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Portfolio of Suburban & Rural Landscapes Page 1 of 1
Click on an image below to go to that project
The gardens shown here represent a small portion of the gardens we have designed and built in suburban and rural areas of the United States. We have designed many rural and suburban gardens in many other states, such as Connecticut, Indiana, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, California and Massachusetts. By and by, I'll get them onto these pages too. If you live in a suburban neighborhood I would suggest you reconsider the landscape paradigm which predominates in suburbia throughout America--front yard: Foundation planting, lawn with a specimen tree or grouping. Rear yard--Lawn with flower beds along the property line, a patio near the house. Those concepts of landscape design arose in the early fifties when populations grew tremendously, suburban neighborhoods sprung up everywhere and with them, nurseries. In those days nurseries didn't have landscape designers on staff. That is a fairly recent occurrence. So it was the nurserymen and the developers who became the designers of gardens. Almost no one hired a landscape designer or architect. The consequence is to be found in virtually every suburban neighborhood throughout America and that paradigm has now even been exported to Europe. Personally I find it downright depressing to drive through suburban neighborhoods. They may as well have painted on the lawns and installed plastic plants for all the life and liveliness they possess. Any visitor from a foreign planet would have to conclude that either humans really like this look, it serves some unseen purpose or people simply have no capacity of imagination. Have you ever wondered why all the houses have to look the same? Why are they always oriented the same way? Why are the neighborhoods always flat, even when the surrounding land is not? How come you never find a hill in a suburban neighborhood or a grove? The reasons are two. Developers can make plenty of money without considering real beauty and there are almost no good examples of beautiful suburban neighborhoods so this is what is expected. If you know of an unusual suburban landscape, please let me know. I will post it on these pages, along with the designer's name. The world needs examples.
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