|
|
Collaborative effort
1 May, 2007 By: Don Dale Landscape ManagementWhen you put a creative contractor together with an equally adventuresome client, unexpected things can happen. Sometimes you have to trust your ingenuity, tap into your client's enthusiasm and let 'er rip, says contractor Mike Bulone.
Maybe this is one of those "don't try this at home,"projects, but Bulone, owner of Bulone Brothers Landscaping, Aurora, OH, made it happen. He "teamed" with a client to create what an incredible backyard waterscape project. In other words, Bulone and the client agreed to pretty much scrap the original blueprints and the original contract — and "wing it" in the midst of a very complex job.
Not a good idea? Recipe for disaster?
 Grade changes challenged Bulone's crew in building the patio and water features. |
From time to time, given the right circumstances, why not throw caution to the wind and test yourself, asks Bulone? He started his design/build company in 1992, and since he's experienced in creating water features and loves the ingenuity they require, he was confident his company and the client could pull it off — he just didn't know how.
The customers found Bulone through a local pond and garden tour after admiring the water feature he saw at the contractor's house. That led to some work, such as renovating an existing pond in the client's front yard. But the big job was to be a water feature in the backyard.
Leaving the known behind
That job ultimately encompassed the entire backyard and took up about five months of Bulone's time over a period of almost a year. Taking the client's original ideas, Bulone came up with some of his own. This led to a collaborative effort that was so creative that it necessitated leaving the original design and working from day to day on elements that client and contractor collaborated on.
 Bulone took care in selecting the boulders and "character stones" that would grace the flowing stream and 4-ft.-tall waterfall. Everything is viewable from the client's house |
"There was a lot of creativity there. It was above and beyond the normal," Bulone says. He loved the process, and the client got into the spirit of the project.
By the end of the job, the back yard held a stream, a bridge, an extensive patio, a lot of new vegetation and a waterfall as well as several small water grade changes ending in a pondless reservoir. It was a water feature that grew, in phases, into an entire landscape.
The job began in the fall of 2005 with the grading of the odd, triangular backyard. The first part of the work was a walkway and multi-tiered patio. Next came a 6-ft.-long footbridge, which Bulone conceived as being stone. It ended up being built in three phases in concrete, and then his crew put a stone veneer on it. The bridge was based on the client's concept of a Thomas Kinkade painting that had a bridge in it.
 The 6-ft.-long concrete bridge was built in phases and is a focal point of the landscape. |
"Then we started carving out our stream bed," Bulone says. It ran under the bridge, dropping three levels, and ended in a huge hole filled with gravel. That was the pondless water holding tank, the size calculated after figuring grade requirements and the fact that the recirculating system would require 17,000 gallons of water per hour.
1 2
Please send any technical comments or questions to our webmaster.