Landscape Composition.
Garden Design and Stonework.
Restoration and Creation.
We make Places.
Our services range from Consultation through Design, Construction and Planting.
The goal of our work is to help people shape their land and residential buildings so as to have a comfortable, natural and esthetically pleasing relationship with their outdoor world.
It is our belief that the character of a place profoundly influences the lives lived within it. A well considered and intelligently constructed landscape is fundamental to contentment in the outdoor life, for the people, plants and creatures alike.
“Only as a feature or any part becomes a harmonious element in the harmonious whole does it arrive at a state of simplicity”
…………………………………………Frank Lloyd Wright
All of the Landscape and Garden photographs shown in articles on this website are of Stone Garden Designs’ projects, unless otherwise indicated.
How
Our approach is first to help the owners to develop an overall vision for a satisfying development of their place. Design solutions for each circumstance respond to personal wishes as well as to comfort of use, ecological, and esthetic issues at hand. To best consider individual client needs and desires, some time is needed to learn for us to learn about the people who will be living there.
As an experienced designer, I can usually ‘read’ a landscape quickly, noticing problems and recognizing opportunities inherent in the location. These observations are fundamental to the possibilities for the design. Taking the givens and the goals into account, SGD develops designs with the client, recommending features, linkages and special plant materials selected for their particular context.
The organic part of a landscape is codesigned with the hardscape, and we pride ourselves on our extensive knowledge of plant materials. Our display gardens are home to hundreds of kinds of plants.
The various projects which comprise an overall landscape are sequenced by client priorities in consideration of primary needs, wants and economics, as well as the logistics of efficiently creating the various parts of the vision. We develop a plan which can guide the work in an appropriate ‘no backtrack’ sequence, and then begin to accomplish the chosen portions.
Stone Garden Designs’ properties are usually built gradually. Bringing a whole vision to life within a property is something which unfolds over time.
Opportunities for enhancements can often be best seen as projects come into being. Landscape design details often unfold in tandem with the building process. For very best outcomes, some flexibility is retained throughout the process of making. Where we are dealing with natural materials, there is variability, so an artistic result requires working closely with them.
“The details are not the details. They make the design.”
Charles Eames
We locate and hand select both the hard and soft materials to be used in each project. This allows us to insert details that cannot be prescribed, unique things. We use antique hand cut granites, old artifacts and artisan crafted structures and garden buildings. Our work is local, using artisans with whose work we are familiar. This way we know the quality of what will be done and can readily look in on the work, as needed.
With Whom
Finding the Right Landscape Design Team
If a design professional is going to help you to create your landscape, you will want to know if their esthetic and the quality of their outcomes suit your sensibilities, so I would recommend that you go and see their work. In this way you can be sure that their vision and goals are resonant with your own.
If you were planning to hire an architect or a portrait painter, you might want to see some work the candidates had done. Landscape and garden designing and making are art forms. Individual designers have a character to their work, in the same way that artists in other mediums do. You will probably want someone whose work you like, to make a good partnership. I hope that you will enjoy the images of our work.
All the photographs shown in the articles on this Website, a Reasoned Landscape.com, are from our completed projects and their gardens. I hope you will enjoy them.
Our Quality Shows.
Sincerely,
Ellen Cool, for Stone Garden Designs Inc.
“Shaping Your Wishes”
Landscape Composition.
Garden Design and Stonework
Restoration and Creation
‘The Parable’, Our Display Garden, is open by appointment.
Unusual Plant materials, planting Troughs,
Unique Garden Tools and Ornaments
are available for purchase on the premises when our gardens are open.
