Conceptual Garden Designs - 2010 Summer Intern Blog - Reiman Gardens |
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2010 Summer Intern Blog
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Conceptual Garden Designs
Dustin Bailey; Outdoor Horticulture Intern
Public gardens, as well as, home landscapes sometimes have areas that need to be redesigned. Here at Reiman Gardens we have some areas that either don't meet our standard for maintenance, are aesthetically unpleasing, or are just out of date. Part of my task as an intern this summer was to come up with a few conceptual designs for these areas. With a background in design I jumped at the opportunity.
One of these areas we are looking to redesign is our William R. Stafford Garden. This is a large garden located on the south end of Reiman Gardens and is comprised mostly of prairie plants. Some of the challenges with this area include: maintenance time required to turn what we have into a healthy prairie, drawing visitors to the south end of the Gardens, a design style that is quite different from the rest of the Gardens, plus a lack of shade.
This first design provides more of a plaza area and can host events. It features steep walls with different plantings that surround a central paved area. There is an over head walk towards the middle to keep all the dimensions prominent throughout the entire design. The paved area will be permeable pavers and down its entirety are 6' – 8' in diameter reflective spheres.
This design is meant to let the pathways divide the space into several different gardens. There are several curvilinear paths that separate different mounded areas. Each of these areas would be planted differently. All paths would lead to an enormous reflection pool at the very end of the Gardens with a planter in the middle. This design will still try to keep much of the prairie, planted in smaller separated areas that are hopefully easier to maintain.
This next design breaks the south end up into many smaller gardens. Vegetation will provide the walls of each of the garden rooms. I used the line of existing full grown sycamore trees as a base for the entire layout. Some of the new garden ideas in this design are a dwarf conifer garden, alpine garden, contemporary yard garden, sensory garden, and a pattern garden comprised of prairie plants and cultivars. This design also features a new Reiman Gardens sign that can be seen from University Boulevard
This last design is just a combination of the previous two. It takes the different gardens from the last design, but it uses the spacial arrangement of the curvilinear paths.
Jul 21, 2010 2:17 PM
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