Madrone’s Landscape Designers: a unique breed. Creative, social creatures; it’s not often you’ll find us alone. We tend to work in packs.
But these days are not the norm. We’re currently working from our home habitat – roaming our yards and living rooms, and keeping a safe social distance. While on one hand, it’s nice to have time to work on our own gardens and yards, it’s also been a challenge to work away from the office, field, and teammates.
#WFHLife: The Pros
For Megan Savage, working at home has some real benefits. “It’s a flexible workspace,” she says. “I usually set up at either the couch in my living room or at my dining table. But, on nice days, I can sit at my patio table in the sunshine while I work; it looks over a small greenbelt, and my neighbor’s jasmine is blooming right now so it’s very peaceful. And my dog Lily is happy I’m home!” Ian Parker, too, finds some solace in his own personal landscape, saying that one of the things he likes best as he stays at home is the opportunity to “work in my beautiful backyard and spend time with my best doggie friend Daisy.”
Both Jill Bleher and Christy Dufault are enjoying the company of feline friends. Christy says that she’s “actually enjoying the solitude of working at home. Of course, having animals in the house helps. My cats are keeping me company.” For Jill, her cat Destiny has been one of the best parts of working from home, along with seeing her husband Alec throughout the workday. When sharing social isolation with anyone, from friends to family, it’s a relief to have good company.
#WFHLife: The Cons
Even with the designers who have people or pets at home, the isolation can be a new kind of challenge, missing the company of both coworkers and social ambiance. For Megan, it’s the chatter she yearns for. She misses “being able to talk to my coworkers without having to pick up a phone.” Likewise, Christy says, “It will be nice to see everyone and be able to communicate in person!” Ian misses collaborating with his “lovely teammates”. Being unable to share ideas with one another so effortlessly is truly one of those things that we don’t realize we’ll miss until it’s gone.
Thank goodness for technology! Jill admits that “our communication remotely is relatively good with Zoom and phone calls and technology in general”—work would be strenuous without it—but it still can’t compete with physical proximity. The “long-distance communication just doesn’t match in-person connection!” she remarks. Ian finds that his home technology falls a little short – he longs to use his big computer screen.
All in all, our Madrone Design team is still working away from their respective homes; starting new projects and continuing their efforts for current clients. We look forward to resuming work in our usual manner, but the circumstances have allowed us to grow and appreciate our working environments in fresh ways—both the old and the new.
While we all work together to make sure this pandemic passes as quickly as possible, we take solace in our surroundings and look forward to the friendships, teammates, and work spaces we’ll come back to when this is over. In the meantime, stay safe and upbeat – we look forward to seeing you in the office or field soon!
At Madrone we thrive on bringing a vision to life for clients who fully embrace a style not usually seen in the Central Coast area. For this project, we began with an existing palette that features warm colors and solid, hard materials that are reminiscent of a Southwestern-Baja aesthetic.
A solid foundation of existing hardscape features, mature trees, deck structures, and a koi pond were a great starting point to designing a new planting plan, hardscape updates, and upgrading the irrigation infrastructure.
We found a variety of ways to re-use materials already found in and around the home. The same type of flagstone originally used in the backyard is now reflected in the side and front yards, and a new deck platform matches the existing backyard deck. While the plant materials vary from the front yard to the back, a similar set of accent plants are carried throughout. Succulents and silver-toned specimens were used as accents amidst a colorful drought tolerant plant palette. Warm-toned, angular gravel was used in place of traditional wood mulch to bring the essence of the Baja heat.
Healthy, existing trees were kept, and new trees of the same type were added in other areas in the yard to offer moments of shaded relief. These small design details bring the new and old together to create a single, cohesive, overall vision.
Our collaboration with a client who doesn’t shy away from what they like, and is flexible to suggestions, helped us transform this landscape into a true oasis.
Located between Arroyo Grande and San Luis Obispo, this new home sits amidst rolling hills and breathtaking views. The hardscape aesthetic plays off the modernized farmhouse architecture, with clean lines and concrete. A soft native and Mediterranean-inspired plant palette flows into the surrounding native meadow environment.
Madrone was hired to do an all-encompassing design for planting, hardscape, and irrigation with lighting placement and specifications, plus some detail features such as fountains.
The scale of the site demanded thoughtful restraint to minimize future maintenance requirements, as well as a smooth transition from “kept” landscape areas to the natural surroundings. With an upper tier designated as the “kept” landscape, the area below it remains a native meadow. We created a seamless transition by staggering slightly fuller specimens to blur the edge of the landscaped slope.
The design utilizes clusters of plantings to form implied pathways. When walking through the landscape, it will feel light and airy. When sitting down, the view will be a full and lush landscape.
Just as the home was constructed to be fire safe, we kept fire safety in mind with the landscape design. Using Cal Fire’s recommendations for defensible space to inform our design, we used gravel as our mulch material closer to the home and populated the plant list with low-risk plant materials.
Building a new home demands time, energy, patience, and confidence. It was a gift to work with a conscientious client who thoughtfully assembled their team of professionals to craft solutions for both the indoor and outdoor environments.
It’s a beautiful summer day to Meet the Team! This month we are highlighting our General Manager – fearless leader and plant guru – Daniel. His passion for our work is deep-rooted and contagious: it is felt by everyone who has the pleasure of working with him. Our team wouldn’t be the same without our pun-loving, surf-styling manager! Read more below to get to know a bit about him!
How long have you been working at Madrone?
I have been working at Madrone for 11 ½ years. I started in December 2007 right at the beginning of the Great Recession. With a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture and a couple years of running and working in small design build landscape companies, it was a tough time to be starting out on your own. Before Madrone, work simply ran out. I reached out to a former Landscape Architect professor, Stratton Semmes, and she told me to come and talk to Rick Mathews at Madrone Landscape. I interviewed with Rick in my nicest button up shirt, slacks, and shoes, willing to help out however I could as a 25-year old young adult. The next day, I came in with work boots and jeans and started running landscape construction jobs. As time went on, I took on design, estimating, and sales while managing construction projects. Madrone was about 10 people and we all did what we could to survive in the dismal economy of 2007-2010. Sure enough, things turned around and the phone started ringing. We started working with business consultants to organize our roles and the company makeup to handle more work. We started building the team of key people we still have today and it helped us get past the hurdle of being an awkwardly small company where everyone wears a lot of hats.
Today we have about 25 people and 4 distinct departments: Design, Construction, Maintenance, and Service. Our capability, organization, and talent has grown. I have been the General Manager for the last 4 years and it has been an honor to work with such great people and see how much we can accomplish working together.
2. What is your favorite thing about working at Madrone?
My favorite thing about working at Madrone Landscape is the culture. We have some unique characters and everyone is free to be themselves. We spend most of our adult lives at work, so it is important that we make the best of it. The support I feel from everyone, and the comradery I see really makes me feel good about working here.
3. What is your favorite project that you’ve worked on and why?
My favorite project is Halter Ranch Vineyard. Before I came on in 2007, Madrone had already installed several projects on the property. When I started working with Halter Ranch, there were several multi-firm design and construction collaborations for various projects. Everyone involved shared a pride in the work. It was fun to work with the ownership and other trades with the common goal of producing the best product we could. Halter Ranch’s internal team shares a lot of our core values like stewardship, quality, teamwork, and integrity. Not to mention, we have installed some of the most beautiful landscapes of our portfolio there. We have won 3 county and statewide CLCA awards in 2012 and 2016, notably 1st place Large Commercial Construction in 2016 for the Tasting Room Landscape. Having a stoked team that works well together and produces award winning projects is a true privilege. To add to that, the property is open to the public 7 days a week and it is great to be able to enjoy the landscape and share it with others. Win, win, win!
4. What is your favorite, or least favorite, plant and why?
My favorite plant is ever-evolving and it really comes from emotions and horticultural nerdiness. If you are not a plant nerd, you may want to skip this section ;). Generally, I get excited about seeing California native plants in their prime season. Right now in summer, Mimulus aurantiacus, Mimulus ‘Cone Peak,’ Trichostemalanatum are pretty awesome mid-summer bloomers, with the Trichstema having one of the coolest scents. In the winter and spring, Salviaspathacea is beautifully blooming and fragrant, while the Saturejadouglasii is the most refreshing herby mint scent of all. In fall, the Zauschneria (way more fun to say than Epilobium) is a showstopper. Basically, growing up in California, then learning the plants, allows me to flash back to memories exploring the woods as a kid. If I step on a Gnaphaliumcalifornicum, it smells just like maple syrup and brings me back to the walk home from the bus stop in 5th grade, where we would step on them. Native trees are also very dear to me. I grew up in a mixed evergreen forest with Quercusagrifolia, Quercuslobata, Quercuskeloggii, Acermacrophyllum, Arbutusmenziesii, Heteromelesarbutifolia, Umbellulariacalifornica, and Sequoia sempervirens. Being in a forest feels like home to me, anywhere in the world. Finally, the almighty tomato, my first introduction to gardening. I owe my career to growing tomatoes as a kid and developing a great appreciation for how good a home-grown tomato can taste. The connections to plants in my youth definitely shaped me as a person. The beauty of horticulture is that it is limitless with cool things to learn every day.
When it comes to landscape installation, I have a different set of favorites and least favorites based on performance. As I see more landscapes mature, I tend to like to design a majority of long-lived low maintenance plants with far less perennials and high maintenance flowering plants. There is nothing worse than showing up to a landscape 5 years later to see that it was not maintained to your vision and plants have died. Therefore, my pragmatic favorite plants are: Rhamnus californica ‘Leatherleaf’, Chondropetalum tectorum, Carex divulsa, Arctostaphylos (several good Manzanita), Quercus (agrifolia & lobata), Pistacia chinensis, Cedrus deodora, Cistus ‘Sunset’, Muhlenbergia rigens, Pennisetum spathiolatum, Agave ‘Frosty Blue’, and of course Arbutus ‘Marina’. My least favorite plants are invasive pests such as Cortadera selloana, Ehrhart acalcina, Arundo donax, Delairea odorata, Stipa tenuissima, and Cytisus scoparius. These plants threaten our native California landscape – which means a lot to me.
5. What’s one of the things on your bucket list?
On my bucket list is getting my Landscape Architecture License. I haven’t needed it personally to do my job, but it is something I could get this year with the little I have remaining in the process. Life has a way of changing plans, and it has been evading me thus far. Free time to study is what it will take. I will get it done, and hopefully very soon.
2019 continues to fly by, and as Spring came to a close we were honored to once again participate in the California Landscape Contractor’s Association’s Beautification Awards competition. This annual event invites Landscape Contractors from throughout San Luis Obispo County to submit their top projects to be judged by a panel of highly regarded landscape professionals. Judging of the projects is based on a strict criteria of artistic and technical achievement, with a focus on quality and workmanship.
For this year’s event, Madrone Landscape entered four of our recent projects, and we are excited to announce that allfour projects brought home top prizes in their respective categories! We wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the projects and delve into what makes them worthy of top honors!
Project Spotlight: Gampe Residence
Category: Medium Residential Landscape Installation
Award: 1st Place – Medium Residential Landscape Installation
Description: This project, completed in the Fall of 2018, posed a tough design challenge as we were asked to make a big impact in a small space. High end finishes like a stone veneered retaining wall and a beautiful, flowing Sweetwater Flagstone patio border helped provide the artistic touches that the Client was after. A beautiful blend of pea gravel and river cobble does a wonderful job of complementing the drought tolerant plant palette, creating pound for pound one of our favorite projects of the year. We couldn’t be more pleased with the results!
Project Spotlight: Humphrey Residence
Category: Large Residential Landscape Installation
Award: 1st Place – Large Residential Landscape Installation
Description: Nestled in a beautiful North County Live Oak forest, this project combines all that makes landscaping on the Central Coast of California so special. The architecture and aesthetic of the home called for an updated take on the ‘English Cottage Garden’ aesthetic, which our designers were able to accomplish through a predominately California Native plant palette. The beautiful custom trellises in the back yard do a wonderful job of complimenting the accents of the home, and provide an improved level of comfort and security as you enjoy the lawn area – which is often used to host summer concerts for the client and their friends. Stamped and colored concrete walkways meander through the landscape, providing safe passage while softening the rigidity often associated with the use of concrete. Several unique seating areas provide the perfect vantage point to enjoy the abundance of birds, butterflies and bees that frequent the garden. Overall, this project has proven to be an achievement worthy of recognition!
Award: Design / Build Award – All Categories (Installation)
Architect: Jade Architecture Builder: Semmes and Co. Builders (GC)
Description: Easily one of our favorite projects of the past year, the Pataye Residence is one that demands you stop and take notice. The architecture of this new home and the natural beauty of the location are amazing on their own, so we knew that only a contemporary take on the California Native garden would suffice. Our designers opted to use Carex praegracillis in place of traditional lawn, and chose to irrigate with sub-surface drip irrigation – conserving water, and falling right in line with the environmental focus of this off-grid masterpiece. The entry courtyard features a one-of-a-kind water wall which collects and cascades into a large reflection pool, stimulating all the senses. The unique details and high-end features of this project made it both fun and gratifying to work on at every phase, and we are so excited to receive this prestigious award for our efforts!
Project Spotlight: Edwards Residence
Category: Residential Estate Maintenance
Award: Sweepstakes Award – Best of All Categories (Maintenance)
Description: Completed in 2014, this gorgeous Madrone landscape has been one of our favorites for a long time. The 5 acre property features several acres of vineyard, as well as numerous outdoor living spaces surrounded by beautiful drought tolerant landscaping. Proper planning and installation has made this property a dream to maintain. Now, as a budding 5 year old landscape, we felt it was time for this property to get the recognition that it deserves. Our wonderful clients recognize the maintenance needs of such a gorgeous property, and encourage us to take the time to focus on the details and keep things looking their best. Kudos to our maintenance team for doing such a great job and bringing home the highest landscape maintenance honor in the County!
