Friday, August 31, 2012

Noise & Smell of Expensive Neighborhoods

 
Decades ago, designing landscapes, I noticed expensive neighborhoods are noisy & lack many natural fragrances.
Noise of remodeling with hammers, air-compressors & maintenance mowers/blowers is ubiquitous where the money is.  Mono-culture lawns too.
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Designing a landscape near Agnes Scott College, at a charming historic middle-class bungalow, I revelled in the fragrance.  It was Tara Turf.  No deed restrictions demanding Bermuda or Zoysia.  Their lawns are fescue, moss, clover, ajuga, violets, & etc.  Smelling deeply of nourishment to my DNA.
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On the few occasions I can get to my Conservatory for a nap I know it won't be interrupted with mower or construction noise.  Ironic pleasure, yes?
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"I absolutely hate the sound of machines in the garden.  Mowers, Rotovators, hedge cutters are all a kind of torture.  I want peace.
     But there are some sounds that I do love to hear.  By late July the young buzzards mew and noisily complain in the fields by the river as their parents leave them to learn how to hunt.  A quiet garden allows the year to be measured by these sounds."  Sarah Don
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Cote de Texas.  Who knew noise in the landscape would be a bittersweet topic.  Much of the noise has gone away in this economy.  A few years ago a client lived next door to new construction.  It was a large home entirely sheathed in stone.  It took a full year to chip the stone. 
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Many neighborhoods now put limitations on mow/blow & construction days/times. 
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The worst 'noise' day ever designing a landscape I had to hear a client's neighbor berate, bully, cuss, & threaten his young son for over 2 hours.  I wonder how that little boy turned out, he must be past college now.
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More irony?  My business makes the noise in neighborhoods.  Hammers, saws, Caterpillar.......

2 comments:

  1. Oh I agree with Mrs. Don! I don't mind your landscaping noise; but mowers, blowers, and edgers should be banned from the planet!

    We haven't let anyone use a blower or edger in any of our 3 gardens (successive; no more than one at a time)!

    For36 years! they are horribly noisy, erode the topsoil, and pollute more in an hour than a car driving 300 miles!

    I'm hearing our mallards and a "kingfisher"!!!

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  2. The best sounds in a garden are the birds and the buzzing of pollinators. LOVE Tara Turf....all over my garden... no monoculture, bad for the enviornment!

    Poor little boy...two hours!

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