Good landscape design looks tough. As a landscape maintenance professional, I feel like I don’t have the required imagination for design work. Sure, I’ve done simple stuff. Like planting ferns at a condo complex; in the shade under a tree. Easy stuff. I took some bare spots and plugged them up with native ferns (Polystichum munitum). It’s not exactly landscape architecture.
Shopper’s drug mart
One day I pulled into a Shopper’s Drug mart parking lot in Port Moody. I forget why. Probably to pick up some milk. Once I left my vehicle I noticed yellow metal posts with trees planted behind them. Cool. What a great idea! Greening up a parking lot looks awesome.
But then the arborist in me came out. In my mind I ran through a list of things.
What about car pollution? The tree species chosen must be tolerant. Surely. Landscape architects know what they’re doing.
What about reflected heat off the pavement and walls? It could affect the bark on these young trees. Or heat stress them in the middle of summer.
What about structural soil? How much soil do these trees have in their boxes? How good is it? Are they connected? Single tombs?
What about future pruning? Would they get severely pruned or let go to fulfill their genetic potential? Would the vehicles do the pruning?
What about vandalism? Angry shoppers taking a branch home. Bored kids collecting leaves. Pets emptying their bladders.
Not a chance
It turns out that landscape design can fail horribly. This was news to me. I always considered professional designers and architects as total professionals. Now I have a blog post showing that there can be a disconnect between a drawing and real life.
The trees didn’t last the winter. Sadly. The yellow posts were completely useless. The trees got annihilated by cars. Just because the parking stall says “small car” doesn’t mean a large pick-up truck won’t use it. Once they backed it, it was over. I was shocked at how quickly the trees went down. This was a total design fail.
The yellow posts and metal grates are now gone. Paved over. Like it never happened. But I have my pictures.
Later in the new year, I would encounter a second design fail. This one on a parking garage rooftop garden. Perhaps I will dissect it in a future blog post.
I still envy all designers and architects for their great imaginations.
