Winter Park Landscaping of Mid-Century Modern Continues

Liza and Mike Jennings home before work begins.

Their home after the driveway and some of the landscaping is installed.

The installation included these 6x6 ft. squares of pavers offset to lead up to the front door.

Natural Pond near Wekiva River

Here is the pond at the beginning of the cleaning project. Obviously algae averrun the first step will be to clear the shore line of debris and remove the dead grass from the pond.

Recently we got a call to come out to a property that has a natural pond on it that had become algae overrun. When the young couple who purchased the property first saw it, the water was clear. Then the surface became completely covered with thick algae. They hired someone who uses chemicals for retention pond maintenance and although certified to be safe, his treatment promptly killed the littoral water plants, while leaving the algae relatively unscathed.
My proposed solution is to gradually restore the natural balance of the pond by introducing native water plants like pickerel weed along the shore and water lilies in the pond itself. Water lilies help reduce the production of algae by depriving the plants of sunlight under their spreading pad/leaves. The littoral plantings act as a filter to rainwater washing from the steep banks and bringing dirt and other pollutants into the water. Both types of plantings increase oxygen and help burn up nutrients that make the water healthier for fish while decreasing the available nutrients for algae. This will be a slow process but in the end the transformation should be pretty spectacular.
Returning this little pond to its natural beauty and health will be all the more appropriate as this property sits in the Wekiva River Valley and is daily home to herds of deer and, though they have only seen him once, a large Florida Black Bear. He is shy about being seen but at least once a week makes his presence known by rifling through the trash.

At the shore of the pond a lot of dead grass and oak branches. Pulling them out is a good start to improving the look of the pond and will make room for the future plants to be put in.

To remove the dead grass and fallen branches from the pond we'll be enlisting this john boat for the day.

This picture really shows how tall the lake grass had grown. Including the roots, each clump of grass, weighing anywhere from 5 to 15 lbs., were pulled out individually requiring a lot of effort, but had a huge affect on the look of the pond by day's end.

Winter Park Landscaping will transform Mid-Century Modern

Front of the house as work begins.

The existing walk-way

After several weeks of planning, we are finally starting on a project that is going to transform our project house into a real architectural gem. By taking this 1950's ranch that was "dolled up" to look like a Brittany farm house (all the rage in Orlando at the time) and bringing it back to it's roots in mid-century modern design, we are creating a template that will hopefully be useful to myriads of others who occupy this abundant style./
The subject property sits in a charming and popular neighborhood in the affluent and culturally rich Orlando suburb of Winter Park. A popular tongue in cheek send up of upper middle class values published in the nineteen eighties, "The Preppy Handbook," lists only two cities in Florida as proper preppy addresses, Palm Beach and Winter Park. Winter Park is certainly less pretentious than Palm Beach and a lot of the city life centers on places like Rollins College, the Farmer's Market and it's two famous art festivals. It's just the right environment to showcase a project that will appeal to aficionados of modern architecture, as we seek to return this property to its proper roots. At the end of the day, we plan to push it a little beyond its previous incarnation and bring it together with new touches that will strengthen its "modernist aspects. Hope you'll enjoy watching the transformation.Me at the front door

Windermere Landscaping Includes Fruit Trees

A medium size carambola also called starfruit

This week will see the installation of fourteen fruit trees on the south side of the property. In addition to our selection of citrus, which you might expect to find in an Orlando home's garden, we're planting carambola, lychee and avocodo. These first two are liable to be a little exotic to many people so we'll explain them in a bit more detail.
The carambola is also commonly called the star fruit and is certainly one of the most delightful tropicals imaginable The entire fruit may be eaten, skin and all and the seeds and pith are usually small and soft enough to be eaten whole as well. Right now the fruits are ripening on the trees around Orlando and we usually get to enjoy the harvest for about a month. Packed with antioxidants, carambola have a lovely and sophisticated sweetness that has earned them a place in some lists as one of the world's super fruits! And although they are tropical, the trees we know around town withstood temperatures of 28 degrees in this last winter's colder than normal freeze and have still produced a bountiful harvest. Though no one knows the exact origin of carambola it's presumed to be southeast Asia.

Landscaping Windermere Continues

The best view of the waterfall I think is from this side, the right. One gets a great view of the three types of waterfalls.

This last week saw the addition of shade giving plants in the back garden flanking the water feature. Six Queen Palms, which have large heads of palm fronds that are ideal for creating shade without blocking the view, were added in two groups of three each. In addition we added three Adonidia Palms with multiple trunks and a Coconut Palm. Both of these have been considered too cold sensitive for the Orlando area, but this year after seeing specimens even in outlying areas survive an unusual drop to 28 degrees and come back flourishing, I decided to add them to the mix. A large single trunked Foxtail , two magnolias, three golden bamboo, and a magnificent Bismarkia round out the mix. As great as these look now, the results with a year of growth will be even more spectacular. Bamboo and queen palms in particular respond quickly to being freed from their pots.

This foxtail palm adds great shade to the patio along with the 6 queen palms spaced out on each side of the pond.

You can see the magnolias flanking the water feature along with this great specimen of coconut palm. It's the brighter green one leaning towards the pond. I can just imagine how this will look with a year growth.

Orlando Bamboo Garden

This project on a lakefront north of downtown Orlando, was begun with one client for whom we've done multiple projects, and when he sold it, the new owner let us continue in the same vein. It represents the ultimate in synthesizing indoor/outdoor living and incorporates many concepts embraced by the Garden Monkey Florida design philosophy.
When we started the project a decade ago, there was a dearth of plantings, with the exception of a couple of terrific live oaks, one in front the other in back. The rest of what you see has all been planted since then. Believe it or not, tropical style plantings are the easiest to maintain. We simply thin it out and whack it back periodically. Other than that and blowing off the decks and walks, it pretty much takes care of itself. Once established, irrigation is minimal, since the shade creates its own water saving micro climate. Also the natural leaf litter makes its own compost , so adding fertilizers is virtually unnecessary.

Downtown Orlando Cottage and Baldwin Park

A beautiful morning in Baldwin Park
A square fountain near downtown Baldwin Park

Just a mile northeast of the cottage is the new village of Baldwin Park. Built on the site of the old Naval Training Center, which itself succeeded the Orlando Air Force Base, the area represents all that is best in contemporary urban landscape design.

Bridge over the river that runs through much of Baldwin Park