Right plant, right place: CALS alumni landscape an eco-friendly yard for ‘Extreme Makeover’ home
Montague’s concept drawing of the landscape strategy.
Rendered by Preston Montague
When the May 3 episode of the ABC network’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” taped this past March, alumni of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University were key players in the landscape design portion of a home renovation in Jamesville, N.C.
Preston Montague — who graduated in December 2008 from the Department of Horticultural Science’s landscape design program and won the Outstanding Senior award — answered a call from fellow CALS horticulture alum Maury Beckmann (’08) to help build the landscape for the Jamesville home being “made over” on the show. Also lending a hand was ’07 horticulture grad Paul Hesselbad.
It all began, Montague said, when Beckmann was asked by Ulanguzi, a local design company, to help Edenton Builders build the landscape for the home. Edenton Builders and Beacon Architecture were the local firms hired by the show to design and install the home. Beckmann, who started a landscape design/build business after graduating from N.C. State, “had created a fantastic Web site and was clearly interested in creating unique outdoor rooms,” Montague said.
Beckmann was responsible for getting all of the materials donated. “That means plants, mulch, dirt, irrigation, boulders, lumber, lighting and manpower,” said Montague. “Maury asked me to join his team, because I have a background in fine art, a passion for thinking green, and I am already an experienced landscape designer.”
Typically an “Extreme Makeover” project takes about a week to totally renovate/rebuild a home for a family in need. Luckily, Montague is a veteran of the curriculum taught by Dr. Will Hooker, CALS horticultural science professor of landscape design. “Will’s notorious ‘Blitz’ week helped us prepare for five consecutive 20-hour days,” Montague said.
The builders’ concept for the Jamesville home was a log cabin for the family, Montague said. “The husband, a veteran, is a Civil War buff and had a cannon and an antique bell, which had to be incorporated into the design. So we decided to make the front yard a showcase for the house, cannon and bell with a theme of ‘amber waves of grain.’”
Montague’s style of landscape design is “very much influenced by set design,” he said. “That was important, because we had to focus on having a finished look for the cameras.”
However, in March, few plants are out of the ground, “so we looked around and realized that all around us were fields full of this gorgeous tall grass that was orange and blew beautifully in the wind,” he said.
After securing permission, the team “removed a small sample of the local ecosystem and surgically transplanted it in front of the house,” said Montague. “Not only did it flawlessly incorporate the house into the larger landscape, but it’s drought-proof and ecologically appropriate.”
However, “the backyard was a more challenging venture, because the design was much more complicated there. Also, it had to be ADA-compliant and thus totally wheelchair accessible,” he said.
To help manage the temperature around the house, Montague reforested parts of the yard — strategically placing deciduous trees that would shade the house in summer and allow warm sun in the winter. He then made an edge around the yard of native fruit-producing shrubs, such as blueberries and serviceberries, which could feed the family, as well as wildlife. The next layer included drought-tolerant perennials like herbs and strawberries, Montague said. “A trellis was built to resemble the house and had muscadine grapes — native to N.C. and edible — growing up it to provide a leafy ceiling that bore fruit.”
Both the front and backyard will be irrigated exclusively with well-directed rainwater from the roof, Montague added. “All you have to do is design the grade to take water where you want it, then choose the right plants that can tolerate the ebb and flow of seasonal rain events — basically, right plant, right place.”
What’s important to know about the backyard, he said, is that it takes from the model of the local environment and then “artfully arranges the succession that would naturally take place anyway.
“Weeds aren’t a problem in this kind of situation, because they will either get smothered out or will simply blend into the design without offense,” he said. “That means less Roundup™ and less work.”
The landscape team also reduced the turf around the home to a tenth of its original coverage “so that the family would use the gas-guzzling lawn mower as little as possible,” Montague said.
Finally, he said, the plants are arranged so that the trees will drop leaves or fruit and fertilize the shrubs, and then the shrubs will do the same for the smaller perennials, and so on. “That provides an annual mulch that is as local as it can get. Basically, it’s following a sustainable model based on the local ecosystem,” he said.
He then added, “I should mention that many of the green innovations that I plugged into the design are inspired by Will Hooker’s playbook. This type of visionary landscape is the result of his progressive attitude towards landscape design.”
After the show was done, Montague said, “many of the project managers and stars of the show personally thanked us and said that we were one of the hardest working crews on the project and that our design was one of the most ambitious and environmentally friendly that they had seen in a long time.”
Not long after the “Extreme Makeover” project wrapped, Montague — whose mural in Kilgore Hall was featured in the Spring 2008 Perspectives — was accepted into N.C. State’s College of Design, where he plans to get his master’s degree in landscape architecture while remaining active in CALS.
—Terri Leith
Preston Montague — who graduated in December 2008 from the Department of Horticultural Science’s landscape design program and won the Outstanding Senior award — answered a call from fellow CALS horticulture alum Maury Beckmann (’08) to help build the landscape for the Jamesville home being “made over” on the show. Also lending a hand was ’07 horticulture grad Paul Hesselbad.
It all began, Montague said, when Beckmann was asked by Ulanguzi, a local design company, to help Edenton Builders build the landscape for the home. Edenton Builders and Beacon Architecture were the local firms hired by the show to design and install the home. Beckmann, who started a landscape design/build business after graduating from N.C. State, “had created a fantastic Web site and was clearly interested in creating unique outdoor rooms,” Montague said.
Beckmann was responsible for getting all of the materials donated. “That means plants, mulch, dirt, irrigation, boulders, lumber, lighting and manpower,” said Montague. “Maury asked me to join his team, because I have a background in fine art, a passion for thinking green, and I am already an experienced landscape designer.”
Typically an “Extreme Makeover” project takes about a week to totally renovate/rebuild a home for a family in need. Luckily, Montague is a veteran of the curriculum taught by Dr. Will Hooker, CALS horticultural science professor of landscape design. “Will’s notorious ‘Blitz’ week helped us prepare for five consecutive 20-hour days,” Montague said.
The builders’ concept for the Jamesville home was a log cabin for the family, Montague said. “The husband, a veteran, is a Civil War buff and had a cannon and an antique bell, which had to be incorporated into the design. So we decided to make the front yard a showcase for the house, cannon and bell with a theme of ‘amber waves of grain.’”
Montague’s style of landscape design is “very much influenced by set design,” he said. “That was important, because we had to focus on having a finished look for the cameras.”
Montague (left) and Beckmann discuss landscaping strategy.
Photo courtesy Preston Montague
Photo courtesy Preston Montague
After securing permission, the team “removed a small sample of the local ecosystem and surgically transplanted it in front of the house,” said Montague. “Not only did it flawlessly incorporate the house into the larger landscape, but it’s drought-proof and ecologically appropriate.”
However, “the backyard was a more challenging venture, because the design was much more complicated there. Also, it had to be ADA-compliant and thus totally wheelchair accessible,” he said.
To help manage the temperature around the house, Montague reforested parts of the yard — strategically placing deciduous trees that would shade the house in summer and allow warm sun in the winter. He then made an edge around the yard of native fruit-producing shrubs, such as blueberries and serviceberries, which could feed the family, as well as wildlife. The next layer included drought-tolerant perennials like herbs and strawberries, Montague said. “A trellis was built to resemble the house and had muscadine grapes — native to N.C. and edible — growing up it to provide a leafy ceiling that bore fruit.”
Both the front and backyard will be irrigated exclusively with well-directed rainwater from the roof, Montague added. “All you have to do is design the grade to take water where you want it, then choose the right plants that can tolerate the ebb and flow of seasonal rain events — basically, right plant, right place.”
What’s important to know about the backyard, he said, is that it takes from the model of the local environment and then “artfully arranges the succession that would naturally take place anyway.
“Weeds aren’t a problem in this kind of situation, because they will either get smothered out or will simply blend into the design without offense,” he said. “That means less Roundup™ and less work.”
The landscape team also reduced the turf around the home to a tenth of its original coverage “so that the family would use the gas-guzzling lawn mower as little as possible,” Montague said.
Finally, he said, the plants are arranged so that the trees will drop leaves or fruit and fertilize the shrubs, and then the shrubs will do the same for the smaller perennials, and so on. “That provides an annual mulch that is as local as it can get. Basically, it’s following a sustainable model based on the local ecosystem,” he said.
He then added, “I should mention that many of the green innovations that I plugged into the design are inspired by Will Hooker’s playbook. This type of visionary landscape is the result of his progressive attitude towards landscape design.”
After the show was done, Montague said, “many of the project managers and stars of the show personally thanked us and said that we were one of the hardest working crews on the project and that our design was one of the most ambitious and environmentally friendly that they had seen in a long time.”
Not long after the “Extreme Makeover” project wrapped, Montague — whose mural in Kilgore Hall was featured in the Spring 2008 Perspectives — was accepted into N.C. State’s College of Design, where he plans to get his master’s degree in landscape architecture while remaining active in CALS.
—Terri Leith