Tuscan Garden Design & Installation

Contracted to install a new full property landscape at a newly-constructed home, I submitted a design that I felt would best accentuate the features of the home and the style of the owners. My design was themed around an Italian garden. The “Tuscan” style landscaping would emphasize the subtle Italian themes present in the home’s architecture and decor.

The grand size of the house along with the over-sized driveway and front courtyard lended themselves perfectly to the “Tuscan” themed gardens. I knew immediately I wanted to include Italian Cypress trees in the planting design. Repetition of plants and careful selection, with a focus on shades of green would complete the curb appeal. Fruit trees, a herb garden and cut flower garden would also be key features of the design.

A full property irrigation system, a circular brick paver patio, natural stepping stone garden path and new garden lighting would complete the project.

The challenge of this landscape design was selecting the appropriate plant material to best capture the “Tuscan” theme. Understanding the history and purposeful design of Italian-style gardens made the project enjoyable to build and a success once complete.

Bonnieview Place

Contracted to renovate the existing deck, add a new patio area and create a new water feature beside the client’s waterfront home. The large existing deck with hot tub area was rotting and the deck size was now too large since the children had moved out. The old deck was demolished and the hot tub recycled.

A new landscape design was approved for the construction of a smaller deck and patio that would cover the same square footage as the previous deck. A gentle stream originating from an elevated area adjacent to the new deck would feed into a lower pond by way of a double waterfall. This feature would become the owners favourite feature of the garden space. The waterfalls, stream and ponds were constructed using natural blasted stones set atop a heavy rubber liner and felt underlay.

The construction of this water feature was fun and challenging because it allowed for a great deal of creativity. Building the double falls was something I had not seen before and I was eager to see it spring to life. The area surrounding the upper stream and first falls was planted with low-growing material so as not to obstruct the views of the water from the home or the deck.

Ferndale Ave.

Contracted to install a complete finished landscape over the entire property in preparation for a home wedding. The project began with an updated design concept for the backyard. A basement suite renovation currently underway required a large excavation of the backyard immediately behind the home. We created a design that incorporated a large sunken patio, curving retaining walls with cap stones and wrought iron handrails, a sloping ramp and three sets of stairs – two of which would be custom curves.

The project quickly expanded to include three additional interlocking brick paver sidewalks around the property, a new front door landing, new decorative gardens, new turf sod, the addition of several new trees and shrubs and a full property irrigation system installation. The expanded size of the project would now require twenty-two pallets of concrete materials alone.

The most challenging part of the project was completing the large scale installation before the looming wedding date deadline. Planning, scheduling and communicating with everyone involved was critical to be certain that everything was completed in the correct order so as not to cause conflicts, errors or delays. In the end, we were able to complete the project on time for the big day, and on budget as well.