6 Strategies for Creating Mindful Landscapes
Have you ever gone for a walk or hike to clear your mind? The outdoors and physical activity have a way of helping us quiet our mind and release our worries and stress. It’s an opportunity to disconnect from screens and immerse yourself in the real world, allowing you to be
Necessary Nature
There’s not a lot of good news out there lately when it comes to the climate crisis. Despite decades of scientists warning us of a warming planet, our collective response has been relatively too little, too late. Now we’re witnessing many of the most dire predictions beco
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
While many individuals and organizations start to look at their 2023 goals and budgets, we decided to talk about budgets, money, and value in landscape architecture and architectural design! We’ll kick off by talking about how to create a financial plan in order to realize
Meaning in Planting Design
There is a growing trend in landscape architecture when it comes to planting design. More and more, Landscape Architecture Magazine and landscape design social media feeds are filled with sublime, flowing meadows, containing a symphony of softly mounding grasses, interspersed wit
Outdoor Rooms: Four Strategies for Great Spaces
Featured photograph is an Io design featured on HGTV’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Read more about the project in our portfolio, and the story in this blog post. The biggest mistake people make when creating landscapes from residential gardens to parks and plazas, is to
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 include G
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: Lessons from ‘Lord of the Rings’
At Io LandArch, we believe that the landscape and architecture design process is a journey through cognition and time to create sustainable, vibrant places. It’s an expedition often lined with challenging obstacles and tough decisions. But it’s also filled with antici