colleen goes national

Magazine coverColleen Miko, owner of the Pacific Northwest’s Colleen’s, a Land­scape Design Com­pany, has one of her gar­den designs fea­tured in the cur­rent issue of Organic Gar­den­ing Mag­a­zine. In the inter­est of full dis­clo­sure I’m glad to say that Colleen also hap­pens to be my cousin through a cou­ple of for­tu­nate mar­riage links in the fam­ily. She’s received well-deserved regional notice for her land­scape work, but this is her first national print expo­sure. (Edit, May 19: Any­one with access to cable might have seen her on TV ear­lier, when she was the final­ist in HGTV’s Landscaper’s Chal­lenge program.)

Rah Colleen!

Here’s a peek at one of the spaces in her design. I like how the gen­tly sym­met­ri­cal plant­i­ngs helps focus atten­tion on the water fea­ture. In other gar­dens, foun­tains and other focal points some­times feel too small for the spaces they’re allot­ted. But Colleen’s strat­egy here gives greater visual weight to the bur­bling water and the area around it. The whiff of sym­me­try also brings visual calm that com­ple­ments the calm­ing sound of water. I’d love to spend some time in this space on a warm after­noon with a glass of North­west riesling.

Pick up the June/July issue and see more of her work!

Green roof birdhouse

And be sure to pop over to Colleen’s web­site, where you’ll find other exam­ples of her designs, as well as instruc­tions on how to build this fun bird­house with a green roof.

May 18 2010 | Categories: gardeninglandscape design | Tags: | 3 Comments »