Gorgeous landscaping is a welcome mat to the great outdoors, especially when it’s designed with natural materials, stunning pools, and inviting flora, and makes the most of excellent sightlines. Here, two local landscaping design professionals provide the lowdown on extra-memorable projects.
Choice Setting on Chalmers Lake
“Based on everything that was going on, from COVID to poor soil conditions, I wasn’t sure the clients were going to go through with it,” Patrick Zaremba recalls of an unforgettable landscaping and pool design.
Those challenges didn’t stop the owner of Pontiac-based Zaremba & Company and his team of experts, along with some savvy engineers. The results? Pure quality, creativity, beauty, and a relaxing way to enjoy the great outdoors.
The clients, who live on quiet Chalmers Lake in Bloomfield Township, were open to a unique plan that included installing a helical system to support an in-ground pool. “They’re a busy family with kids who are swimmers,” Zaremba says, “so the pool (65 feet by 16 feet) is designed for flip-turns and it’s long enough that they can get in some great practices.”
The existing landscape was sloped (14 feet of grade transition) and featured unstable soil, so 49 helical piers (steel rods that extend down to stable soil, in this case about 35 to 40 feet down) were installed to support the pool, explains Zaremba, who’s been in the profession for more than 35 years.
As for the aesthetics, Zaremba says there are transitional layers that flow from the home to the lake. A variety of natural materials, including stone (behind the fire feature) and cedar, adorn the landscaping. “The wood-clad walls echo the architectural components of the home. It’s a floating retaining wall system and doesn’t require footing, saving thousands of dollars,” he says. Broom-finished concrete decking (“practical, economical, seamless, and clean”) that cantilevers over the pool also was installed.
Beautiful low-maintenance grasses such as Miscanthus sinensis Adagio (also known as dwarf maiden grass) and hydrangea bushes were brought in, and three ginkgo trees that were already on the property were transplanted. A head-turning gas fire table adds a different type of beauty. “It’s simple and practical, and doesn’t detract from the aesthetics,” Zaremba says. The homeowners chose a glass pool enclosure so they can see straight out to tranquil Chalmers Lake. “The whole look transitions effortlessly to the lake,” Zaremba says. “Nothing is complicated, which is a beautiful design attribute.”
Ravine Reverie
Matt Mosher of Royal Oak-based Mosher Design Co. enjoyed a recent project that also involved a sloped property and the installation of a pool. He was recommended by the homeowners’ architect, Bloomfield Hills-based AZD Associates.
“The clients, who live in Toledo, Ohio, wanted the landscaping to be completely unique and never before seen in their area,” Mosher says. “Our question was, how do we take this property, surrounded by nature, with a beautiful modern house on it, and blend it into a softness so that hardlines slowly dissipate as you transition to a pool and ravine in the backyard?”
The wife had shown Mosher the gardens in her previous home, to give him an idea of her taste. “It was English and not modern, but I knew we could use the colors she liked and create a softness to complement the modern architecture,” says the landscaping pro, who lives in Clarkston and started his business when he was 17 years old.
The plan included bringing in mature evergreen trees from Michigan. “They were all at least 20 feet tall; it’s the quickest way to provide immediate impact,” Mosher says. They also planted breathtaking purple-pink millennium onion (a deer-proof cousin to allium); Elijah Blue fescue; horsetail bamboo, which flanks the house and provides a “nice, vertical look”; thyme groundcover; ginkgo trees; and a Bloodgood Japanese maple.
Mosher custom-designed the fire feature so that when the couple looks out a large window overlooking the pool, they see a fire-band that extends the length of the pool, which sits on a large upper terrace. Its wall extends 12 feet, and a cable-rail fence system provides a modern look that echoes the home’s style. Poured concrete walls with a custom-textured finish add more beauty.
“The homeowners are ecstatic,” Mosher says — and so is he. “The most rewarding and visually amazing projects are the ones where the client puts their full trust in the team,” he says.
More Information
zarembaandco.com, mosherdesignco.com
Text by Megan Swoyer. Photography by Sally Matak.
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