Terry L. Ettinger Horticulture Consulting Services
Meeting The Needs Of Today With A Vision For The Future
Landscape Project Gallery
Lakeside Retreat
One of the goals for this summer residence included replacing the front lawn with a water “feature” that would relate to the lake on the other side of the home.
The photo at right shows the progress made during the first couple
of hours of the installation phase of a thirty foot by fifteen foot pond and waterfall feature
that resulted from the owner's challenge. It was situated so that they could sit in their great room and either look out over the lake, or toward the pond and waterfall through the large windows.
When outside, the owners can sit on the stone slab terrace above the pond (at the bottom of the photo at
right) and look across the pond, through the large great room windows and out to the lake beyond. The sound of the waterfall just below the terrace blocks much of the sound of traffic passing by on Route 89. The pond also features two large stone slabs cantilevered over the water to allow the owners easy access to the water in order to feed their collection of koi.
Meanwhile,
an aggressive, year-long weed management program resulted in the
successful control of a variety of invasive weeds (including
crownvetch and field bindweed) on the slope facing the lake at the
rear of the residence (photo at right).
Once the weeds were brought
under control, the slope was planted with hundreds of flowering shrubs,
ornamental grasses and long-blooming perennials (photo at right). The first blooms of
`Arnold’s Promise’ witchhazel will appear in mid-March, while the last
blooms of `Low Down’ willowleaf sunflower and other fall-blooming
perennials won’t fade until November.
This slope also features a 12,000 gallon per hour waterfall that “emerges from a spring” beneath the terrace at the top of the slope
(photo at right). Note how the waterfall “disappears” into the
washed stone at the base of the slope adjacent to the shuffleboard court!