This feels like a real tease -I’m sorry (kinda).  But I suppose it wouldn’t be a real garden story if you didn’t feel the full range of emotion that a garden design client feels.  Including impatience. ;0

When building a garden with a design and build team, there is, of course, the excitement of the crew showing up.  The rapid change as everything quickly gets torn up is startling and amazing.  Then the period where the hardscaping seems to take so much longer than you want it to.  But when the plants arrive the thrill comes back…..but you will have to wait until next week to see the end…..but until then, you can wallow in the middle part where a whole lot of stuff happens but it sometimes seems like forever until those workers will be gone!

Images from Earth Designs – See the beginning stages of this  garden story here and here and here.

Moonrise Kingdom’s trailer is such a ridiculous visual feast of a style that I simply adore.  And so much of it makes me long for summer garden days. I am watching it over and over because it sparks ideas literally every single second. I wish I had a full set of stills to study.

Oh and that music — sounds so much like the Chicha music that I fell in love with when we made the first Leaf Magazine video. Do you remember it?

Have you taken down your holiday decorations?   Mine are long gone, but I can’t help but post this front landscape and accompanying roof garden (resplendant with pre-holiday decor) because not only is the garden just so cool, but I kind of love the way the pointsettias and the pretty stars play to the landscape in such a charming way (even after the season!).  It is place appropriate holiday decor at it’s finest.

This home belongs to Adrianna Lopez (who is clearly my ‘orange door’ soul sister) of Long Beach California, and was featured today on Apartment Therapy (see the whole house tour here).

(images from Apartment Therapy).

Is this not perhaps one of the most fantastically interesting garden swings that you have seen?   It is made by De Bruir, as are these other similarly beautiful and scultptural versions.

images from De Bruir.

Getting from one side to the other, typically, (in the landscape) involves a bridge (or a tunnel) but this hybrid is an exciting mix of the two.

The Moses ‘Bridge’  is located in Halsteren, Municipality of Bergen op Zoom
, The Netherlands.  In order to not disrupt the views to historic Fort de Roovere,  RO&AD Architects of the Netherlands and Belgium created this this pedestrian bridge as a way to cross the historic defenses.

It is built with Accsys Technology whereby Accoya wood undergoes a nontoxic proprietary modification process called acetylation that renders it an unrecognizable wood source which prevents fungal decay from the exposure of water and moisture and increases its structural stability.

I am fascinated by this and want nothing more than to experience a walk across this path. But I am also intrigued by the technology and wonder if perhaps this can evolve as a common alternative to bridges?   It is beautiful in design and if there is not a need to allows vessels to pass beneath (and I wonder if the water and aquatic life passes below?), can it be considered in other applications?

images from yatzer.

I have this sort of funny potential opportunity.  I has to do with a piece of land, a generous architect, and a farmers market – but that is all I will say about it for now.  But this opportunity has me thinking about buildings that communities or even individuals can build for little in the way of time and physical resources.

Coincidentally, a friend posted a link on Facebook about Jon Jandai.  This is his thing:

“Before I thought that stupid people like me … cannot have a house… because people who are cleverer than me and get a job need to work for 30 years to have a house. But for me, who cannot finish university, how can I have a house. It’s hopeless for people who have low education like me. But when I start to do earthen buildings, it’s so easy! I spent two hours per day… and in 3 months I have a house. A friend who was the most clever in the class he has a house too but he has to be in debt for 30 years, so compared to him I have 29 years and 10 months of free time. I feel life is so easy.“

Jon runs Pun Pun an organic farm (in Thailand), seed-saving operation, and sustainable living and learning center. At Pun Pun they use ancient natural building techniques with readily available, local, natural materials with little embodied energy and salvaged materials to make homes, a practical and affordable alternative to resource intensive conventional building.

One thought leads to another and now I am all hopped up on cool images of earthen buildings; thinking that I can perhaps brooch this subject with the generous architect for the potential project, but at the very least, I can research this for the basis of some garden construction that I would like to do around here (namely of the glasshouse variety).

Check all these out and then try not to be similarly intrigued.

Images from a Gallery of American Natural Homes and even more from Natural Homes.