60. Rhyne Designs 8th Anniversary
It is February 2021 and that makes 8 years since the founding of Rhyne Designs! This past year was… well, it was certainly unforgettable! I won’t dwell too much on the pandemic and other very significant, history-making events in the past year, but it certainly was a challenging one for us all.
When the Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders started in the Bay Area in March, we all experienced the stress of reorienting our lives to the new precautions and saw all but the most essential businesses shut down. Early Spring is normally when landscape work starts to really get busy, but for about two months everyone kind of held their breath and most of Rhyne Designs’ work stopped. But by May, as some restrictions lifted and the spring weather turned warm, there was an increase in demand for landscaping that quickly became overwhelming. Residential landscape design work turned out to be one of those very fortunate types of work that has actually seen increased demand because of the pandemic.
So many of the clients that I worked with in the past year found themselves in need of better garden spaces to enjoy as they spent so much more time at home. All of our lives have been transformed and outdoor gathering spaces have become essential as the best place to safely socialize at a distance. Rhyne Designs worked very hard throughout the year to craft a wide variety of gardens and get drawings in the hands of builders quickly so that many fine outdoor living spaces could be realized.
Built Work in 2020
The world of construction was extremely busy in 2020 and not every project made it to that stage because of the high demand. However, Rhyne Designs was thrilled to return to a few recently completed projects this past Spring and see the planting thriving. This photo of a ridge top project near Santa Rosa that burned in the 2017 fires is now completely restored and looking great!
The rebuilding from the 2017 North Bay fires is still ongoing in many places, and Rhyne Designs completed designs for several projects in 2020 the zone of the Atlas Peak fire near Napa, with several completed and a few more well on their way.
We have also been checking in regularly with the landscaping and providing input on the maintenance at the Alpha Phi Sorority in Berkeley. Installed in the Fall of 2019, these gardens were also looking very nice this past Spring, as you can see in the photo on the right and the one at the top of this article.
Design Work Under Construction
Early in 2020 we were pleased to see a new garden installed on a property in the Coombsville area east of the city of Napa. This photo shows the plants being placed for installation. This was a more formal & symmetrical garden than the typical Rhyne Designs project, with a rose garden and fountain at its center, and we are excited to revisit it soon to see the results.
By late summer most landscape contractors had completely full schedules reaching in to 2021, but Rhyne Designs did see several projects break ground. One very exciting project is the master planning of about 12 acres, also in the Coombsville area, to develop it into vineyards with a new house and gardens. We created drawings showing the new vineyard blocks, along with conceptual design for a new driveway and house site, working around an existing house and horse barn. One vineyard has now been installed, along with part of the driveway for the future house, and several more acres of grapes will go in soon!
New Design Work Underway
Rhyne Designs’ office has been a flurry of activity in the past year with many new projects making their way through the design process. This includes the landscape design on a one-acre property at the very north edge of the City of Napa, where a new swimming pool and guest house will be complemented with some nice gardens connecting with the existing home as shown in this image.
Other projects include residential gardens in the East Bay from Oakland to Richmond to Moraga but the majority of work has been in Napa County this past year. We even had two recently built projects change hands and been engaged by the new owners to further develop and enhance our earlier designs.
Rhyne Designs has also taken on a consulting role in a non-residential project in the past year, working with Geomorph Design as part of the team creating the design for flood risk reduction along Fairfax Creek in Marin County. This project includes stream restoration at two different locations as well as a two-plus acre retention basin to absorb heavy rains. Rhyne Designs has helped to develop detailed planting designs for these sites with a plant palette consisting of entirely locally native plants.
Looking Ahead
Unfortunately it looks like we are heading for another very dry year in California which means another potentially bad fire season. Among the many tragic events of 2020 was the explosion of lightning-caused fires around the Bay Area from one storm system at the end of August. I’ll never forget when there was so much smoke from the fires that the sun basically didn’t shine all day. Here is a photo from Atlas Peak Road looking into the Napa Valley at about 12 noon that day – it was so dark I had to use a flashlight to help me read my tape measure at one project site!
Despite the changing climate, overall Rhyne Designs is optimistic and excited about the changes ahead in 2021 and hoping that the world starts to get back to “normal” and we have a much better year ahead!