How MapleWalk came into being ...

Property Number 1

Tom and I moved into our home in December 1991.  We laugh because we were actually thinking in terms that we were buying a yard with potential which just happened to have a house to go with it!

We immediately turned our focus to the outside and decided that the house could wait for some very needed updating.  

Tom was working out at a nearby fitness center and made friends with a guy there who happened to mention that his wife was a landscape designer.  We, of course, contacted her, and the ball started rolling.  (As a side note, I don’t believe she ever did another plan after ours as she started having children and then home schooled).  

We first had a design drawn for the front yard, but it wasn’t long before we had the bug and asked for a design for the back yard.  Tom and I had limited knowledge at that point, but throughly enjoyed learning and implementing the designs together.  I had never seen a landscape design before, and I was quite impressed with the detail, and along with it came plants lists which stated how many, how far apart to plant, etc.  I know the folks at the various nurseries we visited hated us because we would trot through the door with our plant lists and loads of questions.  We began purchasing books and our knowledge grew, but initially, we followed the designs to the letter outlining beds, amending soil, and planting exactly according to plan (and I mean exactly as we had our measuring tape in hand!)  It was definitely “learning as you go!”  We will never regret having a landscape designer in the beginning as it definitely kept us from making some serious and costly mistakes … such as wrong plant, wrong place.  Looking at our initial landscape designs for our front and back yards, they bear only slight resemblance to the original as with our increased knowledge, so did our desire to expand our plantings with interesting and unique specimens.  

Folks ask us, “Can you two work together?”  (without killing each other they mean!)  It has evolved over the years that Tom is the tree person and I am the herbaceous perennial person, and we both work with shrubs.  We do consult with each other, but we have worked together for so long, we both understand the MapleWalk vision.