Elizabeth Volden - 09 May 2021

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all well! 

Work has still been pretty busy the past few weeks. I feel like I am getting better at AutoCAD though, which is very exciting. I am by no means great at it, and I could stand to be much faster while working, but I still get excited about any progress that I see. I have been working on a lot of planting plans and lists recently. I think this has been pretty fun. The office likes to use a ton of Clethras and Hydrangeas. There are so many varieties of each, and it's neat to see how they can be layered together in a planting design. I have also done some rendering lately. This is usually either concept plans or perspectives. For our perspectives, we tend to use SketchUp models or photos as the base image, which we then can spice up in Photoshop. I think these are a lot of fun to create because a lot of designing happens during this process. Hopefully, I will get to work on another illustrative planting plan soon, but we’ll see.

Things outside are looking lovely here now. We had a few good days of rain, which really perked things up (and hopefully washed some pollen away!). I have been trying to spend some time on weekends exploring the area. Recently, I visited the Sandwich Heritage museum and gardens, the Thorton Burgess Wildlife Center, and the Mass Audubon Ashumet Holly Wildlife Sanctuary. I have noticed that quite a few of these places have things that cater to children in addition to adults. Some of them even have preschools and kindergartens on site, which is such a cool idea. Maybe this is raising the next generation of wildlife experts and landscape architects :) 

As per usual, I miss you all! Seeing so many people graduate has felt a little emotional. The first person that I ever met at LSU just graduated with his master's degree already (haha, as if). All of this has me missing everyone a bit extra lately, so I'm looking forward to being together again soon!

This is such a cute little area. Lots of sensory things like water features and musical play equipment for kids. The tree house in the back is accessible from the back, and there is amphitheater seating off to the side for parents watching their kids or for weddings and events. 

The Rhododendron festival begins soon. I'm excited to show my family when they come visit. Here is a little size comparison - some of the shrubs here are HUGE.

Beginning -

- End

Ferns!!

Same, Suey, same

For anyone who is curious, this is apparently what 100 Hay Scented Ferns can look like haha. The nursery wasn't very clear on the size, so the office ordered a few just to see, and this is what came in. 

This was a lot of fun to work on! The base image used was a photo of the construction progress. Most of the steps were put in, but the ground was all just exposed soil, so it was very cool to get to build layers of planting.

I saw the "Tallest Holly." I don't know if this is the tallest holly in the park, the state, or the world, etc. This was not specified, and I'm not sure how they would know, but I still enjoyed the little hike there, and it was a very tall holly.

This was called the Barn Swallow Barn. I thought that was sweet :) Plus, there were some Swallows hanging out

I finished organizing a lot of the active projects into binders. I think they look nice!

In my downtime at the office I have done a lot of research for the town of Rochester, MA. This is a historical timeline that I put together. There is a lot of wildlife in the area too, including some endangered species. I have also been pulling some precedent images here and there.