Anita has been a longtime client of Greenleaf Garden Services and is a garden enthusiast. We continue to enjoy making a difference to her already lovely house and garden in Leawood, Kansas. The dynamic environment that is created there is truly something else. Dense shade in the front yard provided by the community’s lovely trees, nearly full sun in the backyard, and a low elevation in the neighborhood combine to create a very unique micro-climate that offers a wide range of possibilities in species, size, texture, and color. Her yard speaks for itself with its endless plant varieties and beautiful color combinations that she has developed over the years.
Planning the Garden Path
This summer we helped Anita develop some ideas for an existing garden bed she desired to have revamped. A longtime associate, MJ Lattner and a new addition to the Greenleaf team, Joshua Farley, a landscape architecture graduate from K-State University, talked with Anita to get a sense of the overall character she envisioned. Being a ‘collector of plants,’ Anita had a large portion of the plants used in the garden bed design already on site. The real challenge was fitting these plants into the overall context while also making the character of this space unique in its own right. Ideas for the bed included an addition of a pathway to circumvent the space, allowing an enclosed area for inward reflection and access to the bird feeders and bath, a screen of planting to block views of neighboring properties, and small areas of annual color.
Dogs Inspire Garden Path
One of the biggest influences in the bed design was inspired by two members of Anita’s family, Shiba and Inus that accompany Anita while she is gardening and who were excited to see new faces in the yard the day of the site visit! Joshua was taking photos while on site and happened to catch one of them atop a large existing boulder located in the bed. He saw instantly that this was not only an environment that Anita enjoyed, but was also home to two fun loving creatures. Joshua and MJ brainstormed ideas and soon the idea for the dog print in the path was born, standing as a symbol for the bonds that are shared between the members of the family and their surrounding environment. Extending from the large boulder to the dog print is an area of rock, collected from existing material that was used to resemble a pseudo riverbed cascading down the boulder to a dog bowl watering area.
Taking the Garden Project from Start to Finish
Anita was excited to start the project after seeing the initial project sketch. Soon after, the team was back over at the house placing plants and thinking of last minute ideas that would be the ‘icing on the cake’ before installation. When the framework for the bed was set up, Joshua and Lorenzo went hard to work making sure everything was planted and installed properly while also adding some additional rocks as sculptural pieces. All in all, the project was a success and we were happy to once again make a difference for Anita. We hope to create meaningful projects for all of our customers. Interested in seeing some more of our work? Visit our garden and landscape project gallery.