"Sight is what you see with your eyes,
vision is what you see with your mind."
Robert Kiyosaki
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20/20 Vision
Do you still have 20/20 vision? Have a good view of the future?
If only we were seers and could view what’s going to happen next, wouldn’t that be grand?
On a personal level, from my viewpoint as a landscape designer, my work demands that I sharpen my vision, peer ahead and imagine how one corner of the world
could or should
look in the future.
It’s wonderful to be given a project that presents a clean slate, when clients share their garden ‘wish list’ and needs. Then, we begin the ‘collaboration dance’, as we bounce ideas back and forth, creativity flows, and the garden design unfolds.
I love a good challenge as evidenced by these two landscape projects for spring 2020. They are both underway (on paper only at the moment), but keep an eye out for progress reports! Plus, I'm sharing one more project that has a feeling of maturity, though it’s only a couple of seasons along.
My other important 20/20 glimpse of the future is that this momentous New Year will bring the long awaited Jan Kirsh Studio online store to ‘fruition’.

Read on and please stand by!
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Dreaming up a Privacy Border, Starting from Scratch.
This project has clearly defined requirements. Top priority is to subtly screen the newly constructed home that popped up in the formerly meadow-like neighboring field. There's a sense of lost privacy now that this new house arrived in the neighborhood.
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My assignment: design a layered planting scheme to provide privacy with 4-seasons of color and textural interest. Include evergreens, flowering plants and native grasses.
All this, while also defining a walking path for adorable, frisky, though totally well-behaved Portuguese Water Dog, Kermit, when he's on a much deserved walk-about.
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Using all the
future vision I can muster, composing this new planting in my mind helps me imagine mature landscape beds. It's like painting a picture of the 'hedgerow' or shrub border with a very broad brush in my mind's eye.
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Native Plants Partner with a Chesapeake Bay Forest
Clear vision is needed again for this spectacular wooded property, that presents a totally different set of circumstances. How to design using native shrubs and trees, in a park-like, riverfront setting, seamlessly adding to the site?
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This Eastern Shore forest has towering oaks, pines, sweet gums, and maples with a generous under-story of native American hollies that add a lovely touch of green all winter long.
Imagining the final planting in this special 2020 year is a gift and a challenge.
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Two Seasons and the Garden Vision is Already Clear
When we first met, my client requested a super-stylish garden that suited his semi-wooded, Bay-front property. The contemporary pool area was particularly important.
First effort; imagine the new plantings, and then clearly explain the garden that's in my mind. Sharing the vision, painting the picture of what is to come, is part of a designer's challenge.
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With the Chesapeake Bay providing a dramatic background, the planting was designed to be visually striking.
I know that no garden is ever completely 'finished', as plants grow, sun-shade relationships change, and seasons alter the master plan.
Given that knowledge, I do have the pleasure of looking back with clarity at this dramatic, colorful garden, enjoying the memory of the collaboration, grateful for the gift of an 'artist's eye', happy that my client shared my enthusiasm.
Meanwhile, remembering that it was planted only 2 years ago and acknowledging our long growing season!
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COMING SOON...

The online store is coming together and I am anxiously awaiting the day that we'll go live. It will be exciting to finally share my sparkling new 3D printed jewelry, along with a selection of my fruit and vegetable sculpture that inspired the magical, mini-metal 'wearable art'.
Look for more news about the online store soon. Pass the word!
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Your ideas are welcome!
Got a notion or two of your own you'd like to explore? Or a dream that might benefit from some team work?
Your ideas are welcome.
Wishing you a healthy and productive 2020 with clear vision!
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