That first house made so much more sense when you were finished with it - well done!

"Funeral home" feel? Not sure what that means? can you explain?

Solemn? Doesn't apply to the house (love those pillars!), but to the public space.

Karin L

No, not solemn. Maybe a bit stage set and without clutter.

Those columns are wild, what was the inspiration for the painting style? I must admit that the amount of landscape details that were "painted" makes me a bit dizzy,too bad you can't get back and reshoot photos as the garden designs are fully completed and more mature. I can see the tie-in with typical funeral home landscape style, but I'd suggest you rethink that sort of self-labeling even in jest; I don't think that would be an incentive sort of style label for potential clients.

Getting good photos of completed gardens does take some time and effort. I generally forgo the initial photos of in-progress work or just completed myself, but try to get photos at 6 months out and beyond. There is one project I worked on that I wish I had taken more pictures of; the 8 acres of palace landscaping in Saudi Arabia for a Saudi prince. Part of the gardens were an exact replica of the Alhambra palace and courtyards. Personal photography was prohibited so any photos taken had to be discretely taken, and it was before I started shooting digital. Someday I'll get around to scanning my backlog of 35mm slides which date to the overseas work I did in the 1980's and 1990's.

The house makes so much more sense after. In the before picture, I would almost think it was a power substation or some other utility building.

"the amount of landscape details that were "painted" makes me a bit dizzy..." Nothing done to change design, just complete grass & grow a little bloom. Inspiration for column painting my affection for tribal art.

Scanning backlog of slides... now there's a project I could procrastinate on for some time!

@ tanowicki... I thought that house looked like a little apartment bldg. or Baptist church without steeple.

@ Karin... I'm not sure if "... but to the public space." is a question.

Love the columns, very Egyptian revival looking.

You do love the multi-branched shrubby trees. I was driving yesterday and saw a very wide one and thought to take a picture for you but it was the highway and getting dark. The "trunk" was probably 10 ft in diameter and had tens of trunks. Kind of hard to say for certain.

I also love the columns. Perhaps I could work one into my yard and have it be my little folly.

Did I understand correctly that you also painted the trunks of those Lagerstroemia gold? Something that would seem to visually conflict with the attractive bark the tree is known for, and not very long lasting since the bark sheds every year; or did I misunderstand?

I know a good word... stately? That works for the campus layout.
No, my previous post wasn't a question, just an observation.

I don't see painted trunks though...

Karin L

Not my cup of tea, which only tells us just how fickle taste is. The little house went from austere to busy just like that which makes an odd juxtaposition with the campus grounds that yard considers funereal, I assume from that, busy is the preference.

On a totally frivolous note I bet you are a leg man judging by your penchant for limbed up gold painted shrubs.

I appreciate the newly painted front door with the shed roof, side bracing and painted wood veneer side panels. It's a nice juxtaposition to the brick facade.
I find it unsettling to my eye to view the planting with the photoshopped imaging added. It throws my mind's eye balance off.

Having attended a campus that had crisscrossing walk ways thru-out the commons I can understand how well those 'spokes of a wheel' walkways work functionally but from an aesthetic overhead perspective view a nice simple wide grid looks so much more appealing and gracious. Like the new sidewalk width and clean lines that align with the architecture.

Catkim... Thank you. It was impossible to stand facing the pair of them and not feel livened up in a positive way. I think with completely different paint jobs or finishes (mosaic tile for instance) they could work in other settings.

Tanowicki, Thank you, too, about columns. (They are cheap except for the moving them into place. However, now I believe I know how this could be done manually.)

Yes, I do love the tree form shrubs because they can transform the otherwise blank wall into something as interesting as the plants that can be found. (If you recall from an earlier thread I can't hardly stand the tangled twist of trunks or beat up trunks which is how most of them are.)

Bahia, those not Crapes, they're burning bush. The gold painting was experimental and not a success in my book. They looked OK at night, but not enough difference for the effort.

Karin, "stately" ...hmmm. Leave it to you for words better than what I said. I couldn't find the word. My thought about the gold painted trunks was that there just wasn't enough mass there to make a difference. It read as beige unless bright light directly on it. (I'm itching to do a palm tree though!)

Ink, I do not consider the yard "funereal." If I could take back a word, I wish I hadn't added that last minute thinking-out-loud comment. It came across in a way that was not intended or what I meant. The picture that was in MY mind as I thought it was an old school funeral home...that actually looked homey, though mansionesque or stately old homes (as they used to be.) Truthfully, as I thought the comment, I was really thinking about the interior decor, not the landscaping. Not commercial, still "homey", but in a very elegant, expensive looking way with above-average furnishings, appointments and lighting.

"from austere to busy just like that..." Hmmm... ?... though the house was austere to begin with, the plantings in front of it were 7 individual shrubs with no repetition. I might not understand your comment or definition of "busy."

DD, "I find it unsettling to my eye to view the planting with the photoshopped imaging added." I guess you're talking about the grass? If it was supposed to be something else, but grass was photoshopped in its place, I could see an issue with that. But since it's supposed to be grass, looks like grass and the disclosure was made, It doesn't mislead. I think it would be disconcerting to see dirt when grass is supposed to be there. I'm trying to show the product of my thinking. Not the product of my incomplete thinking.

The original planting is more or less what is planted up against the foundations of way too many hoses in these parts but I didn't mean that particularly when I said 'austere'. I meant the general ambiance of a windowless facade with a stretch of grass in front of it.

Yard,
No , not just the grass , several of the other photos have some computer added painter-ness such as roses on the trellis, lirope, columns, ect... that gives the images a manipulated / computer augmented look .
My eye, (others may not have the problem) reads the images as manipulated thus a sense of unbalance occurs.

There is certainly no obsession or clutter here.

Project 1: I like the improvements on the door, hardscape materials, groundcover plants, the column is fun.. but sorry to say, the thing I like least are your "signature" multi-stemmed trees when planted so close to the wall (they'd be OK with room to walk around them)... and maybe I'd have kept the foundation beds rectangular.
What was the campus like before?

@ timbu... "...I like least are your "signature" multi-stemmed trees when planted so close to the wall..."

What guides your thought process? Would you think about it differently if those ornaments were something other than plants? (Not saying you must.)

Before, the campus was a collection of beautiful buildings set in an industrial style landscape. Many narrow concrete sidewalks (less than 4' width) ran arrow straight, criss-crossing one another in a hodge-podge that looked like a miniature airport runway system. There had been no consideration whatsoever other than getting from point A to point B. In a couple of instances they were elevated with multiple culverts below to allow for drainage. Very ugly. All the lighting was mercury vapor farm style lamps on galvanized genuine plumbing pipe. While there were a few existing trees there wasn't much in the way of plant groupings. It was mostly scattered individuals. Eventually, the two rows of Zelkovas will form a cathedral-like arch over the main quad... but that's a long way off.

Trying to put a gut feeling into words isn't always easy... but the main thing is probably this: the outer contour of trees follows the contour of the house too perfectly, and thus obscures the shape of the house more than I'd like. In which case, it doesn't matter if we have a tree or another object placed there since it's all about abstract form.
Secondary gut feelings might include something like:
...I associate that shape of tree with "savannah" type landscape - vast, open, rolling plains with wide-canopied trees here and there, casting patches of shadow underneath... so seeing them pressed to the wall is equivalent to seeing a wild animal in a cage (OK getting way too poetic now)
To sum up - same shape, but either bigger and more distant, or vice versa, much smaller and in pots, would be more to my taste. And taste, of course, is personal.
That's the best I can do - hope it made sense.