While doing a post on the Sustainable Sites Initiative for the Atwater Landscape contest blog Turf Battle I’d remembered I also wanted to write about a homeowner version of this document called Landscape for Life. I first read about this project at the wonderful Garden Rant blog, then immediately went to read the document. I’d been following […]…Continue Reading Sustainable Landscaping
Tag: landscape
Tree Hazards and Removals
How do we decide when to remove a tree? It’s the hardest part of our job here in the landscape department, deciding when to give up on one of our trees, and schedule its removal. Some of our oldest trees on campus have their life span measured not in years, but in centuries, so removing […]…Continue Reading Tree Hazards and Removals
Some Late Fall Color
We’re in the bitter end of fall here, at least in terms of foliage. To me, this is when trees really start to shine. Maybe it’s all the bare trees nearby, or the perpetually cloudy skies, but the remaining foliage seems to take on an extra glow, or maybe urgency. Foliage colors that wouldn’t have […]…Continue Reading Some Late Fall Color
Best Addition to the Landscape 2010
Everybody has been talking about it, and I know I’m late to the party in posting a picture of the mural on the back of Wright Theater. What I wanted to post, though, was not the best picture of the mural out there, but a picture of the mural in the context of the greater […]…Continue Reading Best Addition to the Landscape 2010
Shade Plantings, and a new Service Building look
Landscape books often write about shade as a “problem”, or give chapters on “solutions” for shady locations. I think that’s crazy talk. Shade plantings require a slightly different mindset, like stepping two feet to the left and looking at the world slightly skewed. Full sun is luxuriant-throw anything in there, and it’s bound to look […]…Continue Reading Shade Plantings, and a new Service Building look
Tree Planting 2010
Of all the work we do here in the landscape department, some of the best is the tree planting. Think of our landscape at Middlebury as a living organism, changing and evolving. Trees have a lifespan, like us, only measured not in decades but hopefully in centuries, for the best and strongest. Site vagaries not […]…Continue Reading Tree Planting 2010
New Planting for Pearson Hall
One of my frequent failings in landscaping is my overall excitement when starting a job, especially here at Middlebury. So much of the work we do in the department for new plantings is ripping out large, overgrown, outdated landscape shrubs. Crank up the chainsaw, get the backhoe in position, and dive right in. The failing? […]…Continue Reading New Planting for Pearson Hall