From William:

I am a 3^rd year landscape architecture student at ASU.  Currently, I’m taking a professional practice seminar where we learn the workings of the business side of the field.  We are required to profile firms in the valley, and I have selected yours to interview.

How did you get into the business?  By chance.  I was working in an architect’s office and someone asked me to design a landscape for them.  I had previously worked for a L.A. for two years.  Each project I did brought me another job.  During a recession I had more side jobs than the office had work, so I left to work on my own.

What was your age when starting? 30.

Did you have a business plan?  No.

Where do you see the profession going in five years?  I don’t have a clue.

Where do you see your firm going in five years?  Changing my projects to mostly residential projects, which I am now beginning to do, getting back to photography and finding someone to run my office. 

From Kim:

I am a 1^st year MLA student at Cal Poly Pomona.  The project we have been given is to interview a landscape architect who specializes in an area we want to know more about, and possibly something we hope to focus on when we finish grad work and enter the work world.  My topic is planting design, and particularly planting design that is both environmentally sustainable and aesthetically engaging.  I really appreciate the work you do with desert plants—it’s just beautiful and I imagine it has inspired many other people to design mindfully in drought or desert conditions. 

Did you first begin to use native plants because they make sense ecologically in the southwest, or were you initially drawn to their form, texture and color? I first started to use native plants to visually relate a project to the greater site.  I wanted to try to get my projects to ‘fit’ with the desert.  As these gardens started to grow – I noticed that native plants brought along their own entourage of “pollinators & predators” that really activated the garden. 

I discovered that by using the right plants you could tap into the food chain and the garden became a ‘habitat.’  When I learned this my gardens started to become interesting. 

One of the things that got me into the idea of using native plants was the comments of out-of-state architectural jurors.  Every year the A.I.A. would have the jury comments for their annual design awards program in the newspaper.  The jurors would say, year after year, “no sense of place or regionalism.”  I thought it was a no brainer to use native plants to relate to the region.

When you began to design sites using desert and drought-tolerant plants, were there many other landscape architects in your area doing the same thing?  If not, did you encounter any resistance from client or employers who value more “traditional” east coast type plantings (lawn intensive sorts of things)?  If there was resistance to those ideas then, is there still the same sort of resistance now? No, there were not others who wanted to create a “desert style” like I was trying to do.  A few others used some native plants, but in an eclectic manner.  I was all alone and I felt I was out in left field by myself.  I was the heretic.  I like to say I’ve gone from “heretic to hero” by doing the same thing.

There was resistance from every direction.  The landscape profession wasn’t interested and clients were absolutely not interested.  Cities were not interested and nurseries were not interested.  Most resistance is now gone.  Ideas I struggled to promote are now mandated.

Desert plants have a very distinct sculptural quality to them and it may be less difficult to encourage clients to go the way of low water intensive landscapes.  Do you think that it is harder to “sell” this idea in other regions (such as California, where you are also licensed) where some people might take a dim view of native or drought-tolerant plants as scrubby? I don’t try to sell “low-water landscapes.”  I live in the desert and people are concerned about water costs.

I was attracted to cactus because they stand up to sunlight.  Here the sunlight is so intense it washes out color and flattens textures.  Cactus creates deep shadows which is enhanced by the sun.  The sun is so harsh that you need to consider it another building material and use it wisely.

I don’t think you should need to ‘sell’ the idea of using native plants.  This attitude sounds like you are being apologetic in bringing them up.  California has beautiful native plants, several sources and ample books that describe them with pictures. 

I think of native plants as being high tech.  They represent the state-of-the-art of the evolution of a place.  You can work with what is sensible or you can fight it and plant exotics.  Another way to look at this is every project is an opportunity to enhance the quality of the region your are working in or to diminish it.

When I was first starting out, I had to collect seeds to have plants grown for me.  My clients who experienced their desert gardens went on to become advocates for the desert.

A final question about native or drought-tolerant plants:  several landscape architects have expressed that they would love to use native plants in their designs, but clients don’t know how to maintain them.  Have you encountered this problem?  Also, for those of us who will be newly entering the field, do you have any advice as to how operate under a strong conviction that water-intensive landscapes ought to be discouraged, especially in a place like California, which has such a sordid history of water use and appropriation?  What I mean is, in the beginning when we have fewer choices as to the sorts of jobs we do and the sorts of decisions we make, is it best to take on any kind of work for the experience, and exert this ethic later when we are more established? The L.A.’s need to tell them how to maintain the plants.  There should be enough published info on native plant care.  I had to experiment to find the exposure where plants are happy.  A few plants we tried to use refused to live in captivity.  With our desert plants I recommend “benign neglect.”  If they grow naturally in the area, why would you need to do anything?

Why do you feel obligated to label specific plants as being native or low-water?  Do your homework and present plants as being fantastically hardy, colorful, a food source for wildlife:  “Hummingbirds fight for ownership of this plant,”  “This plant attracts insect pollinators which are eaten by songbirds.”  Songbirds like to eat insects rather than seeds. 

I think when you are starting you have fewer tools in your toolbox rather than “fewer choices.” 

I tell my employees that any project can be the best we’ve ever done.  My AZT entry received a national ASLA honor award and has been published around the world.  The client only wanted an entry gate to his farm.   I have had to make my projects into something more that the client expected.

I guess you could improve your design vocabulary by sneaking in a native plant on each project, but that would take a long time.  I actually think people in general don’t care that much about what plant you put in.  I think many people landscape their houses because their neighbors do it and it’s expected.  When I was starting out I would tell people they might get more benefit out of their front yard if they just planted corn.

Do you think of individual plants when you are first envisioning a design, or do you think of abstract form and texture, and then choose from a palette of plants that will convey these ideas?

I don’t even think about plants when I start.  I think about developing space using hardscape elements.  I think plants are incidental to the garden and that it needs to be successful without plants.  I think I’m designing good ruins.

I don’t do projects that are just planting designs, but when I do get around to the planting design, the answer is yes to both of your questions.

Do you draw from any area of the fine arts when you create your designs, and if so, is there one area (Music?  Painting?  Sculpture?) that particularly resonates for you?  Any particular artists?

I think I’m a ‘set designer’ and my gardens are sets.  My photography background has influenced my sense of composition and layering. 

Influences:

Architects:  Franklin Israel, Luis Barragan, Carlo Scarpa, Richard Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolf Schindler and Paolo Soleri

Landscape Architects:  James Rose and Guy Green

Authors:  Joseph Wood Krutch and Ed Abby

From Karen:

I am currently a Landscape Architecture student at the University of Idaho. I have an assignment to research a prominent contemporary Landscape Architect, and I would like to research you, if you find this agreeable. I have found your website most helpful, however, I would like to ask you a few questions:

1. What was you favorite project that you ever worked on, and what inspired it?  Thirty years ago, I designed an addition, remodel and pool for a Frank Lloyd Wright house. This was one of my favorites because of it history. I probably have 10 or 15 favorites. They were usually projects where i was allowed to be innovative and had a terrific client. Some of these projects had very small budgets but still received national ASLA design awards.

2. What elements have influenced your work (where you were raised, educated and where you have traveled and worked?) I was just selected for the 2006 ASLA Design Medal, and to this day, I have never had a single landscape class. I have learned from observation and trial and error. I remember everything I see. The world is an influence.  My influence was mostly a reaction to things I saw. I would ask myself what is wrong with this picture?

3. What is your profession design or planning philosophy?  I hate questions like this.  It's like asking what's your business plan? I am a designer and I try to solve problems that are presented to me.

 I try to exceed the clients expectations, make a contribution to the "street", and make a contribution to the profession. My projects were always demonstration projects for the public and the profession.

4. Is your favorite area in Landscape Architecture design, planning, or research?  I have found research to be interesting, I have always despised planning, and I don't have much interest in being a landscape architect.  I think of myself as a site architect.  My favorite area is creating outdoor space.

If you are interested in my history you can go the ASLA web site and click on the "2006 Medal Recipients.”  Read the nomination and.endorsement letters. There is also an article about my history in House & Garden, September 1996. The article was republished in House & Garden's 2005 book- The New Garden Paradise by Norton Press.