Maybe when you started landscaping your garden you didn’t think you needed to turn to a landscape architect, but designing a garden is very important, especially because it involves working with plants and an ever-evolving design.
Know-how is essential in this field, which is why we invited Diana Gadea, landscape engineer and founder of ARTemis, to tell us what her daily work consists of. You can find the first part of the discussion below.
1. How did you start this profession of landscape architect?
Diana Gadea, landscape architect and founder of ARTemis: It’s a very complex answer. I attended the Faculty of Architecture for the first time, but not in Romania. At the time I wanted to study interior design, but being a rather technical faculty it didn’t attract me much. I worked for several years in the sector and at the same time I enrolled in Landscaping at the Faculty of Horticulture and became a landscape engineer.
In Romania, landscape architects are the ones who finish the Urban Planning department at «Ion Mincu», but they are much more technical. We are able to satisfy the qualities of a horticulturist much better, because we know the plants much better, but also the technical side of the concepts and design compositions.
2. What are the phases of an external arrangement?
DG: I really like getting to know the customer. It is important to understand what the purpose is and in what direction he wants to use that space. I am a customer who wants to use that space only for the view, but I am a customer who wants to use the outdoor space for various rest areas, for the vegetable garden, for various aromatic plants, a sensory garden, the swimming pool for the summer, barbecue areas, children’s playgrounds.
«I’m interested in what everyone’s hobbies are and how many members the family has. I start with the person, then I move on to the analysis of the space.»
How the sun shines, where it comes from, which areas have the most light or shade, what happens to the neighbors, whether I want to see them or not. I need to know what’s going on around the courtyard so I can think about spaces and access routes.
I start from a concept and think about the areas, I deal with the alleys and from close to close, we move on to the detail area, the textures we use, the materials, the plants, we go to the executive details area in case there are constructions and they require details. Subsequently, even if I make a complex and very detailed vegetation plan, with the dimensions of the plants, with how many species I need, I always go together with the customer and choose the plants.
The healthiest structure is the complete one, in which there is a unified conception of space. Even if the client does not have the necessary budget when signing the contract, we can set it up so that, even if we work in portions, the concept is unitary.
“When I think about vegetation, I think about what it is like now, but also what it will be like in 10 years.”
3. In the Bucharest area, which plants would you recommend depending on climate changes?
DG: Even if there is a lot of walking on large lawns, the lawn does not provide much oxygen and cannot purify the air well, so I choose to fill the space with plants. Even if the client asks for a space where they can run and do various activities, I try to insert plants in different areas that can purify the air.
I try as much as possible to think about pollution, biodiversity, the disappearance of bees and the animals that feed and live in these ecosystems.
4. People are increasingly attracted to the idea of spending time outdoors. As a landscape engineer, how did you feel about this?
DG: There are many who care about outdoor space, people who lived indoors and didn’t care about what happened in their backyard. There are many who have moved into that house and many others who have fixed up their terraces and balconies, which were mostly unused spaces.
People began to seek out and take advantage of these spaces and realized that specialists are best able to help.
5. How does the client take care of the garden after the landscape architect has delivered the project?
DG: There are people who say right from the start that they don’t have time to take care of the garden and ask us to recommend maintenance services. Or there are clients who say they don’t have time to take care of it and can’t even afford such a service, then I think about fixing it so that it doesn’t require a lot of attention. And of course there are people who like to work in the garden and take care of plants.
6. Diana, tell us what your soul project is.
DG: I have many small projects. In most cases, construction sites around Bucharest do not exceed 150-200 square meters. I want to exceed 1,000 m2. I only had one project like this a few years ago where I also had a lake. There was also a small cave, a tennis court, a swimming pool, an orchard.
7. Tell us a little about how you organized the lake area and the project itself.
DG: This is a ten year old landscaping site that is looking for a refresh. The lake already existed. We spent a lot of time on the composition of the vegetation, on the construction of bridges from which to build perspective points. To be able to see from another angle.
8. What are the biggest problems landscape architects face?
We still feel the need to educate our customers, to be left to do our job. I always let my client express his point of view. It is clearly a space created for him to live in. At the intersection between these two things, between my specialization and the client’s desire, I must somehow be left to do my job. Some parts of the project are codependent, so you can’t do some things because you have to fix others.
9. What is the ideal period for sowing?
DG: We have two sowing periods: spring and autumn. In most cases, the client looks for a landscape architect in the spring and says he wants him now, in a month. It is very difficult for us to take on projects and successfully complete them in just one month. During the winter, very few people think they want spring.
It is ideal to divide it into two phases. Those that can be implemented in the spring and those that require implementation in the fall and, by implication, planning during the summer.
10. Why is it not advisable to plant during the summer?
DG: There are solutions for planting during the summer. For example, if we go to a nursery that sells plants, they will tell us that we can plant even in summer because the interest is in having this sale and this continuous flow of plants. During the summer we often encounter drought. A plant finds its best place in autumn because it manages to emerge from the vegetation, it is placed in a new place, and until spring when it reaches the vegetation stage, it acclimatises to the wind, to space, to the earth, to all these factors that influence the plant. In summer things are not necessarily possible, because the soil is mostly dry, no matter how much you water it. Of course we have solutions, there are various granules that are placed in the soil and that manage to retain water, but we need to give more care and maintenance to the plant.
“Plants are still living things.”
Most plants start flowering in May or June and finish the flowering process in August-September. I basically take the plant from a place where it feels good and move it to a place where it doesn’t feel right in the middle of this period and it’s not right for it.
11. As a landscape engineer, what changes do you observe climate-wise?
DG: There are changes, but they must be kept under control. I think we encounter the most problems with fruit trees and, of course, losses. Decorative plants do not suffer so much. Last spring there was a significant change. Peonies have a flowering period of a week, but last year they lasted much less. They flowered later, but didn’t last as well.
Magnolias no longer had the same resistance and flowering period. There are some things that are constantly changing and for us specialists it is very difficult to find an explanation and a solution to combat this problem because from one year to the next there are things that change and it is likely that at some point we will reach a constant point to know what the temperatures are and find the solution to these things.
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