Landscaping ideas come from a variety of places. They come from imagination, other landscapes and gardens, failed ideas and from parts of other ideas used in a different way.
There are no totally new ideas in the world of art. Whether painting, music, writing, sculpture, theater, or landscaping, new creations come from a history of all the artistic experiences the creator has seen or heard in the past. The artist’s taste in music or the visual or theater arts is the sum total of the art he or she has seen or heard. Some experiences are discarded if deemed unattractive or otherwise not pleasing, and some stored in the reservoir of positive art and then retrieved subconsciously in the future. These positive experiences may be called upon and combined with other pleasing art to form a new creation.
Details Landscape Art has designed and built creative gardens throughout the North Bay since 1991. And our creations are a result of all the beautiful gardens and plants we have seen locally, and throughout our travels around the United States and all over the world.
Our domestic travel experiences:
- Sonoma County – naturally our artistic influence have mostly been influenced by our local region. First of all we have seen the most landscaping right here in our own backyard. And we have also seen first hand what plants do well in our climate, and what plants struggle here.
- New England – we have lived and spent considerable time in Vermont and, to a lesser extent in Massachusetts, Maine and upstate New York. We have learned what plant material performs well in harsher winters, and by inference, what plant material we do NOT see because they are too cold sensitive. But we have been heavily influenced by the glorious impact of fall foliage in its many forms. Deciduous trees are an integral part of our landscape design.
- Oregon – we visit central Oregon frequently, which is considered high desert. Warm summers, cool autumns and snow in winter make for a certain type of climate suitable for a certain group of plants. Maybe a little bit more limited than Sonoma County (since we rarely get sustained below-freezing temperatures), we still learn what does well in this microclimate.
Our international travel experiences:
- France – we have visited the gardens of Monet in Giverney,
where we see the famous lily ponds of his paintings. The fields of lavender in Provence
and the more formal Luxembourg Gardens in Paris are forever stored in our artistic memory. - Spain – the landscaping in the south of Spain,
particularly in Seville and Granada were great examples of Mediterranean gardens, which are popular here at home. - Switzerland – is there anything more iconic than the Swiss use of geraniums in window boxes?
Even their cemeteries are beautifully landscaped!
- Victoria – Bouchard Gardens is one of the world’s most gorgeous attractions, and is filled with endless forms of gardens and landscaping ideas.
Details Landscape Art has travelled extensively and visited some of the wonderful gardens all over the world, and picked up all kinds of landscaping ideas along the way.