May 1st, 2009 · No Comments

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

Is there any more emotional moment on TV than when you hear the words “Driver! Move that bus!”?

Admit it, you love it. That’s host Ty Pennington’s climactic moment on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition every Sunday, when a family in need sees – for the first time — the beautiful, brand new house that has replaced their dilapidated, crowded or otherwise  inadequate home.

It’s not just the house that’s beautiful — the landscaping is spectacular, too. Meticulous, colorful and interesting, it’s clear that the landscape artists who create new yards for the families are good at their jobs.

The Extreme Makeover team always asks the landscape artists they bring into each project to think green: native plants from the region where they’re building, low maintenance design to conserve water and just generally environmentally friendly, says Diane Korman, the show’s senior producer.

But the landscaping for this upcoming Sunday’s episode has a bit of a twist.

We’re not going to give away the surprise, but let’s just say that the recipient of the next home makeover requires an outdoor space that’s practical and navigable for a person with special needs.

Enter Maury Beckmann and Preston Montague from New Earth Design in Raleigh, N.C. The pair led a team of horticultural designers to create the exterior planting and garden for the new home. Their goal, as with all of their projects, Beckmann said, is to bring together the comforts of an outdoor room, artistry and being sustainable and natural. They pay close attention to native plants, water conservation, waste management, wildlife habitat and even food production.

Another essential member of the team was Erin Weston of Weston Farms in North Carolina. Weston creates “horticultural art” that turns a back yard into a gallery of natural designs using everything from flowering branches to seed pods to magnolia wreaths, for example.

The team ran into a little glitch that would have made most folks run screaming from the scene: The promised 28 hours they were given to create the landscape design was truncated into a couple of hours. They had to revamp and change some plans: no rainwater catchment system off the large metal roof, no wind turbine.

But if you need something great created in a hurry, Beckmann and team may be the ones to call. He said they used native ornamental grasses such as Muley grass, a limited amount of turf (they used Zoysia) and permeable pavers which will make getting around easier.

In the back yard, they created a kind of “Victory Garden” with herbs, blueberries, heirloom veggies, and miniature apple and fig trees. They also incorporated some personal touches that would have meaning and “be empowering” to the homeowner (If we tell you more we’ll give it away). The result, Beckmann said, was very rustic. The owner “was really happy with the back yard, the Victory Garden theme,” he added.

The job went so smoothly that New Earth Design and Weston Farms have decided to form a partnership, pairing the artistry of nature and the creation of “outdoor rooms.” But perhaps you can give them more than a couple of hours to create their masterpieces.

The show will air Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC

Photos by Vanessa Price, courtesy “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

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