With the oncoming holidays and the passing of another year it has been a perfect time for me to reflect on the things that have helped shape and improve SEI. One of the many areas that I greatly appreciate is my employees and the variety of backgrounds that they come from. In fact, this year we have had Arabic, French, German, Flemish, Spanish, and Navaho spoken by some of the team members. An article about a landscaper turned royalty reminded me of the diversity that exists

When I present on small space design I start out by showing images that inspire me. I am especially attracted to the everyday ordinary...

We recently capped-off a family vacation to Colorado by visiting the D enver Botanical Garden with a specific goal of seeing the temporary “Horses” installation by Deborah Butterfield . It was amazing. In all, there are nine horses situated throughout the gardens. Though it looks like they are sculpted from driftwood, they are actually made from pieces of cast bronze and painted to look like driftwood.

One of my favorite aspects of designing is creating features or elements that are more than they appear. When paging through the New York Times Style Magazine a couple weeks ago, I did a double take when I saw a picture from French clothing designer Simon Porte Jacquemus’ fall fashion show. Some of the models make-up (by artist Sebastian Bieniek) was inspired by kids’ drawings of faces.

No, it’s not a Tesla, but I’m still looking forward to taking our first battery-powered line trimmer on a test drive. I am really excited by the potential of battery powered garden care equipment and replacing all of our gas-powered equipment with battery powered equipment (yes, blowers and lawn mowers too!). Beside running on a renewable resource, battery powered equipment is much quieter! I have a goal of adding solar panels to the top of each Garden Services truck, so eac

Every time I see this fantastic swing I kick myself for not being clever enough to have thought of the idea myself. I have finally found the designer, Alberto Sanchez. His studio is Mut Design in Vanencia Spain ( www.mutdesign.com ). I hope to be hanging one from the old plum tree in my garden soon.

Recently, Mike and I met a potential client in Edmonds who just completed remodeling his mid-century modern home. As we were leaving, he showed us some RBG lightbulbs that he installed in the light fixtures around his front entry. Wow! RGB (stands for red, blue green) lightbulbs are lightbulbs that you can control to change the color. Yes — it sounds tacky — but is not. The light bulbs are very cool. You control them over wifi via an App on your smart phone. You can control u

Store your firewood in style! These honeycomb WoodBee storage hives from Harrie Leenders are quite the buzz around our office and would be a cool way to store your firewood outside. Unfortunately, they are made in England. See them online at: http://www.robeys.co.uk/product/__harrie_leenders_wood_bee_outdoor_wood_storage_module or contact a metal fabricator to get one — or a few — made for you. Imagine using just one and how beautiful it would be mounted to a wall.

One of my favorite aspects of design is creating elements that have multiple functions. Here are a few pictures of a guardrail right after Marc finished the installation. The guard rail is made from galvanized panels of bar grate. In addition to being a needed guardrail for the concrete wall, the panels are also trellises for vines that will soon be planted at the bottom of the concrete wall — and for edibles (like string beans and tomatoes) that will be planted on the insid

One of my favorite elements that we designed and installed last year is this ring gate. It is fabricated from different diameters of aluminum rings that are welded together. To get the pattern of the design just right, Shane and Nelson cut PVC pipe rings and then made a mock-frame for the gate. We screwed the frame to a sheet of plywood and then started arranging the rings until we were happy with the layout. Next, we spray painted all the rings in place on the plywood — whic

A couple of years ago, I posted some cool driveways I saw on the Venice Beach home and garden tour. This morning, I saw this great driveway on Queen Anne. I don’t know who designed it, but I really appreciate it.

Cheers, Scot