Landscape Contractor’s Tour

by Julie Orr on August 24, 2010

As a member of the California Landscape Contractors Association (CLCA), I had the pleasure of touring a handful of professionally designed and installed gardens around Hillsborough, Atherton and Los Gatos. These gardens all exemplified amazing outdoor rooms that reflected the needs of their clients. Here are some design ideas and highlights from the tour: Pools [...]

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Edible Landscaping Tour Photos

by Julie Orr on August 23, 2010

Common Ground Nursery put on another wonderful tour this year. It was enjoyable to spend time in these mouth-watering gardens and see the creativity that both the designers and homeowners put into their spaces. Some of the highlights included: Vertical landscaping towers. I loved the succulents but you could also plant with strawberries Art and [...]

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San Jose Landscape Design with Front Yard Pond

by Julie Orr on August 16, 2010

Water feature installed by SouthBay Landscaping

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What is a Landscape Designer?

August 9, 2010

When you think of landscape design, you think about plants, right? Yes, that is a huge part of the process to creating a wonderful outdoor space but there is much more that goes into the profession. A landscape designer as someone who mixes both the science of horticulture along with the creativity of design to [...]

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Don’t Just Kill Your Lawn, Compost It

July 28, 2010

When it comes time to remove or reduce your lawn there are three standard methods to choose from. First you could remove the lawn manually with a sod cutter or sharp shovel. As you’ll notice I said the word ‘manually’ because it is just that- hard manual labor. Unless you are hiring a professional, the [...]

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Top 10 Water Wise, Low Maintenance Plants

July 14, 2010

These Julie Orr Design top plants choices not only have year-round interest in the garden but they are easy to care for and maintain. Once established in your garden, they only require deep irrigation 1-2 times per month. Salvia clevelandii ‘Winnifred Gilman’- This California native evergreen sage produces sprays of tall blue-violet flowers that attract [...]

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Do Landscape Designers Need To Be Licensed?

July 12, 2010

In the state of California, landscape designers are not required to be licensed. Since designers are not providing construction drawings we don’t need a license in the way that landscape architects do. Landscape architects are licensed because they are telling you exactly how to build a structure or system. According to the www.ca.gov a landscape [...]

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Why Hire a Landscape Designer?

July 11, 2010

A potential client recently asked me this very important question. Not only did it bring up the “why a landscape designer” question but it also made me think, “why hire me” specifically? If clients are looking for general designer information, The Association of Professional Landscape Designers, also known as APLD, is a great place to [...]

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