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Discussion starter · #141 ·
Thanks AZ.

I might have to go over there today and take a closer look at that space with the Goldmop. I'm afraid that if anything grows taller to the roof-line, then it might come out too wide and start hanging over the driveway.

I like the hanging basket idea. I'll have to do another image with those in there to see what it looks like.

My wife also mentioned that it was lacking some color and if rock-beds are re-installed, then I might show the HO all my rock samples to help add a little different color besides the standard river-rock.

I was thinking of some barberries and spireas in front instead of the boxwoods, but I was also looking to keep it filled in during the Winter months.

Thanks. Thumbs Up
 
That computer program is nice! If I were still doing design I would have to get one.

Try and loose the center hanging baskets so there are just two at each bay, can you put them on lower chains so they are not so high? I would also try some window box's on the railing in lieu of the hanging baskets to see if that looks better.

I might also just do away with that narrow strip of lawn, just make the rock bed bigger and give those junipers some room to spread. and maybe bring a brick walkway out to the street from the front door with a slight bend, not a runway.

Have we blown the budget yet??? I have more.

If I keep looking at these things you will be sorry you asked. And so will my wife :laugh:
 
Discussion starter · #144 ·
That computer program is nice! If I were still doing design I would have to get one.

Try and loose the center hanging baskets so there are just two at each bay, can you put them on lower chains so they are not so high? I would also try some window box's on the railing in lieu of the hanging baskets to see if that looks better.

I might also just do away with that narrow strip of lawn, just make the rock bed bigger and give those junipers some room to spread. and maybe bring a brick walkway out to the street from the front door with a slight bend, not a runway.

Have we blown the budget yet??? I have more.

If I keep looking at these things you will be sorry you asked. And so will my wife :laugh:
:laugh::laugh: Budget, ya probably blown. I haven't figured out what that is exactly is though, but, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's not going to be an un-limited budget, and probably just make it look good type of budget. Such a shame.

I thought about losing the narrow strip of lawn, but, I kinda like the green space personally. Also, if you are on-site, you would probably want to keep it after looking at it.

I'm sure if I play with the program enough I could put longer chains on the baskets, but that's the only hanging basket image I have. Two would probably look better, but I wondered what three would look like, I might have to fool with it again.

There was another thread recently where two other members of lawnsite had done something similar, either with photo-shop, or a program similar to mine.

Funny thing is, everyone in my area is still doing hand drawing and other not so quality cpu designs. I like this program as I can visually put things into perspective for my customers, and they seemed to really like it after having other design work done by other designers. They also like the idea that I can do images in a quarter the time as most hand designer do the work for.

I will say, it took about 20 designs to finally figure how to make things almost perfect including shading to match each image to the environment.

Thanks AZ, I'm going to meet with the HO Tommie, I'll post more about the project after I get some input from the HO. Right now I've got about 10 irons in a fire, and I'm waiting to see which one glows the hottest.
 
Discussion starter · #145 ·
When you look at the date it is 03, 1903 that is.

This is a pic of the farm that I currently doing bi-weekly maintenance on, and gearing up to do some landscape and hardscape installations. Yes the barn is still standing and the image of the horse is still there.

Starting on post 64 I do believe.

http://www.lawnsite.com/showthread.php?t=272897&page=7

Here is the photo, cool stuff.

Plant Building Land lot House Grass


Plant Building Land lot House Grass
 
Cool place to work. :)

Are they keeping animals at all or is it just a house in the country?
 
Discussion starter · #147 ·
Cool place to work. :)

Are they keeping animals at all or is it just a house in the country?
No animals. The Gentleman that lives there still hobbie farms somewhere around 120 acres only because it's in his blood. Him and his wife both grew up on farms, but moved to the area to become professionals for State-Farm Ins back in the 70's. She is from Texas, and He is from Oklahoma.

They are now both retired.
 
Discussion starter · #148 ·
I would put a small patio tree in place of the gold mop, something taller... just below the roof line with colored foliage. Here it would be a purple leaf plum or maybe a jap maple. Some vines on the columns like clematis or honeysuckle. Thats all I could add looks good.

Maybe some hanging baskets on the beam of the patio cover. Not the cheezy plastic ones, the bigger wire baskets you do with the spahgum (sp) moss.
So the HO went with the first design in the front of the house with the gold-mops. That's the space they want done this year, and next year they are going to do the Sun-room off the the back of the house and I'll end up re-doing the wall then.

She did like the design with the hanging baskets and she wants me to put those together next spring for annuals.

Finally I've got a decent little install to do. Last year they were lined up all summer, and this year has been feast or famine.
 
Discussion starter · #150 ·
what design software are you using in your designs?
Pro Landscape Image Editor.

I have the planner part of the program (auto-cad) but I don't hardly use it.
 
I watched all of the videos on the Pro Landscape website... How do you like the software? Looks great in the videos, and the photos that you posted look great too.
 
Discussion starter · #152 ·
I really like the program.

Just like anything else, it took some time getting up to speed with all the capabilities of the program.

Some designers don't like Pro, but, I honestly haven't used any other programs so I can't compare it to anything else.

I wish they would package the software a little better though. Like stated before, I don't use the planner and the proposal side of the program and is almost a waste of space on my computer. It would be nice to just purchase those individually.

You can almost get the same results using photo-shop, but, Pro is specifically catered to landscape designers, so there are features that are not available on photo shop, such as the all the landscaping images. Anything else I need to do that Pro doesn't, then I use Art Weaver (free photo-shop style program) to fill in the gaps if there are any.

Ultimately, my customers love the fact that I can visually put things into perspective for them. The last thing I wanted to do as a scaper was to impose my creative will on the customer without them knowing what things were going to turn out like. With Pro, we all can agree on what will look good.
 
Discussion starter · #153 ·
So I'm working on the project from post #138.

The husband works as a chemical applicator and drive one of these for a living. Those things are sweet as the chassis has a roll-off system so they can spread dry materials or spray liquid.

Tire Wheel Vehicle Automotive tire Motor vehicle


His in-laws are also farmers and they own a 4-wheel monster truck looking floater that they spread lime and fertilizer with. So, they own an N-loader, or wheel loader to load that truck (what-ever you want to call it).

So I ask him if he has a tractor and loader on his farm that he could bring over to help pull stumps to save him money and me the hassle of renting a machine.

He had no problems bringing over one of these.

Wheel Tire Vehicle Automotive tire Sky


Little overkill, but got the job done. I think he wanted an excuse to rut the front yard so it would need new sod. :laugh:

I will say though, it almost struggled for a split second, and I mean a split second, pulling a mugo pine in the before pics.

Tire Wheel Vehicle Automotive tire Motor vehicle


Wheel Tire Vehicle Automotive tire Sky
 
You gotta love those big machines!!! My uncle has thousands of acres of farm land and its a privilege to work with him when I can because the machines are so awesome! I may just quit landscaping and start farming!! haha

That program is expensive!! Worth it?? I think it may make selling jobs easier...? What version are you running?
 
Discussion starter · #156 ·
how do you like the computer design and are they hard to figure out??? thanks
You gotta love those big machines!!! My uncle has thousands of acres of farm land and its a privilege to work with him when I can because the machines are so awesome! I may just quit landscaping and start farming!! haha

That program is expensive!! Worth it?? I think it may make selling jobs easier...? What version are you running?
Read Post #152 on this page. That's about the best I can describe the program.

Yes it is worth it. It definitively helps to sell the job. I've picked up customers that wasn't impressed with standard designs they had done for them and the program helps but things into perspective easily so they are confident that it will turn out great in the end.

Andy, don't start farming, generally not any more money in it than Landscaping. That's the reason I didn't stay home on the farm.
 
Discussion starter · #157 ·
So I haven't taken too many progress pics of this project only because I really didn't want to deal with the camera.

I took a few photos today of some of the quality White Gardens landscaping.

I'm on day five with two of those days being half days.

First pic is of the north side. No fabric, just the north side of the house where the HO has Some nice hostas and plants inpatients in between every year. It looked great before I chopped everything down (to fix the grade) and tore out the plastic edging. The bricks went smooth, and that side isn't so obvious so it was a good starting point to lay bricks. I needed a little practice before I went to the front.

Plant Leaf Tree Road surface Asphalt


Second pic is of the front. In order to get my run started I had to break away concrete that was used as a restraint for the paver side-walk. Luckily I was mortaring in the brick, so I was able to repair the side-walk.

Plant Property Window Road surface Asphalt


Third pic is of the finished edging. I must say those curves look sweet. I also talked the HO into letting me turn their Dwarf Blue Spruce into a topiary. It was going to get way too tall there any way, so I just topped it and limbed it up. I think I'm also going to put a Blue Chip Juniper under it.

Plant Road surface Tree Land lot Asphalt


Here is that last pic. The HO decided to use a rustic block for a border against the parking next to the road. I hand picked 50 feet of it. The block is very irregular and jagged so I tried to find the most square pieces, but I still had to cut most of them in order to not have large gaps when I go to butt them together. Luckily when I pulled the RR ties it left a nice trench to start with so I won't have to dig so much out.

I'll post the finish picks after the sod is laid next Weds.

Plant Road surface Land lot Grass Asphalt


Plant Leaf Tree Road surface Asphalt


Plant Property Window Road surface Asphalt


Plant Road surface Tree Land lot Asphalt


Plant Road surface Land lot Grass Asphalt
 
Discussion starter · #158 ·
Wow, Just pulled a 12 hour day.

I laided 2 tons of rock, then proceeded to lay all the block along the drive.

It took 11 bags of Type s-mortar with re-bar.

I turned around and finished the edging, then went and got my tiller to till the areas that are going to need sod.

The forecast called for rain and I'm glad I busted tail to get all my dirt work done as the skies have just opened up.

Now, I'm relaxing :drinkup:. I'm up to 4 beers now, and feeling great, and confrontational.:laugh:
 
Discussion starter · #159 ·
Another Quality Landscape by White Gardens. Thumbs Up

Finished up today. I woke up this morning and went over and blew out the joints of the paver sidewalk. Waited three hours for it to dry, then I installed the Poly-Sand for the paver joints. It really cleaned it up well and the HO will get a few more years out of it. I wanted to lift and re-set some of the blocks, but the main problem is that the soldier course has settled and degraded. The soldier course is set in a large concrete restrained, so by the time I would have fixed it, I could have done the same job with new pavers.

Took a few days longer than I wanted, but with Labor Day being last Mon, 2 inches of rain in the middle, and my sod not being delivered until yesterday, it stretched out a little.

Plant Building Tree Road surface Wheel


Plant Building Property Window Door


Plant Property Window Building Tree


Asphalt Road surface Plant Sidewalk Flooring


Plant Road surface Asphalt Land lot Grass


Plant Building Tree Road surface Wheel


Plant Building Property Window Door


Plant Property Window Building Tree


Asphalt Road surface Plant Sidewalk Flooring


Plant Road surface Asphalt Land lot Grass
 
Discussion starter · #160 ·
Ya !!!!!!

Finally have got the go ahead to start on the project that I posted designs for on post #64. :clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping:


The patio won't be done this year, but %90 of the sidewalk will be done, (250 feet), and one of the ledges along with doing the planting against the foundation.

This will be a great project to finish off the season........
 
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