No guarantee this link will work someday, but it does today: http://www.411homerepair.com/garden/Ideas/landscape_design_2.shtml Forgot I sent this article about designing to a small site, its my opinion about designers contracting to design gardens. Stumbled on it today by chance while doing a search. Figured I'd share it. I'll let you paste the address if you like. Same basic logic is shared at: www.americangardenmuseum.com under our Oregon garden. This is new site in the works.
touching plants is a huge key in design work and part of an overall "qualified" gardening or landscaping person. I look at someplans by LA's and wonder what they were thinking, I look at others and marvel at the combinations and use of space. I think that doing the things we are asking others to do when we design, we can truly provide a good working basis for cosmetic look with practicality to the consumer. I feel that experience of different avenues as well as "book" knowledge is the true key to being an outstanding landscape shaper, working in the nursery, working in the landscape install or maintenance industry and learning the design methods and techniques are all essential.
Thanks for sharing that. Its fun to see this site pick up a little life. I stumbled on it last winter.
Wow.. this thread is still here. I stumlbed on this via a URL trace. Interesting too, because the link to an article I did - listed above - is still active. I even tried to copy and paste it, but surprisingly, it's got some kind of copyright thing that prevents copy and paste - maybe I should get that too. I was hoping to put it in the articles of the new second site I just started: http://www.askanarborist.com At least I can always print it, and rewrite it slightly altered - I'm the source anyhow. It's almost weird feeling starting a forum from ground zero - the goal is to draw 98% non-professionals. (By the way, it may be remarkable, how many people in Oregon go to the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research site - I think it's Canadians living here. I've talked to several here that use your site because they are familiar with it)
Mario - copy and paste works for me. Then again, I'm using the Mozilla web browser, which ignores these kind of javascript "tools" which break functionality.
hi M.D V what makes you think that the idea of the forums is to draw 98 % of non proffesionals ?? I thought that the idea was for people to share or trade info in an informal matter. Do we all have to ID ourselves ? Or is this a casual way of shareing and gaining knowledge. For instance I have worked with the restoration of gardens in several different counties for heritage (family and nationally) Yet I am sure that there are questions that you or several people on this site could help me with. there Are several that have already done so. ( And I thank them all Jim, Paul ,Daniel,Douglas and all the other members of this great site !!!!!!) regards Doug
Doug, I think Mario was talking about his own site (which he links to - the askanarborist one) and his intent to draw 98% non-professionals to it.
Javascript circumvent: highlight the desired text, press Ctrl&C to copy to clipboard, press Ctrl&V to paste.
Yes, the 98% referred to my forums. Thanks for the suggestions to copy, I'll try that. Also, I think our son added Mozilla on my computer, I may try that too. The main reason I use Internet Explorer, is that the real Google Toolbar works with it - it not only has the pop-up blocker, and highlight button, but it has a meter on it that ranks the relevence of websites. Good day to you all.
A few morning thoughts. Doug: I think from a distance we can tell by people's posts who has some knowledge in plants and who we may want to go to for help on an issue that we may already have or an issue that may crop up. I've always felt it was the practical application of what we know and have learned was far more important than total knowledge ever is but that is just my opinion. Informal online forums can be tough to "read" what the person means sometimes. I may write something and someone else may take the tenor of what I wrote to mean something completely different than what I meant. It is unique though that even in past forums in which some of us did not see things eye to eye or there was a jealousy factor or whatever else working against better online relations that when we would talk on the telephone that we seemed to have a rapport that made us think that we have known each other for years. It is unique how one telephone call can sometimes cut through the ice when several posts in a forum may not lead to a better relationship between individuals. I do feel that Mario is quite correct about what is going on in Oregon. On the state level here we ran into a problem with landscapers years ago in that the state wanted to lump home gardeners under a landscape license. The problem was that so few of the home gardeners could pass the exam that they all are and have been working under someone else's general contractors license instead. Unless the tree trimmer or tree pruner is working through a recognized service they are not licensed to perform the work themselves but will openly list their contractor's license number on the doors of their trucks or on a business card but when we do a check, the license number was issued to someone else. We do want people to generate an interest in plants and these UBC forums can provide the springboard to do just that. Just in Maples alone we've seen some people develop a relative recent interest (within the last 4 years) and some of them have hit the ground floor running. One person in particular that I got off onto the wrong foot with early has been writing me a lot and I'll tell you the guy shows a lot of promise as he is taking the initiative and time to study his own questions before he asks me. This guy reminds me of me and how I learned and did things years ago to learn Maples. I think people do need to be either guided or pointed in the right direction should they have an interest in plants or want to learn more of a particular plant. As I know all too well from the phone calls we used to get at the nursery that so many people just do not grasp the basics of plants to know what questions to ask us. Then when we have to ask them questions in order to learn more about what they know is when we can really be up against it. The old, common question of I saw a picture of a plant in a magazine and I want to grow it (not can I grow it), do you have any available? Then when we ask do they have any knowledge of the plant is when we also felt that 98% of the people asking did not do any reading up on the plant before they made their call to us. It is the knee-jerk, impulse reactions and asking us for all of the info is what drove us nuts, fully knowing in advance that chances are the caller was going to buy the plant somewhere else. Most of our calls came from out of the immediate area. It is a service that the dedicated nurseryman will provide as it helps the rest of the industry. We may not like the timing of the telephone calls but the caller will not know that from us. Then everything changes when we get a phone call from a lady in Napa wanting one Keith Davies Chinese Pistache and is all excited on the phone that she located a source for that tree. Tells us she will be at the nursery the next day and she does indeed arrive to buy one tree. You want to "bend over backwards" for someone like her. No one will put you down Doug, you've been too helpful in these forums. Don't ever think that onlookers are not paying attention and have not noticed your willingness to help others with solid advice. Best regards, Jim
