Sage Outdoor Designs » landscape design

Just in case my love of clean lines isn’t entirely obvious at this point, I just have to say that I love this fountain feature! I love the intersection of planes from the tall wall, ground plane, and basin. I like that the moving water, the fountain part of the fountain, is dwarfed by the wall, but the sound still dances around the courtyard. I like the mix of rock sizes in the planters from small gravels to medium sized river cobble. I like the restraint of a single species of plant material (Aeonium ‘Zwartzkoff’ and please don’t quote me on the spelling of that).

This is in a central courtyard of a lovely mixed use building that occupies the entire block of Washington and Goldfinch in Mission Hills. I don’t know who the designer is, but if anyone does, please let me know! If you’d like to see it for yourself, you can’t see it from the street. You’ll have to walk into the courtyard. While you are there, take a look around at the other fabulous plantings!

It is very easy to get sick of seeing the same-old same-old fire pits over and over again. They look like the smaller fire pit photo (left) and they work just fine but they are so dull! Can’t we look outside the box a bit more for inspiration?

The fire pit below is a simple indentation filled with rock chips (remember to be careful picking this material- some rocks explode when you expose them to high heat) and the back of it is a panel of CorTen steel with a lazer-etched design of a tree. It would be a great way to reflect the heat into the sitting area. Now, this picture actually isn’t real- it is a computer rendering- but as a design concept I like it a lot. What do you think?

In my on-going defense of small fountains as a reasonable use of water in the landscape, I’d like to share another resource with such a huge selection that it is certainly worth a look: Kinetic Fountains. This little fountain, their Chiyoko fountain, was on page 8 of too-many-pages-to-count, so don’t give up if you don’t find something you like on page 1. By now you probably all know my love of clean-lined modern shapes, and this little guy would fit in fabulously in a modern or mid-century style garden.

Or try these links for a French garden, a Tuscan garden, or an English garden.

Plus, how can we not like them? They nominated us for their Kinetic Spotlight as a best garden blog! Some of my favorite garden websites are already up there, like Dave’s Garden, so make sure to take a look. Here is our little spotlight award (yay!):

As the Tuscan craze continues and continues and continues, I get a lot of requests for stone facing on fireplaces, barbecues, walls, and columns. A lot of the time, people wonder whether they should go with an artificial stone. So I thought I would take a minute to go over the benefits and drawbacks of artificial vs. the real deal.

The main thing that is in artificial stone’s favor is that it is less expensive, typically 50% to 75% of the cost of real stone. Also, because the pieces have been designed to fit together easily, the installation cost is also less. The other thing that I think draws people to the artificial options on the market is that some of the companies are fabulous at marketing so that it is very easy to tell which ones will give you that iconic Tuscan look that people just seem to drool over (as in the photo here).

So what are the drawbacks? First off, artificial stone is essentially formed concrete that is faux-painted to look like stone. That means two things: 1) that the color does not go the full way through so any chips will show the grey inside color, and 2) the paint colors aren’t that natural so they are tough to match with any other natural materials you might pick (like, say, the travertine tiles that people also seem to drool over). But I think the biggest drawback is the “Disneyland effect”- they are good fakes but they are still fakes! And once your eye is trained to see the fakeness, they will never look real to you again.

So, what I like to recommend is to use the real stuff- actual stone!- whenever you can. Use it smarter. Use less of it. Use it where it counts. It will never get dated or look oh-so-2005. If it chips, you’ll just see more real stone underneath. And best of all, it will always have that wonderful color and luminescence of real stone.

“But the cost,” you say! It isn’t as bad as you think. Luckily, a few stone companies took their cue from the artificial stone makers and came out with thin veneers of real stone that are pre-cut to the shape you want (just like the fake stuff) so they weigh less and are easy to install. They are still more expensive than the fake options, but consider this: in ten years I think we will all be pulling the fake stuff off. It will look dated and passe, but the real stuff will still be beautiful to us in the way that gorgeous Craftsman tile from the 1930’s is still beautiful to us. The real stuff will be cheaper in the long run because you will still like it.

A few sources:

The fake stuff: El Dorado Stone and Cultured Stone are the two top manufacturers
The real stuff: try Thompsons Building Supply for some great options including NSVI and Montana Rockworks

And of course check out our website, www.sageoutdoordesigns.com where you can see examples of some of each!

Just a quick photo for today of a fence I have been admiring for some time. This fence is on one of the really up-and-coming stretches of 30th street in North Park, and this building was one of the first to get made over into something special. Now the neighborhood has taken off and is flourishing, which I guess we can’t credit completely to this fence…

but maybe a little?