Design for Winter

[Adam Regn Arvidson]

As a denizen of the cold upper Midwest, I have always had to deal with how landscapes work in winter. Those of you who also live in the cold places in the world can surely relate to snow storage zones, damage by snowplow operators, and the expense and utility conflicts of frost footings.

What I want to know, though, is how to make a site look elegant year-round. I have been commissioned by Landscape Architecture Magazine to write about just that, and I am currently searching for excellent projects to illustrate that it can be done.

If you or your firm has great winter pictures of great projects, please send them to me (adam@treeline.biz is the address, and be assured I won’t send anything on for publication without securing the proper permissions first). If you have a particular opinion on what works in winter, share it here.

I look forward to your input. Stay warm!

[Les Ballard]

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. I like drifts of flowers with veg. planted between, while others like a lot of black earth and a single row of red tulips! The change from winter to summer and back again, however, in any project, is probably best copied from Mother Nature as she seasonally changes her cloak.

On or through the snow, folk seem to want reindeer or buffalo and pines, until the bulbs poke through, which just may not be possible. If snow is deep, as you hint, even small trees may get buried and that brings me to fake buildings – or ruins – that can carry evergreens, hederas, frost protected and sun warmed plant boxes maybe with herbs and such furniture as a weather vane. (A solar powered garden lamp poking out may make the structure visible to snow plough drivers.) Planting can be once a decade, or with more efffort in planting annuals. If the summer weather is hot, a watering system can be incorporated and southerly (N. Hemisphere) surfaces used for espaliers or step-overs, actually raised above the ground but frost protected, to provide earlier fruit. Run-off can be stored in a grey water tank beneath and taking water from the main building too. A small rotor and a car battery can provide enough power to pump water.

The same “ruin” can provide a play area (beware poisonous plants), seat, plinth for artwork, weather station, observatory, snak-attak centre for wildlife or a bar-b-que area. It can also be an anchor for a washing line and flagpole if you want one. The whole thing can provide a landmark for all and may shelter a dug-out, with tinted glass screens, lit at night for parties. By day it can provide privacy for sunbathing or even wooing. This last activity requires a bar jutting out for the owl to sit on when raining and exclaim “too wet to woo”. (Seriously, you can include bird, bat, owl and bumble bee boxes.)

Not everyone wants a corner of a fort flying the flag of the 7th Cavalry, or a Pictish Broch, or a tor with a force filling a swimming- hole style pool or pond with tree ferns, but something reflecting their area may be acceptable to both the owner and the neighbours. Even a miniature of the building being graced would be fun but, that which is good blends into the landscape. How ordinary, for example, is the old wood clad farm – that appears in the Dracula story – called Carfax, yet the octagonal brick dove cote outside – where the Count is supposed to have spent a night in his box of Transylvanian earth – fits in very nicely these days. You can see it from two roads, as the property stands between the tines of a fork in the main road and opposite the oil refinery! This was not, of course, present when Bram Stoker stayed in the area writing his magnum opus. (Purfleet, Essex, UK.)

I hope that this note helps you. Please use anything but credit me as a source.

Luv n Lite,
Les Ballard

[Vance W. Hall]

Adam,

I currently work for Terrasan Inc. a firm that specializes in mountain resorts. I will try and dig up some of our winter shots for you as well as some of the ways that we are currently handling items such as “snow storage zones, damage by snowplow operators, and the expense and utility conflicts of frost footings.” We work in areas like Park City, Utah and Truckee, CA that are often under feet of snow in the winter so I hope I can help.

Vance Hall

[Author]

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