It is a popular trend in Corporate America to build and offer company gardens. They are places where employees can spend coffee breaks with their hands in the dirt (if they want to). Participants can observe the growth of and harvesting of produce that is often used in company cafeterias and the benefits are increasingly a way to increase morale in a trying economy where raises and cash incentives are more scarce.

I am completely intrigued by the trend — as a business opportunity , but also as an exciting trend towards cultivating more gardeners. So, for the next few days, I am going to give over the daily garden to company gardens. First up is a peek in to Google’s Mountain View Headquarters garden.

It is called the Growing Connections Garden and features heavy use of EarthBoxes which seem to appeal to the scientific minds in the company. Among other technological advances, the EarthBox uses Sub Irrigation Technology (SIP). SIP employs a reservoir at the bottom of the container that waters plants at the root for higher yields with less water.

Their campus also features some other interesting corporate planting and landscape architecture.

Click through to see more of the campus’s landscape features.

images from upward bound summ…., Never Wood High, Diane, East Tennessee Wildflowers, googlified, and Tammy Camp.

Maybe you noticed and maybe you didn’t, but I have never discussed outdoor kitchens here.  It wasn’t a planned thing, I just haven’t had the desire.  Which kind of follows my lack of desire to design such things.   I am not politically against them or anything and I am ok with building in a BBQ to make a design more interesting, cohesive or functional, but when it comes to full on outdoor kitchen planning….which seems not so  different than full on indoor kitchen planning, it all starts to veer into an area of design that I personally have little interest for.  And for me its not just about the designing but also to have it at my own home….I simply do not desire the outdoor room that has a big old kitchen in it.

Here is what I am into….Wood Fired Pizza Ovens, My own Funky Firepit/ BBQ where I can cook meat over a real flame (or others like it that provide the same use),  and functional amenities to make an outdoor party fun and functional, interesting and different than an indoor party.  But beyond that, I am happy to carry my food from my indoor kitchen outside and I can totally leave the outdoor kitchen room and all it’s expense, flash and planning alone.

So when I saw Jamie Durie’s new line for Electrolux (which is admittedly an interesting and cool looking funky modern thing – but that I still don’t want), I just started to wonder….What do you guys think of outdoor kitchens?  Are you into them?  Do you want one?  If you are a designer, is this an area you want to work in, have worked in, want to work in more?  I am just curious to take the pulse of opinion about Outdoor Kitchens… Let’s discuss…

images from Trendir via Designer Pages.

One more post before I head out….

Because I just can’t help myself.  Britches and Hoes – who came up with that name?  (I didn’t but wish I did)  Fashion and Gardening — to me, it’s an irresistible mix.

I, not so secretly, want to design my own fashion line for gardeners (specifically women).  It wouldn’t look like this so much, but I am finding this infinitely amusing.  But it has me thinking about my imaginary fashion line….and I am wondering….if you could have some garden clothes that are fashionable, would you be interested?  What features might they have?  I have lots of ideas that I have chewed on for years, but I am curious if all my thoughts are completely self centered, (in that I might be only one who wants or cares about looking cute and hip while being comfortable and practical when pottering in the garden).   Do you care about what you wear in the garden? Do you (like me) wish for something else to wear? What would your ideal garden clothes be like?

found at chaps. images by Tim Sutton

Cheaper, faster, better (and green)? It is the trifecta that usually requires a concession on one side to gain on another.  You want it fast — well it will loose quality….or you want it cheap – well it might take a while…..  whatever the item, its rare to be able to capitalize on all three.  And adding a green consideration into the equation is, at this point, generally a wild card.

So you can imagine my enthusiasm when I recently discovered Natural Stone Wall Solutions a local company that has developed a patented process to build and install real stone walls that are as much 50% cheaper than competitors, are better built, are faster and are environmentally friendly.

How you might ask? Well they have developed a system by which stone walls are constructed in a factory of sorts (right now it is this yard).  And then delivered to the site and often installed (often) in a single day.  Because the walls are built off site, homeowners experience much less disruption to their site and their existing landscape, the crews do not need to travel to or have materials delivered on-site (which often requires disturbing other areas of the site) and saves on fuel.  And the walls are of very high quality and come with complete engineering services, built in weep holes,  filter fabric, and footings.  You can check out the entire specs on their website.

Rather than build walls vertically, they start out horizontally…each wall is built face down in a bed of sand that can be adjusted to create whatever curvature is required.  The walls are built face down and when completed are flipped up to reveal the face.  (you can see below, the face down walls that were built just before my visit to the plant.)

When the walls are turned upright they look like this….

You can see that the mortar joints can vary from very thin to much thicker as can the size, style, color and shape of the stone.

When the product goes to site, the wall pieces are locked into place with an injected concrete system that you can see on the side.  Seams are invisible because each section is left with a few anchors at the edge that blend adjoining pieces.   So the only actual masonry work done on site is one or two stones placed per walls section as the pieces are put into place.   The efficiency savings are huge not just on an environmental level, but also on a cost level.  An average natural stone wall built on site, in this area, costs roughly $60/sq ft of face…..these are generally around $35/sq ft of face.   I can’t wait to try the system out and plan to use Natural Stone Walls at the next opportunity.   If you are as excited as I am about this revolution in stone wall building….you can learn more at the Natural Stone Wall Solutions website.

I am heading out for the weekend… What garden projects do you have planned?  I have lots… of course…. (and I am so excited to see a strawberry tower – (not so secretly) – being constructed in the barn…I am looking forward to this wonderful mothers day gift!)

There is no denying the hot trend is Succulents…and another hot trend is vertical gardening….making the succulents put on a wall thing like the most-uber-hottest-trend ever.

I think of Flora Grubb as the one who made the trend huge….but as I stumbled around this morning, I was interested to learn that way back in 1984, Succulent Gardens in Castroville, California were making framed wall succulent art.  Really? Wow, more than 25 years of making and growing succulents pictures and it’s just now the big thing.  That is an impressive testament to sticking with what you love and being an expert in your field.  Robin Stockwell (the owner of Succulent Gardens) has my utter admiration.

Succulents in a Rusty Hub Cap — I think makes a pretty terrific table centerpiece….

These images all come from another newly discovered (at least by me) blog. Far Out Flora is a fun site written by Matti and Megan in San Francisco — these terrific images are from a trip they took to Succulent Gardens — but their site has all sorts of other fun stuff like visits to other cool west coast nurseries, and tales of their own garden adventures.

You can get your own framed succulent garden kit through Succulent Gardens mailed to you for a pretty reasonable price (around a $100 – depending on size).   They also offer wreaths, individual plants.

I’m jumping on Patti’s (over at Liberty Post) bandwagon.  I quite agree that these inexpensive, earthquake resistant Styrofoam homes should be a serious consideration for places like Haiti.  For that matter, lots of other places.  Created by International Dome House Inc. which is based in Japan, these homes boast ultra thermal insulating properties, easy scalability (by adding more modules), fast and easy assembly, lightweight transportation and a starting kit price of only $30,000.

But here is what I like most about these houses.  They are obviously no McMansions – these rounded quaint quarters seem to beg for neighborhoods that have front doors facing every which direction, and paths between each.  All of it, on a normal human scale, and it would seem to encourage walk-ability in neighborhoods.

I think a lot about the 10 lbs I would like to loose.  I have had 2 children and had no issues with loosing the post baby weight — but the sack of potatoes that I carry around…it came from when I moved from London back to America.  It is good ‘ole USA fat – and it comes from the fact that my everyday life is so much more sedentary than my London life was.   Even if I had lived in the country in England, I would have more reasons to traverse rambling paths to get to my local pub and other neighborly places.  But here in the USA we are forced to rely too heavily on cars and our communities are poorly designed and give us NO reasons to walk.

I have been watching Jamie Oliver and his TV show about kids, how terribly they eat, and how poorly educated they are when it comes to vegetables and good food.  I admire Jamie for stepping up to the plate for his industry and demanding that we do better, pointing out how his own peers are letting down a population and putting a spotlight on the problems in order to start to make change.   But, I have to say, I think we fool ourselves to think that the American obesity epidemic is purely food based. It is also hugely caused by the design of our communities.  And for that I think that we in the Architecture, Landscape, Civil, Urban, and Garden design world need to start stepping up and taking responsibility. I am wondering who in our world is going to stand up for all of us, shake things up a bit, and start pointing out that we in the all the land related design industries haven’t been building communities that support a healthy groups of people and we too can do better?