Good Design:

•responds proactively with long-term plans and budget,

•through proper plantings in the right places creates a logic so that implementation of aesthetic long-term tree and shrub development strategies increases property values,

1. •  while establishing predictability of costs that the landscape incurs as it ages and matures.
   

2. •  exemplifies the clients needs, taste and statement of life-style.
   

3. •  good design has a purpose that fits with the job/function that is needed in that space: back yard are private spaces, front yards need to do more than back yards by fitting with the neighbourhood values, expresses the clients taste and is the clients ‘business card’ that also expresses the way to best approach the inhabitant. (formal approach that predicts a formal conversation or as an informal approach that receives a friendly informal greeting)
   

4. •good design only uses the materials needed convey the needs.
   

We are Specialists in the Art of Living Design:

Site First for the clients benefit:

The first consideration for planting any plant selection requires that the selected plant, be maintainable and sustainable. To do this, the site is considered first because it determines what can grow where; placed for their optimal use within the species growing capability, overlaid with the objective over long term result.

And, must fit with the aesthetic need of the client’s objective.

In practical terms the needs of the desired microclimate need to be recognized, designed and developed. If a client wishes a plant in a specific location, then the corresponding micro-climate needs to be bult. Therefore the site is the first consideration.

*Anything is possible, however, - practical, maintainable as well as sustainable is normally the primary request.

These punctuations also need to be in conjunction with an over-riding principle* to design with that is established prior to the site constraints, and is the measuring guide for all ways in which the garden space is developed.

Garden is all about FEELINGS

If, a material, plant, location, aspect or result does not fit within the guideline, the feelings’ directed by the over-riding principle or idea of the garden, then, the material or result is not used or done.

This is where adapting the time-tested principles used in Japanese gardens for solutions successfully addresses today’s contemporary lifestyles and has become our hallmark and passion.

The entire design, during or after, is a process of weaning materials, and and plant material is laid out with respect to the amount of maintenance that is required in the long term. This is where a cost is forecast for 10 years ahead in time of what the client is willing to fund. ‘Funding’ as seen as either the clients own investment of time and skill, or the means of engaging the professional to maintain the installation to the requirement of the client.

Often a combination of maintenance by the client and professional is the norm, such that the professional is called for specific tasks that the client does not wish to perform, whereas general items of maintenance and pruning seem to be an enjoyable process of meditation and holistic activity that connects the client with nature. The ratio of this investment needs to be ascertained.

Micro-shelterbelts:

Another consideration is the redirection of air and collected radiant heat from sunlight that allows microclimates to be created. Within this requirement is the consideration of the amount of heat sequestering stone set an optimal depth into the soil so that heat is radiated during the evenings.

Primarily, a garden space needs to be practical functional gardening* on as many levels as possible.

The value of this approach is immeasurable as the installation of a landscape is only the introductory step. The fundamental steps of developing the landscape are important bringing the materials slowly to artistic life as a maturing unified canvas transforming into living art. As plants grow they are growing into shapes that are dictated by available water and nutrients while developing their hierarchy within the planting arrangements: naturalizing.

Hot? Cold? or getting warmer? Do we need visual warming or cooling?

We live in a ‘cold’ climate that is often inhospitable and not overly enjoyable. In Japan, the climate is mostly hot and hotter, humid and more humid to wet. Japan is a land of water, where the pond in ones garden is merely nothing more than diverted water from the ditch in front of ones home. One runs the water through the side to the back yard, through the garden by going over the water feature, through the stream and pond and back out into the ditch.

This is a simple process. A process that is primarily a cooling device developed from available materials, water tree and stone. There the water flows over stone kept in cool shade operating like a wine cooler.

What is valuable in Japan then, is the sensation of ‘cooling’. How much shade, how much breeze, how much movement of water, or mental sensations of ‘cool’ can one build into a garden? How does one create the sensation of cooling?

However, cooling is not often required in Canada.

Then how do we ‘heat up’ the “Japanese” garden?

The most neutral “not hot not cold”, neutrally cool and easiest colour we see & know is green and pale pink. Our pupils do not constrict when we see these colours. As a result, most Japanese gardens have only the most cooling colour: green. Essentially, one of the understood ‘requirements’ of Japanese gardens is that ‘heating’ colours should not be visible to the ‘heat’ the viewer. The range of the ‘cool/neutral ’ palette is green and pink and are the most neutral and easiest colours to look at.

Good design allocates where the best place is for the viewers comfort from which to acquire warmth whether in feeling or in actual warmth, and is more than just the visual designation of where something should be located. Good design is also knowing which areas can be used to sustain placements of items that confer warmth; flowers ground-covers or shrubs that are protected in microclimates created by trees in which heat is sustained to grow the required items that provide the warmth for mind or bodily sensation.

One more simplifying design step: overlay these requirements with areas that sequester moisture to provide the benefits of therapeutic aromatherapy through the resultant scents, resins and particles that are released during plant growth.

Good functional aesthetic design is applying layers of simplification rather than layers of complication.

fuzei gardens & tree service ltd.      +  403 . 931.3817           edzard@fuzei.com

all rights reserved (c) copyright held by fuzei gardens & tree service ltd. 2011