I am so torn, I thought this feature should be every week, then every other week, then now, I am back to thinking every week….Because I seriously just can’t wait to share with you the plan and the 3-D renderings for this super cool Garden Story project.

Katrina’s at Earth Design’s Solution:

“The garden combines functionality and contemporary elegance to create an unusual and usable space.  It is divided into three areas, each with a distinct purpose and ambiance.

The first section, adjoining the house, is dedicated to relaxation and entertainment. Directly outside the patio doors will be an area of oak decking, chosen to echoing the floor of the kitchen. This deck will be large enough to accommodate a weatherproof rattan sofa. Along the right side of this section will be an outdoor dining area.  Surfaced with Mint Fossil sandstone, this area will benefit from a substantial dining table and benches constructed from railway sleepers.”

“The second, central area of the garden is planted with low maintenance architectural plants.  Four screens of various dimensions emerge from the planting and help to obscure the rear of the space from view.  Each screen features a different material: wooden panelling, textured stone tiles, stainless steel mesh and orange Perspex.  A stainless steel water blade installed on one of the screens will give the space a contemporary feel that emulates the interior of the house.”

“To the rear of the garden the final section is home to the children’s climbing frame and a storage unit for bicycles. This section is hidden from view by a timber screen. An artificial lawn provides an extremely low maintenance and safe surface beneath the climbing frame. A low, timber framed tunnel with coloured Perspex lenses in the roof provides additional opportunity for play. Both boundaries will be softened and masked by climbing plants.  The existing row of conifers at the back of the garden are to be retained to provide a backdrop to the garden and privacy from the road beyond.”

To see previous installments of this Garden Story click here and here….in order.   Next week — We will see the construction get underway!

Do you remember this post? I do… for two reasons….first, it remains to this day, one of the most responded to posts since I wrote it over 2 years ago. And second, I can’t help but still be obsessed with the graphically cool nature of the insect walls.   Flora Grubb’s beau Kevin Smith must be also inspired because he took the idea of insect habitat walls and made it sing in a way that only a skilled craftsman and artist can do.

It is so beautiful that if this weren’t built to teem with bugs and garden encouraging insect life, I would be temped to hang it in my living room.

This is from the Flora Grubb website:

It’s assembled from foraged organic materials and reclaimed scrap, and it’s a habitat-in-waiting for bees, birds, and other native animals. The patterns of holes and partitions allows many different species of small animals to inhabit the sculpture, whether it’s mounted on an apartment terrace 16 stories above the street or next to a backyard patio. Inspired by the Urban Hedgerow campaign, Kevin interprets the invitation to urban wilderness in a really beautiful way, one that seduces us into contemplating how much wild nature we want to interact with in our human-centered habitat.

Find out more about commissioning one of Kevin’s creations for your garden by emailing buyers@floragrubb.com. If you’d like more information about the Urban Hedgerow campaign, go to http://urbanhedgerow.com/.

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.

This time of year, I find I have to spend a good amount of time, gathering tools.  I am a notorious slob when it comes to gardening….tools are left everywhere and as things start to die back, I find hand tools that were abandoned sometime in June.

Many times, I have thought that I should make extra effort to organize and even take special care of my tools, but I largely feel successful if I can get them all gathered before the first snowfall.

Nonetheless, I gathered up these great ideas for tool care.  The kids are out of school today (Happy Veterans Day) and I am in search of a project that will make me feel productive while not fighting the natural distracting forces that having them in my work space creates.  I think its tool and barn cleaning day.

If I were really organized, I would spend a few hours in the barn like an old yankee with this handsome kit (below).  I imagine my barn’s walls covered in beautiful tools for every chore and meticulously cared for so that nothing is ever broken, dull, or unworthy of keeping.

Are these beautiful images inspiring you to do some Autumn tool care?  I am curious, what do you to take care of your tools or organize them?  I could use a few tips.

image from garden on sugar,  Natural Garden Company. , Suite 101. Cox & Cox

Used as a garden shed, a playhouse, a guest cottage, or my favorite – a sauna I am finding these kinda charming.   I am not sure where I might place one, — but as a folly, perhaps in a landscape that is wooded or which had a sweet meadow, I think they can be a good fit.  What do you think?  Love them or loathe them?

Available to buy from Rustic Way.

Images from Rustic Way.

I had few revelations over the weekend. Not the least of which was that I need to settle down and get back to a sense of routine and normalcy. The summer (with kids out of school, travel, lots of distractions and outside projects, and heat) has this way of upending everything. Add to that a new venture (Leaf magazine) and I have simply been totally topsy turvy.
Part of the revelation came when I had the pleasure of lunching with a group of bloggers, writers, artists and designers that all have the singular connection of Holly Becker. Holly was Boston on her book tour and this group was largely made up of women who she was friends with from her own Boston days, alumni from classes, and close colleagues. It was great to meet, in person, so many people I have known only online for so long.

Chatting with Holly I realized that she has gone through so many similar evolutions and has seemingly effortlessly moved from one success to the next. But her version of how it all happened is not so effortless…as she took time to write a beautiful book (in just 8 months) she kept her blog going daily, she moved to another county, and kept her blog going daily….she has taught classes and kept her blog going daily. Admittedly, she points out, she often works 100+ hours per week, but she has kept all the balls in the air and I found inspiration in that. She is going for it (her dreams) and that is hard work.   Now I am not saying I don’t work hard….I do, but I have let myself dither a few times too many in the last month and my brief chat with Holly made me realize that I just need to keep doing, moving….and getting to that new place where I want to be.

Launching Leaf is a huge shift for me – but one that I have been plotting for quite some time, and now that I am actually leaping into it, (as I said) I have been very discombobulated. Holly snapped me out of that with a quiet and to-myself  ‘get it together Rochelle’ moment.

The pieces are settling, kids go back to school next week, the farmers market is officially up and running and in full swing,  my last design project has all but wound up, and I am getting my head around the fact that instead of over-thinking what I write here, I need to just let studio ‘g’ be the place that I continue to share what inspires me. Even if it evolves. We all evolve and the fact is, I have chosen to become the founder of an online magazine about Outdoor Design and leave the day to day of running a landscape design business. I will be choosing (in time) to head off in other new directions too and all of those are part of an evolution.  Studio ‘g’ can’t not evolve with me.

So what has been on my mind lately? Magazine Covers, Fonts, Layouts, Photographers, Graphic Designers, Networking, Trends, Products, Stories, and reaching out to people.  I met a writer named Laura Gaskill this weekend.  She writes the lovely blog Lolalina. A visit there, sent me mentally back on photographer and layout tangents, particularly when I read about Petra Bindel (who took all these photographs).

I love the Swedish light and particularly the styling of these shots, and am interested in learning from this inspiration, so I can apply it to Leaf.

Also — these shots are feeding an unhealthy obsession I have recently developed — it involves building an old-school shed style glass green house (just like my grandmother had when I was a kid) off the backside of my dining room.   I dream it will bring in Swedish-like light.

all images from Petra Bindel