Saxon Holt Photography Workshop

In October I took a Saxon Holt Landscape Photography class through the Sacramento APLD. We had some classroom time, during which I did take notes (which I now can’t find!?!), and we visited two gardens for some field experience.

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It is important to have some photography basics if you are a landscape designer. When I visit a new site for a potential project I have to take photographs to help me understand the site, to look at sun patterns, views, and practical locations of things in the landscape. These photos don’t have to be attractive necessarily but they do have to be informative. Sometimes a project won’t happen for months after I have initially visited the site and taken those photos, so they have to be good enough to help me remember all the details.

Having photography skills is also crucial for getting photos of in-progress gardens and completed and mature garden projects. You want o showcase your gardens in the best way and we can’t always afford a professional photographer.

I also love to go on garden tours. It’s a great way to see and learn from mature gardens designed by the best in the industry. It’s also great to visit the same gardens multiple times to see how they change over time. Having great photos to look back on for inspiration is so useful.

There’s this thing about garden photography during tours though… it is hard to not just end up with a camera roll full of pictures of

  • other people’s butts

  • other people taking pictures of other people’s butts.

The struggle is real and no amount of workshopping is going to help you.

Fortunately, in this workshop, we formed small groups to visit the garden and all felt pretty comfortable saying, “um, could you move your butt for a sec?”

Photograph of a garden with Salvia leucantha in the foreground and light shinning through Pennisetum seed heads in the background. There is also a staked tree with a bell hanging from it.

Photograph of a garden with Salvia leucantha in the foreground and light shinning through Pennisetum seed heads in the background. There is also a staked tree with a bell hanging from it.

The above photo has nice light but really would have been better without the tree stake and rubber. I suppose I could photoshop that out?

Some things to think about while photographing a garden:

  • Time of day - Harsh midday sun is no good for garden photography, early morning or early evening are best

  • Composition - The rule of thirds applies to photography as much as sketching

  • Focal Points - A big -’ole mess of green in a photograph is no good, find a focal point!

  • Long Shots and Vignettes - Photograph your subject from a variety of angles, distances, and lighting varieties.

  • Other Things - You can photograph the non-plant elements of a garden to help with the journy you are taking your viewers on.

Sketching at the Salesforce Transit Center

In September I went to sketch with the East Bay Sketchers at the garden on top of the Salesforce Transit Center. Two weeks later they discovered cracks in the beams and closed it! I hope they figure out what is happening and reopen it soon.

I did not know that there was a little funicular to get to the top. sadly, it was not open when we got there.

We walked around and looked for good views to draw. Somehow, once again, I seem to have not taken any pictures.

I drew the courtyard area. It was a very lively and colorful space!

I was very interested int eh planting plans. There were some trees that I gave the side-eye as ones that get HUGE. like is this really engineered to deal with a 130 ft.dgf Aurucaia araucana? I’m sure they did think of everything.

Garden Tour - Keelya Meadows

I absolutely love the book Fearless Color Gardens by Keelya Meadows. I knew she was a local designer because she has a little exhibit at American Soil and Stone and I knew her home garden was open sometimes but I was not sure of the details. I joined the Garden Conservancy this year and lo! her garden was on the Open Days list! I made T. come with me.

I love all the quirky paving, concrete forms, and amazingly fun use of color. I wish my own garden was just like this. It was a bit over the top for T. though and I suspect he will object.

I’m desperately in love with that leopard-spotted Ligularia and must acquire one for myself immediately.

16th Street Station in Oakland

I went out with a group to explore and photograph the old 16th Street Station in West Oakland. It is such a cool building with a really cool history and it is sad to see it in such disrepair. We lived over in West Oakland for a long time and I used to go over that way to take trampoline lessons.

old postcard of West Oakland 16th Street Station

The station was operating up until the 1989 earthquake and was the end of the transcontinental railroad. It was built in 1912 by the Southern Pacific Railroad with the architect Jarvis Hunt in the Beaux Arts style. It’s so fancy! I love it. And I love how dilapidated it is now even though it is also sad to see it that way. Like, why is this not a building being used for stuff! It has been used for a few things like I’m pretty sure there was an opera preformed there and some other arty things. I’m assuming it is because of earthquake safety.

This is going to be another image heavy post. It was so much fun to prowl around this building and the grounds!

So much neat graffiti.

And then I love to see nature intruding in all the cracks and crevices. Why is it that humans find post apocalyptic, overgrown old industrial sites so fascinating?

I was also excited to see that the surrounding land was being used by an urban flower form to cultivate cut flowers! It is called Wow Farm Flowers and the I think they got a grant to help prep the site and the Oakland Zoo provided soil. How cool is that!?

Some Drawings

I just thought I would post some of the various painting and drawing I have been doing. Some of it is work related and some is not!

Green and gold watercolor swatches.

I did this quick visualization for a client recently. We want to remove this lawn, a little privacy fence (not too overwhelming) and some interesting colorful plants.

Okay, so I also took this irrigation class through the Zone 7 Water Agency. the class was taught by Lori Palmquist, who is an irrigation WIZARD. She’s a good speaker and a good teacher. I may also have accosted her about some APLD stuff and she was like WhoTF are you?!? LOL. No worries, Lady, I’m just a stranger asking you for access to this website you used to work on. Don’t mind me! Anyway, here is an illustration of an irrigation manifold. As you can see, I am an excellent student who does not struggle to pay attention.

I should be learning about what these things are and do but instead I am drawing them. Don’t come at me, I have ADHD.

We had a little field trip to Drake’s Beach and I did a quick vignette.

Some other sketchy doodles for work:

Some plants and a visit to American Soil and Stone

I like the textures in the photo I took at American Soil and Stone. So stripes, much vertical! I find visiting stone yards to be very satisfying. Magpie-like I usually want everything there.

Two plants I am enjoying in my own yard right now. This yellow lotus plant and my Spraxis bulbs! Aren’t hey pretty?!

What else has been happening? We have been doing a few small plant installs at work.

Oh and I kind of love this picture of J*** buried under plants in the car. LOL.

Norcal Landscape Trade Show

I went the NorCal Landscape Trade Show this year. I do find wandering around looking at all the plants to be very useful and inspiring! They have this trade show in San Mateo every February.

This Lomandra Platinum Beauty is so pretty ! and I love the Pittosporum Silver Sheen as well. And there is something about the Acacia ‘Cousin Itt’ plant that is so satisfying. The name is good and so perfect for it!

I just want all these plants for my own yard. LOL. Also, I am in love with all these tiny conifers from Iseli Nursery. Behold this tiny baby!! There is no way they stay this size though, right?!

The Dangers of Landscape Design

What is all this water falling from the sky? Weird. It makes trimming through landscape less residential plots a bit hazardous. I think I need to start keeping rain boots in my car because this is absurd. :P But seriously, what is up with these housing neighborhoods where they just leave the entire backyard a mud pit? sheesh!

Storm Water Abatement

I’m really loving all these storm water solutions I am seeing in Walnut Creek parking lots. :D I wish there were some regulations in Texas for this kind of thing. Every time I go back there I am so offing appalled by the infrastructure. Or lack thereof, I guess. Have fun with building a whole city in a swamp and then refusing to acknowledge that and have some regulations for infrastructure. Jerks. I hate Texas.

A Visit to Moose Metal in Concord

I stopped by Moose Metal to inquire about a metal project for a client. How cute is this metal moose logo?!

It was a wealth of fun metal detritus for me to snap pics of.

Many shapes and colors!! I really, really want to include colorful metal elements in my landscape designs. My pinnacle of silly landscape color you ask? I bright pink arbor. I want one myself so surely everyone else will, right?!

More cute moose themed items :)

Right Tree, Right Place

This is a handy tree guide made up for PGE by California Polytechnic State University for the Bay Area, Northern and Central California. If you're working on a site with power line issues this tool can be quite useful.This page has some handy guides for selecting the right tree for the right place based on some other guidelines like allergy and toxicity or fire safety.

You can order a Right Tree, Right Place poster from PGE here and download a cute poster for Palm trees appropriate for use near power lines.

The people who planted redwoods right next to the power lines at a recent client's property could have used this guide 15 years ago...

Pretty Little Grass - Melinis nerviglumis

This is such a pretty grass! I have one that I got from Annies Annuals. Devil Mountain has it listed as Rhynchelytrum nerviglumis but I have only seen it as Melinus nerviglumis. It’s not exactly low water but I really love the soft pink plumes.

From San Marcos Growers site:

Melinis nerviglumis (Ruby Grass) - A small semi-evergreen cool-season grass from S. Africa that forms a tidy 1 foot tall clump. It has blue-green foliage that turns purplish-red in the fall and showy pink flowers that rise a foot above the foliage in the spring and summer with spent flowers still attractive into winter. Best in full sun with regular water in a well-drained soil but tolerates considerable periods without irrigation and near seaside conditions. Is hardy to around 20° F and perennial in gardens in USDA Zones 8 and above but useful as an annual in colder climates. Cut back in fall to midwinter to allow fresh new foliage to emerge in early spring. A very attractive grass massed or scattered in a border planting or as a container specimen. This grass is called "one of the showiest of the small flowering grasses" by John Greenlee in his "Encyclopedia of Flowering Grasses". Ruby Grass is native to large areas of Africa south of the Sahara and also in Madagascar. There are several interpretations for the entomology of the genus name. One thought is that it is derived from the Greek 'melas' meaning "black" for its black seeds but another thought is that it is from the Latin 'mel' meaning honey for the sweet aroma some species have. The specific epithet is in reference to the veins on the glume (flower bracts). We have grown this plant since 1997 and early on used its older name Rhynchelytrum neriglume. This same plant is marketed under the names 'Pink Crystals' and 'Savannah' and besides Ruby Grass is commonly called Bristle-leaved Red Top. It should not be confused with the related Melinis repens that has naturalized in disturbed sites along the California coast. 

2016 APLD International Conference

I had a fantastic time at my second APLD Conference. It was wonderful to reconnect with friends from last year and see familiar faces from the Bay Area.

Just outside the hotel was the Santa Fe Railyard Park. The park featured beautiful hardscape and plant designs, a children's play area, and lovely gardens. I particularly admired how the designers incorporated the railroad tracks and other historical railroad elements into the park's design.

Right from the start, I was so excited that the keynote speaker was W. Gary Smith, the author of From Art to Landscape: Unleashing Creativity in Garden Design. I totally fangirled a bit and brought my copy of his book for him to sign. He was super nice and signed my book for me. Gary is an accomplished landscape designer, having won APLD Garden Awards and worked on many renowned gardens. Coming from an art and design background myself, his book really attracted me and I often refer to it.

These are in no particular order. I’m just dumping photos.

Check out these interesting gabions. They are partially filled with glass slag chunks! Neat!

This garden just had a TON of amazing architectural details. I love to fun round pavers, the colors! The whole thing!