This lakeside property in Michigan has it all, from vast lawns to expansive gardens, orchards, and tennis courts. When the owners bought the 34,000 sq. ft. home, located an hour from Detroit, they dreamed of having a landscape with a park-like setting.
To bring their dream to life, they reached out to Todd’s Services, Inc., based in Chelsea, Michigan, to design and install this unique project, which won a Silver Award of Excellence for 2023.
Lee Carlson, a landscape designer with Todd’s Services, shares the satisfaction of receiving this award.
“It’s a true testament to the hard work and dedicated professionalism of our entire organization here at TSI,” Carlson says. “The magnificent results could not have come to life without the seasoned professionals that we had working on this project. The amount of love, care, and pride they took in the project shows everywhere you look.”
With such a large property, it took plenty of careful design to balance the different topographies of the site while preserving the existing mature trees. One of their goals was to create elevation changes that would complement the home and provide areas for plantings. To make this happen, the team installed natural ledge rock sea walls and other retention walls with shrub plantings.
The number of plants on this site is staggering.
“The wooded south meadow ‘park’ area has several massive pachysandra bed areas (Over 25,000 one-gallon size units were planted) that capture and include many of the large trees,” Carlson says. “For the trees, our client desired all the plantings to be on the large side due to the scale of the project. Sourcing was a challenge, to say the least, with this many plantings!”
Across the property, you’ll find many themes with different styles of plantings, including formal areas and colorful, informal spots with open spaces. Additionally, the site features numerous perimeter beds and a fruit orchard with 500 trees that are irrigated using a lake pump irrigation system. The system contains over 100 zones, including 18-20 heads per zone across the property.
Bulbs are used in many of the interior beds to provide early spring color, including crocus, daffodils, and tulips.
“Each fall we install roughly 12,000 tulip bulbs around the property, then harvest them in the spring (storing them in the orangery) to make room for all of the annuals,” Carlson says.
And for the lawn, over 345,000 sq. ft. of sod was installed, along with 125,000 sq. ft. of seed. They also took advantage of microclimates to use plants that would struggle in more exposed, windy areas. One of these areas is the main entrance courtyard, where dozens of mature trees were planted with tree spades, along with thousands of perennials and shrubs.
Deer are a frequent problem in this area, so they focused on adding plants that are considered less appealing. And for the orchard, a 12-foot fence was installed around the perimeter.
With the snowy winters, the owners were concerned about maintenance for the driveway, so Todd’s Services installed a heating/snow melt system underneath the driveway and one of the patios.
Many paths weave around the property, including a brick paver drive that leads to the tennis court, pool cabana, and even a shooting range. The pool deck consists of travertine stone that continues through the cabana. You’ll also find a boat ramp made of turfstone pavers south of the cabana, along with a staging area for the trap and skeet shelter. The meadow area also includes a 1,500-foot granite path lined with bronzed aluminum edging, which meanders through the lawn to add a tranquil feel to the space.
This property stands out in many ways for Carlson, making the award even better.
“It’s amazing to see the multiple areas of interest throughout the property and the sincere feeling of peace and tranquility when looking at all the forms, colors and textures. There is just so much beauty to take in.”
And the best part is the people that made it happen.
“It’s great to see the teamwork that went into the planning, logistics, and installation,” Carlson adds. “There are inevitably going to be some adjustments that need to be made on a project this size, and the team was able to adapt and make it happen.”
Interested in participating in the Awards of Excellence? Be sure to enter your projects when entries open in early 2025.
