in knowing the name of the ground cover that was used, and also, if it will thrive in Western PA's hard winters.
In fairness, I should add that the culprit that needs to be replaced has been there since 1976, but has nearly reached the end of it's usefulness. More importantly, it has also passed the point where it is pleasant to look that way when passing through the garden.
My procrastination has been a result of not having seen anything to replace it that stirs me, 'til today! Love it and am already making plans.
Thanks
Coco
Oh you have no idea how important and timely this is!
It is true of any "service business"!!
My upholsterer of 25 years did the same thing!
Rude to me in front of client ....arguing.....horrendous.
Before he pulls something like that....I will find a new upholsterer. NOW. It was awful.
thank you so much!!!
Tara! (I try not to leave two posts.....but I want to say this post of yours is a "public service"!!
In any part of design.....interior, exterior, landscape.....all of it....there is this person.
He (I guess sometimes a she???)
Completely wrecks! People believe him!
Bravo this post! Thank you from all of us.....your followers!!!
Hey Nancy V!
You GET it! This Tara is a treasure beyond description!
Bravo for your comment!
Yowzers!!!
Coco, don't know your zone. Go to plant listing from your local Extension Service. Groundcovers. Evergreens best, and thick spreaders for the slope. Some groundcoveres are merely wide spreading shrubs and will not hold the soil.
Don't get your sole plant info from a garden center, they will sell you what they have not what you need.
XOT
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