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Tag: Walls

  • Kissimmee fire department adds first new engine in 15 years, expands staff

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    The city of Kissimmee welcomed a new addition to its fire department Wednesday morning, unveiling its fifth engine during a traditional wet-down and push-back ceremony.The ceremony honors a long-standing tradition dating back to the days of horse-drawn fire equipment, when crews would manually push engines into the station.Fire Chief Jim Walls said the new engine is the first the department has added in more than 15 years and will help meet the demands of the city’s growing population.“It will help our capability to respond out to the community and provide ALS engine support,” Walls said. “It really does enhance our community and helps with the call volume with our trucks here originally, so it reduces the amount of calls they’re running per shift.”Walls also announced that the department will hire 12 new firefighters to staff the engine, with additional personnel expected to join by the end of October.The new engine is expected to improve response times, enhance emergency services and provide additional support across Kissimmee’s expanding neighborhoods.

    KISSIMMEE, Fla. —

    The city of Kissimmee welcomed a new addition to its fire department Wednesday morning, unveiling its fifth engine during a traditional wet-down and push-back ceremony.

    The ceremony honors a long-standing tradition dating back to the days of horse-drawn fire equipment, when crews would manually push engines into the station.

    Fire Chief Jim Walls said the new engine is the first the department has added in more than 15 years and will help meet the demands of the city’s growing population.

    “It will help our capability to respond out to the community and provide ALS engine support,” Walls said. “It really does enhance our community and helps with the call volume with our trucks here originally, so it reduces the amount of calls they’re running per shift.”

    Walls also announced that the department will hire 12 new firefighters to staff the engine, with additional personnel expected to join by the end of October.

    The new engine is expected to improve response times, enhance emergency services and provide additional support across Kissimmee’s expanding neighborhoods.

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  • Ojai Gravel Garden by Terremoto: An Interview with David Godshall

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    It’s always a delight to catch up with our friends at the California design studio Terremoto. Talk inevitably ranges beyond the confines of gardens, touching on issues within the landscape industry that are rarely addressed.

    Appreciation of laborers and the creativity that they bring to a project is part of the Terremoto DNA. Co-founder David Godshall explains how this dynamic collective of garden thinkers and doers continue to meet the moment, while showing us around a lovely little garden in Ojai, northwest of Los Angeles.

    Photography by Caitlin Atkinson except where noted.

    On the Client Brief

    Above: At the back of the house, old Chinese elm trees provide protection from the elements.

    “The bones of the property were very beautiful but needed updating to be more functional for the clients, as their needs were softly different from the previous property owner’s. An avocado orchard existed, which we, of course, preserved and protected, and coast live oaks surround the property in a beautiful halo,” says David.

    Above: For an area in full sun, “We created a mosaic of native and non-invasive Mediterranean plants.” These include sage and lavender.

    “The magic of Ojai (I say this as a plant nerd) is that it sits at the confluence of multiple horticultural typologies,” David continues. “It’s a place where coastal sage chaparral crashes into agriculture (most notably avocados and citrus) and more cottage-y, slightly old-school garden-making traditions. Opuntia and geraniums have a surprisingly synergistic relationship. Our clients wanted to bring their garden into a thoughtful new era while being respectful of the innate qualities of Ojai that make it the place that it is.”

    On Making Use of Free Materials

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  • Lindsey Taylor: An Interview with the Garden and Floral Designer

    Lindsey Taylor: An Interview with the Garden and Floral Designer

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    We’ve enjoyed garden designer Lindsey Taylor‘s way with both words and flowers since 2013, when she was a contributor to this site. Recently, we admired her rambunctious cinderblock garden, teeming with tough, hard-wearing beauties, in Newburgh, NY, where she’s based. And just this past fall, we were captivated by her new book, Art in Flower, which collects 40 of the elegant floral arrangements she designed for her monthly Wall Street Journal column, “Flower School.” Each composition is paired with a famous work of art, as well as a short explanation of how the masterpiece inspired her design. It’s a telling conceit: For Lindsey, plants are her paints, and the garden, her canvas.

    Her chosen medium is 3D and multi-sensory. “I once visited a garden designed by a very famous designer I like. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so uncomfortable in it until I realized that even though everything was blooming, there was no sound. No buzzing of insects or birds,” Lindsey recalls. “I later found out the client insisted on having the garden sprayed for bees (they are allergic), ticks, and mosquitoes. It was claustrophobic to be in and devastating to experience such a great landscape of pollinator plants in silence.”

    Below, a portrait of an artist as a garden designer.

    Photography by Lindsey Taylor, unless noted.

    Above: “I have a natural tendency to let plants mingle and weave together, and duke it out amongst themselves. I like to tinker away at my own garden, as if it was a large never-finished abstract painting. I stand back, study it and keep going back in, adding a slash of color here and removing a brush stroke there—and eventually it all starts to sing together as it matures.” Photograph by Ngoc Minh Ngo.

    Your first garden memory:

    Picking daffodils with my Granny at their farm outside of Toronto. Narcissi and the many varieties to grow are really a favorite, particularly species and ones with finer foliage.

    Garden-related book you return to time and again:

    The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett, and The Education of a Gardener by Russell Page.

    Instagram account that inspires you:

    To name a few, John Little’s @grassroofco; Peter Shear’s @petershear; Edwina von Gal’s @perfectearthproject; and Dan Pearson’s @coyotewillow.

    Describe your garden aesthetic.

    Above: In a walled garden in Hudson Highlands designed by Lindsey, a Damson plum tree enjoys a soft landing.

    A garden needs to have a soul. It needs to move in the wind, change, have fragrance, feed the birds and other insects and critters, and breathe. When I visit a garden where too much control and need for perfection is in play, I find it unpleasant to be in. If it’s sprayed or watered to stay alive, or if it’s at odds with its environment, I’m not interested. All plants, of course, need a helpful hand with watering and weeding to get established in the first few years, but my goal is to let them sort it out happily on their own once they’ve settled in.

    Currently in my own garden I’m healing the land from a recent building construction project. My objective is to merge the line between the cultivated and the natural areas and have the house sit quietly as if it were dropped from the sky and nestled in. I’m working with the existing soil, planting tightly to avoid bringing in mulch and using only wood chips from dead trees we had to clear on the property.

    Plant that makes you swoon:

    Above: Tall Angelica gigas.

    Plants with fragrance. Plants that sway in the wind. Vertical plants that tower up through a dense planting. And plants that feed the birds who bring their precious song to a garden.

    Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

    Japanese knotweed and other invasive aggressive bullies.

    Favorite go-to plant:

    Above: A crowd of Viburnum ‘Mary Milton’, Hydrangea aspera, and Rosa ‘Cecile Brunner’ nearly obscures a door in the walled garden.

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