The Revolutionary Yardscape: An Alameda Author's Recycled Landscape

Last year at the SF Flower & Garden Show I attended a seminar by Matthew Levesque on using repurposed and recycled materials in the garden. I was truly impressed with the clever and creative designs that Levesque employed to make his Alameda garden unique, inviting, and urban-industrial chic.

So I was thrilled to find that his ideas and insights into using salvage in the landscape had been packaged in a new book, The Revolutionary Yardscape, published by Timber Press. Unlike so many landscape design books, this is more than just pretty pictures. Levesque packs the book with lots of discussion on finding sources for materials, the tools you should have on hand to work with various materials, cutting difficult materials, and making non-toxic finishes to create various patinas.

Levesque's book is not so much step-by-step instructions as it is a walk-through of the processes that he went through to create the various projects in his garden. He shows how viewing materials in new ways, or letting your mind slip past the obvious uses for items into new possibilities, is the key to creating these one-of-a-kind landscapes. After an evening poring over The Revolutionary Yardscape, I'm starting to imagine all kinds of ideas for repurposing some items that I have stashed in my shed and I plan on trying out some of Levesque's patina finishes on them.

If you'd like to meet the author and see some of his repurposed creations, he's giving a presentation on his revolutionary yardscape ideas at the Alameda Main Library on Sunday, March 13 at 2 p.m. He's also giving two seminars at this year's SF Flower & Garden Show. He'll be talking about making garden-ready finishes for wood, metal, and masonry on Saturday, March 26 at 1:30 and about the revolutionary landscape on Sunday, March 27 at 5:00 p.m.


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