Karlsson-Barnes garden design
ABOVE A display garden designed for Weston Nurseries of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, on the slope behind fountains and statuary. I created a boulder stream... flowing when the water is turned on... with River Birch (Betula) and the low, wide-spreading evergreen Russian Cypress (Microbiota) in the foreground.
Installed in 2006, pictured 2011.
ABOVE CENTER Rural and cosmopolitan.
Two Eastern Flowering Dogwoods (Cornus florida, dark pink & pale pink) and an old gnarled Redbud (Cercis canadensis, darker purple/pink). Not my design, but an inspired landscape along favored road to Boston, Farm Road in Sherborn, Mass.
GARDEN DESIGNER / MASTER GARDENER
KB garden design
adds all-season beauty to landscapes with a layered utilitarian approach -- not necessarily a specific style -- that suits your aesthetic.
I prefer naturalism, but sometimes use formal symmetry, and styles can be combined on the same property.
Within the pattern of buildings, utility spaces and circulation patterns, I design garden rooms for curb appeal, active recreation or a spiritual haven.
Let’s demystify design: First, suit the site and fit the space... then seek beauty, such as seasonal interest.
This alone is good garden design.
Portfolio: see ‘design’ on navigation bar
Once a good design is planted properly, it can mature, but it does not necessarily remain pleasing. All gardens, regardless of purpose or style, need continual care. So in Eastern Mass. or nearby New England, I offer:
1 Simply Sketched
Consultation offering ideas with new and existing plants during a 1 to 3 hour visit on-site, simply sketching my ideas, not measured and drawn to scale... a good introduction to seasonal garden coaching.
“Brian, We love the garden - it exceeded
our expectations. Gary has been
watering twice a day and the trees and
shrubs look happy - as are we!
I look forward to garden coaching”
- Susan, Newtonville, Mass., Fall 2013
2 Garden Coaching
Garden coaching is built on a relationship of mutual respect for the land and each other as we walk your property every season for 90 minutes. As we walk, I evaluate your lawn & gardens.
“It never fails to impress me how relatively small changes can make such a big impact on the beauty of the yard… you did a great job not only transplanting that “large” grass, but sculpting the areas around it so it blends with everything – it looks great! I love it! Thanks so much – your work always makes a difference”
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-Janet, Ashland, Mass.
Instead of the colder visit in winter, we can work your gardens together in warm weather, such as pruning, planting or meeting at a nursery/garden center to see plants.
Some garden clients want to learn gardening. Some are busy that I visit the site alone one season to evaluate and advise.
1 Are your plants HEALTHY? If not, can they be nursed, transplanted or replaced?
And I want to ask:
2 How you USE your landscape?
3 What COLORS do you like?
4 Is there color of FLOWER and LEAF, and sculptural FORM or showy BARK, in all seasons?
I might offer ideas for adding a plant here... transplanting or fertilizing existing plants there... perhaps hand-pruning on the spot. If you want to learn, I can show you, and can help work as needed.
“Brian's garden coaching is the best service
money can buy if you love your garden”
- Elaine, Jamaica Plain (Boston)
3 Garden Designing
Plan Drawing & Specified Plants provided after meeting on site to define your garden desires, with site analysis & measurement. Planting & gardening instructions provided. I can work with you or a crew of your choice.
“When I moved into my home in 2009, the back
yard had a concrete patio, some lackluster lawn
and a few scattered shrubs and flowers. The
patio visually dominated the space, which I truly
disliked, but it was too difficult to remove.
Brian’s design reduced the amount of grass,
created larger spaces for trees, shrubs and more
flowers, with curving lines that softened and
minimized the effect of the patio. It is now a
lush, beautiful and serene space that amazes my
neighbors.” - Elaine, Jamaica Plain (Boston)
4 Master Planning
Gardens, Patios, Walks & Walls
Decide your priorities, phase your landscape costs over 3 to 5 years, AND increase your home value. Meanwhile... enjoy your transformed landscape.
5 Maintenance
Fertilizing, Transplanting, Mulching & Artful Pruning
I can work WITH you to demonstrate how to care for your lawn & gardens:
PRUNE selectively to a lateral branch (not shearing) for
natural form, reducing bud growth. First remove dead & crossing branches. Then think twice, cut once. Naturalistic pruning takes more time, but needs less maintenance. Shearing is a valid aesthetic, but it requires continual control, thus is more work & cost.
FEED your gardens with organic nontoxic nutrients like compost.
Transplant and topdress beds with bags of composted manure/humus or organic granular fertilizers for growth & flower. Spray liquid kelp (seaweed) on leaves for health & hardiness. Compost leaves on your garden beds, pulverized by a mulch mower.
MULCH with 3 inches of shredded pine bark (cedar, cypress or hemlock).
Organic mulch controls weeds, conserves water and decomposes to improve the soil. Mulch no more than 3-4” around woody plants, 2-3” for herbaceous perennials, not covering plant crowns. Can apply 2 inches in Spring, one inch in Fall when it prevents heaving soil during winter freeze/thaw cycles. Or 3 inches and redistribute in fall. Mow/bag later leaves for nutritious leaf mulch on garden beds in fall; topdress with shredded bark mulch as needed, not necessarily each year.
ESTABLISH A SUSTAINABLE LAWN Mulch-mowing uses free N.
Nitrogen from decomposing grass blades, instead of costly NPK lawn fertilizers (I avoid “Weed&Feed” formulations with herbicide killing weeds and soil micro-organisms). The BEST weed control is healthy grass in healthy soil. Overseed with fine fescue grasses for a traditional, more sustainable New England lawn. Mow high (1.5 to 2 inches; lower on first & last mows). Mow early leaves into lawn as a free Nitrogen fertilizer.
(Note: KBGD does not mow lawns, but BKB used to)
SURCHARGE FOR TRAVEL TIME
30 miles beyond Boston
Brian Karlsson-Barnes
Master gardener / designer
Boston (Jamaica Plain), Massachusetts
ABOVE Sun warms my face on Easter 2013 as Crocus vernus blooms at Arnold Arboretum on Bussey Hill. My hair is longer, silvery, but the same crocus blooms again in 2017.
Boston is now a balmy USDA Zone 7a with a normal winter low of Zero degrees F. (plus 5 the last two winters). A half-zone warmer in only 20 years with global climate change.
Science and plants are telling us the world is changing...
Welcome to my next tour *
“An Early Timeline of Arnold Arboretum”
click: hort post
Fall 2017
Thursday 5 October 5pm
* Register with NEWTON COMMUNITY EDUCATION
HORT BIO
Brian Karlsson-Barnes
2017 is my 14th season designing and gardening in Eastern Massachusetts’ USDA cold-hardiness zone 6b/7a.
My former studio in Ashland (zone 6b, warm side of zone 6) near work at Weston Nurseries, was on Sudbury Creek, but I now overlook the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain (Boston, 7a, cold side of zone 7).
But I learned to garden with tough plants in the much colder zone 4 (average low temp of -30 degrees F.) and zone 3 (-40) of Minnesota, Land of Minus Temps & NO Broadleaf Evergreens. Well, some boxwood (Buxus) hardy hybrids survive, but none thrive even if well-sheltered.
In Upper Midwest winters, you must first suit cold-hardiness, then sun exposure, soil and finally aesthetics.
Environmental conditions before style.
As an architectural student in Minneapolis, I absorbed the design mantra:
FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION
So I first suit the site, then fit a space with the plant’s mature size & natural form, without continual pruning. Then the aesthetic.
My mantra is: “Respect the interconnected Web of Life of which we are all a part.” So I started Harmony Gardens with nontoxic lawn care while I studied horticulture and design, and sold plants at Bachman’s garden center, Minneapolis.
Plant variables are VERY confusing. To help customers, I drew lines on a 3 x 5 card to create a small matrix of
PLANT SIZE vs:
SEASON OF BLOOM.
Thus, a quick selection of plants of a specific size blooming in a specific season.
20 years later in the Bay State, I am a self-taught designer and master gardener. I served 50-75 clients a year as a landscape designer/project manager with Weston Nurseries of Hopkinton (2004 - 2010), where I learned broadleaf evergreens. Better than a graduate degree.
The 3x5 cards have evolved into HortLists ©, a unique design tool I now use teaching community education. Nine color-coded sheets are easily used to select trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials.
Let me demystify design: First, Suit the Site, then Fit the Space with seasonal interest. This in itself is a very satisfying, relatively simple, level of garden design.
I graduated from the 2011 Master Gardener program at MassHort’s Elm Bank campus on the Charles River in Wellesley/Dover. My horticultural services were expanded to garden coaching.
As an independent designer and coach, I spend more time with fewer clients. Love my work.
And love my play: I have time to volunteer at Boston’s Arnold Arboretum where Harvard’s Living Collection of 15,000 woody plants is scientifically displayed for use in local landscapes. My first guided tour at the Arb was April 13th, 2015... then went to opening day at Fenway Park, and the Sox won! Then finished last. Might win it all in 2017.
The Arboretum is also a public park, a popular walking destination, and a spiritual haven in one of nature’s cathedrals. Colors of flower and leaf, especially in autumn, are the stained glass windows to which someone else has alluded before, I am sure.
Boston affluence can afford the luxury of garden design and installation, but Suiting a Site & Fitting a Space are principles for any budget desiring a layered garden of perennial beauty.
Links:
My next adult-education course (The Garden Coach, 6 to 9pm Thursday 27 April, first of 3) @
Newton Community Education:
I conceptually design a site for each student with gardening tips as we go.
***
PLANT LIBRARY
See Weston Nurseries website to view herbaceous perennials, shrubs & trees:
Garden Writing
I did not grow up in New England. Born in NYC, I grew up in the Midwest with a 7-year stint in the USAF (3 years in UK), and moved back East in 2004.
Still a tourist, I enjoy driving around the Bay State and keeping a journal.
As a docent, I offer free tours in Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum. As a neighbor, I often walk in the healthy company of trees. Witchhazel (Hamamelis) is blooming in February, always a sign of Very Early Spring in Boston’s mild coastal climate.
HORT POSTS Self-guided seasonal tour blogs are written in spring, summer & fall, even winter. Plus gardening and design tips... and other occasional observations.
DUCK TOURS?
Walk my self-guided
BOSTON OWL TOUR
Hortwalking Boston’s 1630 Original Water Line (OWL)
OR REVERSE THE LOOP, starting from South Station and walking north on the new Greenway.
See the“hortBlog” tab on my above navigation bar for blogs in May & November 2013:
