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Transform Your Landscape into a Recreational Space for Kids

Transform Your Landscape into a Recreational Space for Kids
Source: Dargan Landscape Architects

There’s no reason for families to sacrifice beautiful landscape designs in an effort to house their children’s play equipment. In fact, the best outdoor areas should include a mix of hardscaping and landscaping elements that are consciously chosen to engage both adults and children.

Your landscape should be thought of as a whole comprised of complementary parts. Hardscape elements and plants should flow into one another to create boundaries and defined spaces used to direct the eye or feet in a specific direction. When done well, your children will be able to experience an outdoor wonderland that encourages movement, engagement with Mother Nature, and plenty of opportunities to use your imagination.

Here are some suggestions for creating landscapes that children and adults alike will thoroughly enjoy together.

Include a space for a vegetable garden. There’s no need to dedicate a large amount of space for a vegetable garden unless you want to. Even small kitchen or container gardens will provide hours of entertainment, delight, activity, learning and — most importantly — abundant harvests. Planting, watering and picking vegetables is an enjoyable activity for everyone.

Use hardscape features for an interactive design. From water features to pathways and raised garden beds, the right hardscape elements will delight your children. Additionally, koi and water plants can live year-round in the right pond. Winding pathways with a blend of plants that block the view around corners add a sense of mystery and wonder. When used safely, fire pits are wonderful places for families to gather, tell stories, and enjoy the soothing nighttime chorus.

Plant flowers for year-round interest. Engage your children when purchasing seeds and flowers to create year-round interest. For example, you can create magical spaces with tall sunflowers planted next to blooming climbers, like morning glories. Then, make sure to include some winter berry-bearing plants to attract winter birds and animals during the colder months.

There’s no yard too large or too small when it comes to creating recreational spaces for children. Larger spaces can accommodate swimming pools or an expanse of lawn sized for croquet, lawn tennis, or badminton. You can read more about detailed plans for multi-purpose landscapes in my book, Lifelong Landscape Design. Contact Dargan Landscape Architects to make your landscape design ideas a reality.

What Does a Lifelong Landscape Design Offer You?

Source: Dargan Landscape Architects
Source: Dargan Landscape Architects

When Mary Palmer and Hugh Dargan sit down with clients, the first item of business is to establish how the client sees their landscape in relationship to their lifestyle. This helps us to design outdoor spaces that meet present needs and also look to the future, so we hold a vision of “The Whole” in mind, even as we work feature-by-feature and part-by-part. This is Lifelong Landscape Design for the individual family.

When it comes to your personal landscape, you want to create a design that contours, adorns, and facilitates your current lifestyle as well as your households’ future evolution. But, we can take that one step – or several steps – further and evaluate how lifelong landscape design principles can be incorporated on a larger scale.

Lifelong Landscape Design Creates Well-Rooted Environments for the Community

Imagine what your community would look like if everyone was on the Lifelong Landscape Design train. We imagine it would look a little like this:

  • Every home would have some form of a kitchen, herb or vegetable garden, and neighbors might even collaborate to organize who grows what so everyone benefits.

  • Composting, chemical-free gardening, and water recycling, or water harvesting, would be the norm.

  • Landscape designs – and urban design, for that matter – would encompass hardscape and landscape features that appeal to people of all ages and encourage pedestrian- and bike-friendly transit.

You can hear Mary Palmer Dargan speak in greater detail about lifelong landscape design and community by watching her presentation at the 2014 MidSouth Regional Master Gardener’s Conference. Some of the highlights include:

Creating a more tranquil existence. When you garden from a healing perspective, you will create a more tranquil existence for yourself and those around you, free of stress, negative energy, and even illness.

Conserving resources. Your landscape design can optimize both shade and sun exposure, as well as water-conservative and native plants that are more suited to the climate, to help your community conserve its precious resources.

Using a Four-Part Master Plan. Whether you’re designing a home landscape or a larger community’s, honoring the Four-Part Master Plan will always serve you well.

Are you looking for landscape architects in Metro Atlanta who use lifelong landscape design principles? Contact Dargan Landscape Architects, and create nourishing landscapes that will continue to sustain you and the community at large for years to come.

Sand Hills Cherry Bitters Workshop with The Sand Hills Garden Club on Dec. 9

Who said working with a landscape architect was all dirt and hard labor? Most gardening experts have a wealth of related interests, including growing herbs, vegetables, and plants that can be used in the kitchen and medicine cabinet. Such is the case for Mary Palmer Dargan of Dargan Landscape Architects.  She will be presenting her Bitters workshop to this private group on Dec 9, but you can reap the rewards! If you want a wonderful recipe for cherry bitters, try this one by Steven Rhodes, the former food & beverage manager of the Chattooga Club in Cashiers, NC and now manager of the new ABC in Cashiers. Enjoy!

Cherry Bitters Demonstration from Mary Palmer Dargan on Vimeo.

Learn How to Make Your Own Bitters with Mary Palmer Dargan 

Bitters have a rich history, dating back as far as the 9th or 10th century, when alcohol was first distilled in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Herbalists and healers realized the potential for preserving the curative effects of medicinal herbs and plants by creating tinctures and elixirs using an alcohol medium. While its roots are entirely medicinal, the 18th century utilized bitters in recreational alcohols as hangover prevention and then as a flavored addition to a host of cocktails.

Mary Palmer Dargan has been fascinated in the culinary aspects of gardening, which led her on an experimental journey to create healthful and tasty bitters using herbs, fruits, and flowers from her garden. 

The Sand Hill chapter is one of more than 20 active garden clubs in the state of Georgia. They are members of  The Augusta Council of Garden Clubs and a full unit of The Garden Club of America. While the members all share a love of gardening and a lifelong passion for creative landscape design, they are also committed to community education, preserving history, and the bulk of their events and showcases aim to raise money to restore historical buildings or assist other local charities and non-profit organizations. Mary Palmer’s Bitters Workshop is an example of their educational outreach.

Interested in working with a landscape architect? Contact Mary Palmer to learn more and get in on the fun.

Photo: Dargan Landscape Architects

Therapeutic Landscape Designs for Mental Well-Being

Are you bogged down with stress and looking for an outdoor escape? Gardening has long been considered an activity that can be cathartic and calming for those who enjoy working with plants and soil. The idea of nurturing plants to produce a bounty of vegetables and fruits, or creating a beautiful display of flowers and greenery, can provide a space for healing, meditation, restoration, and contemplation. 

Recently, scientists, doctors, and landscape architects have started collaborating to create therapeutic landscape designs for mental well-being.  Unlike traditional gardens, landscape planning for therapeutic gardens involves specific goals.

While a healing garden is designed to encourage overall health and encourage meditation, restoration, and contemplation, therapeutic gardens are designed to go beyond these goals to promote health and well-being. Landscape architects often work closely with the medical community to create gardens that will measurably contribute to a patient’s healing.

While this form of landscape planning is often used in long-term care facilities or rehabilitation centers, you can also opt to work with a landscape architect to develop your own therapeutic garden. Since the goals and measurable outcomes vary with the client, it’s essential to know what you want your therapeutic garden to accomplish.

For example, a garden created for a hospice may focus on quality of life and restoration for families, while a rehabilitation center’s therapeutic garden may serve as an actual component of therapy that provides respite from the hard work of physical therapy.

With 40 years in the business of landscape architecture, Dargan Landscape Architects would be happy to consult with you on a therapeutic garden design. Browse our portfolio of completed projects and contact us to learn how we can help.

Why Create a Pollinator Garden in YOUR Home Environment ?

36Pollinators in Peril

The iconic monarch butterfly, whose numbers have plummeted 90% in the last 2 decades, is pending listing approval as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act(ESA). The Garden Club of America sent a resolution letter this week to Dan Ashe, Director of The Fish and Wildlife Service in support of the pending petition.

 Why would you want to help this beautiful butterfly? Why help any pollinator ( bat, bees, butterfly, bird)? Pollinators serve an important purpose in sustaining biodiversity. In recent years, their survival has been compromised by climate change, habitat loss, pesticides, disease, and spread of invasive species.

 You can help! By providing a plot of milkweed, the adult monarch will have a place to lay its eggs. These leaves provide the only food for the monarch caterpillar. The monarch’s dependence on milkweed is being threatened by genetically-engineered crops and pesticides that eradicate milkweed and thereby imperil monarchs and other pollinators.

There are many resources available from the Garden Club of America.

 If you live in Atlanta,  The Greater Atlanta Pollinator Partnership [GAPP] spearheaded by Georgia Highlands College (GHC), the Atlanta Botanical Gardens (ABG), and USDA Forest Service.  The goal of the partnership is to develop pollinator-friendly habitat within a 25-mile radius of downtown Atlanta, 1.2 million acres.  Individuals can register their gardens as part of the partnership at this website.