The Value of Design in 3 Cost Scenarios
One of the biggest reasons people choose to DIY their design project, or let a contractor implement a design-build scheme, is because they don’t want to pay for the up front cost of design. But at the end of the day, it’s the design that adds the value to a project. Imagine i
3 Strategies for Budgeting Your Landscape Project
As we wrap up 2022 and many individuals and organizations are in the process of looking at their 2023 goals and budgets, we thought this would be a good time to do a mini-series talking about budgets, money, and value in landscape architecture and architectural design! We’l
Meaning in Planting Design
Image above features the seasonal interest of The Healy House’s native plant matrix. There is a growing ‘trend’ in landscape architecture when it comes to planting design – more and more often, Landscape Architecture Magazine and landscape design social media feed
Outdoor Rooms: Four Strategies for Great Spaces
Featured photograph is an Io design featured on the HGTV Extreme Homemakeover Episode. Read more about the project in our portfolio, and the story in our other blog post. The biggest mistake that most property owners and inexperienced designers make when creating landscapes of al
Perfection v. Progress
I have a confession. We moved into our beautiful Craftsman Bungalow in 2017, and amongst the to-do list of renovation projects, there’s one that is particularly distressing to me: Our garishly BLUE bathroom. Every day for the last 5 years I have walked into this bathroom at
How to Plant Meadow Grasses
Native meadow grasses are rapidly gaining popularity as both an alternative to traditional turf-grass, or a low-maintenance shrub-border. These grasses are easy to grow, have beautiful ornamental seed-heads, and are very drought-tolerant! A few of our favorite varieties incl
How to Create a Butterfly Garden
Butterflies evolved into specific species by eating only a few different plants. As human development has expanded, these plants got ripped down or dispersed. Butterflies thrive on large groupings of plants. Many butterflies can’t eat nonnative plants, they need their specific
Planning Your Design Journey: Four Lessons from LOTR
Image above from the The Nature Conservancy’s Sheep Bridge Nature Preserve, an Io collaborative trailhead project currently in progress. At Io LandArch we believe that the landscape + architecture planning and design process is a journey through thought and time to create s
Paved with Good Intentions: 5 Reasons not to ‘Zeroscape’ your yard
With the ongoing water crisis, we are starting to see a lot of formerly lush landscapes suddenly transformed into barren rock-scapes under the guise of water conservation. While these newfound converts to environmentalism are well intentioned, doing a rock-only landscape is a
Five Lessons for Community Revitalization from Historic Home Restoration
As a Historic Home Restoration survivor, veteran community organizer, Landscape Architect/Architect, and Urban Designer, it has occurred to me numerous times over the past 2 decades just how much restoring a historic home is a microcosm of community revitalization. Historic