It’s a new dawn and a new day. What a perfect time to turn our focus to our outdoor living space.
The Urbanna Process
A serene, customized outdoor living space is more important than ever. Responding to my client’s ideas for their home is much like taking a leap into the unknown.
They share their idea, recall that day they saw that gorgeous purple flower, interrupt their musings, about an island on the road back from the hike. Mid-conversation, sometimes, they will reach for a book, and flip to a page recalling a picture of a flowering plant in a balmy shade of orange… or is it peach?
Sometimes the inspiration for a landscape design comes from a plant or tree they saw at a friend’s house while drinking wine on the terrace. Other times, it’s a bouquet at the grocery store they saw as they grabbed that evening’s dinner. That fleeting detail became the reason for redoing the outdoor living space.
Some of my favorite conversations are ones where my new client reminisces about someone they care about, a mother or long past relative, a sprig of Spider plant pulled from the heirloom plant passed down from generation to generation.
Creating Your Outdoor Living Space
Creating an outdoor living space is not only, then, an act of love, it is also a spontaneous re-creation of people’s memories, come together as a kind of collage, a reenactment of their hearts, translated from my own onto the dirt, the wind, the open negative space that fills up their outdoors.
Landscaping starts there, but the craft begins in creating a strong visual representation of those recollections, and musings. Many of these have no words, even fewer of which have both words and forms— vegetation that brings them from their tucked spaces in their minds into the real world of earth, air and outdoor living. That is where I fit my translation skills in, where I sift the vision through a filter and come out with a layout that encompasses that world you want to feel, see, smell, touch and experience in your outdoor living space.
Outdoor Living Space Elements
These elements are the patterns— of plantings that make up drifts, clusters, masses that carry texture color and scent, then the structures and other hard elements, and turn us back to our hearts. This is where we began the journey to creation, with our hearts. And it also where that journey ends—with our hearts. In our outdoor living spaces, taking in the wafts of rose, transfixed by the curves of those succulents lined up in rows, and carried away by the rustling sound of Aspen leaves in the wind. The collection of these sensations is what I, maybe we, refer to as joy.
Urbanna Consultations
I would love to be there to connect you and your home to nature. One way to do that is to book an Outdoor Joy Consultation. This new Urbanna Landscaping consultation was born out of a desire to help the DIY owner or project manager who wants to do landscaping right, and have their project look as if we did it for you. This is a great choice for the avid gardener, or for the stay-at-home family. It works for larger gardens, or complicated landscape or drainage issues. In a total of 6 hours, you’ll receive our most coveted advice and input. Then, the implementation is up to you! And of course, if you discover you need more help, we’re always here to create and build your dream landscape design.
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