Creating a landscape of enduring beauty requires thoughtful planning, skillful implementation, and dedicated care. A well-planned garden is also a smart investment in lasting value. At the outset, a garden designer with a long-term perspective will help you avoid the pitfalls that result in short-sighted, costly garden “makeovers,” including perhaps the greatest expense: the time it costs to re-grow a “ripped-out” garden to graceful maturity.Even before devising a thoughtful garden plan, consider your commitment: how much are you willing and able to commit to the creation and care of your garden? Your designer will need to know your dedication (financially and emotionally) to the garden you are envisioning so as to stay within realistic parameters. In our experience, the best gardens are those which are well-loved. Please visit our website to view our mission statement, values, and work: https://www.hanselmanlandscape.com/about-us-hanselman…/Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing tips to help you invest your time and resources wisely as you plan your own enduring garden. See you back here again soon!

Shared by Betty HanselmanGardener’s wife (& advocate of a long-term garden perspective)

The careful thought, high-quality workmanship, and integration of nature’s beauty with daily life that characterize Japanese gardening culture also guide the vision and standards of Hanselman Landscape. For this reason, each company team member is continually trained in traditional Japanese gardening methods. This training is applied to every aspect of gardening, from design to maintenance.

Recently, Japanese garden expert, Doug Roth spent two days with the Hanselman Landscape team, providing hands-on training in garden design and pruning. Day one began with each team member standing in front of a tray of sand and a birdhouse with see-through plastic sides. The challenge: using the supplied sand and individually-selected rocks, create “gardens” that will be pleasing to the eye when viewed through the windows of the home (i.e. birdhouse). Every 30 minutes or so, the team members were instructed to move to a different tray “garden” and were given a new set of garden design requirements. On day two, under Roth’s watchful eye, team members practiced Japanese pruning methods on yet-unpruned trees brought in from the nursery. (See photos of both days, below.)

As a company, we are constantly learning the values of the Japanese garden tradition. We believe that regardless of the style of garden being developed, many Japanese garden techniques have universal application that result in high-quality, enduring gardens that delight and refresh.

Gladly shared by Betty HanselmanGardener’s wife (& Japanese garden advocate)

“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.”~ Lewis Grizzard (American author, newspaper editor and sportswriter, humorist, and commentator on life in the South; 1946-1994)Shared by Betty HanselmanGardener’s wife (& spring celebrant)

At the heart of Hanselman Landscape’s mission is the desire to learn from the best garden builders in the world. According to Doug Roth, Japanese garden expert and publisher of a Japanese garden journal (Sukiya Living), every culture is highly successful in at least one area, and “the Japanese are very, very good at landscape gardening.”

In fact, the Japanese garden tradition has been under development for more than 1,000 years. As defined by Roth, Japanese gardens are high-quality living environments that reflect the beauty of the natural world and respond to basic human needs.

The careful thought, high-quality workmanship, and integration of nature’s beauty with daily life that characterize Japanese garden culture also guide the vision and standards of Hanselman Landscape. For this reason, the HL team is continually trained in traditional Japanese gardening methods. This training is applied to every aspect of gardening, from design to maintenance.

Recently, the team at Hanselman Landscape spent two training days with Doug and Tamao Roth. Stop by next week to see what we did! (Ever heard of “tray garden” designing?) By Betty HanselmanGardener’s wife.