Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The art of landscaping

Most of us take what we see around us on a daily basis for granted. On our drive to work or taking the kids off to school we tend to have tunnel vision. Next time you hop into your car off to run errands or maybe visit friends or relatives take the time to enjoy the view, whether commercial or residential the view often times is what most would call picture perfect, and that my friends takes a lot of hard work by professionals otherwise known as landscapers.

We don’t often take the time to think about them but there’s more to what they do than meets the eye.

They are not just big kids out making a mess playing in the dirt or showing off their latest and greatest big boy toy Landscaping is both a mixture of science, art and design. Let’s start with the art and design portion. In art we think of what a designer might put forth for us with color on our walls or features in our home, a landscaper works much in the same way, they have a vision of what they would like the surroundings to be, they use the elements that are within nature and arrange them accordingly maybe by adding or removing certain elements, much like a painter, they look, have a vision and create. Here is a bit of history on the word landscaper, it goes back a few centuries…..I bet you didn’t know that did you? 

Word History: Landscape, first recorded in 1598, was borrowed as a painters' term from Dutch during the 16th century, when Dutch artists were pioneering the landscape genre. The Dutch word landschap had earlier meant simply "region, tract of land" but had acquired the artistic sense, which it brought over into English, of "a picture depicting scenery on land."

Here is a bit of art featuring design…. The talented painters of centuries past as well as our modern day Picasso’s gave us the vision to take art and create it wherever we can. Both painters and landscapers have the same goal to create a beautiful environment for us to see everyday, where a painter uses brushes a landscaper uses tools, many different types of tools to create their art.
 Landscapers use basic hand tools, including long-handled maintenance implements like rakes, shovels, picks and lawn sweepers to create and maintain lawns and flower gardens. Smaller tools typically include spades and trowels for planting, transplanting and maintaining small plants and flowers and several types of shears to prune and shape bushes, shrubs and small trees...Power tools, using gas or electricity when the jobs are bigger and they have a need for speed, large hedges and tree limbs need the power of power tools. Lawnmowers and leaf blowers are two of a landscaper's most important tools. Let’s not forget that a chain saw often is indispensible. There are gas mowers and push mowers, mowers you can ride on either standing or sitting; there are mowers for every type of lawn out there. Blowers come in super handy, they don’t just blow leaves they blow grass and debris as well, so a super fantastic cleaning tool they are for sure-what did we ever do without them!! Let us not forget the most basic of tools, gloves for hands they have safety purposes al well, goggles for the eyes, those are a must have. The list goes on and on, weed killer, fertilizer…… I’m sure you get the picture…..

Science, oh yes science, you didn’t think I was serious! Ok so we are not finding new forms of life but it plays and important role in landscaping, just as much as art and design play a role. When making changes to an environment especially outdoors you have to be careful as to not change the basic structure of nature. If you do not have basic science skills you can inadvertently destroy ecosystems, alter inhabitants of animals that live in the great outdoors by simply digging too big a hole, a hole in the wrong spot, or by introducing non-native species .  So yes, science is very much a key player in a landscapers job. They are indeed many different aspects of the job, landscape engineer, ecologist, planning architecture, and design. Nature is vast and so is the job of the landscaper.

Now where on earth do they put all this stuff? Storage…… some drive around with pod like mini houses on the back of their trucks or they may have a pod on wheels they attach to the back of a pick up truck, it depends on the business and the size of the business. If you happen to be a larger company you might own a pull along that carry’s all your tools, and if you are that big you may have a place to park your trucks. If you are on the smaller side then you utilize a Storage Facility, We here at Storage Station, depending on the facility, can accommodate pretty much any sort of landscaper-big, small and somewhere in between . Some of our facilities have parking for large vehicles and we all certainly have space to store all of their tools, any where form a small sized storage unit to a double door storage unit the landscapers use them all. Some keep extra equipment they may not need on a daily basis or maybe they put into storage their excess, hey we all love a good sale and sometimes when buying bulk for a business you just need the extra space. The great thing about storage is the ability to upsize or downsize your storage unit. If you are a new business and need something along the size of a 5x10 storage unit then progress into bigger jobs you can easily transition to a larger unit. Some rent the larger ones for easy access and easy accessibility. Whatever the need storage units are always helpful things to have available.

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