Creating Paradise

   Garden architecture brings character to Southwest Florida homes, a fact well-known at Hazeltine Nurseries.
   Landscape professionals at Hazeltine Nurseries strive for harmoniously composed outdoor spaces to create a sense of intimacy and pleasure and to build a connection between people and their gardens.
   Now the largest design/build landscape company in Florida, Hazeltine Nurseries has been creating outdoor landscapes for clients from Boca Grande to Sarasota for twenty years. Lately, with architectural trends making pool pavilions the focal point from the first step through the front door of stylish homes, outdoor environments are key.
   Over the years, the company has grown from being solely a 65-acre nursery, with a strong retail and wholesale clientele, to a full-service landscape development and maintenance company.
   Transitioning and maintaining the outdoor areas of exquisite homes and estates is a challenge that involves many specialties. With more and more interior rooms melding into open-air sanctuaries, choosing tile, stone, and pavers is an important design consideration. Alfresco dining year-round necessitates a summer kitchen for the serious chef. And when creating pools, many yearn for a tropical oasis.
   Kitchen creations have grown with the marketplace’s appetite for spaces that include built-in grills, refrigeration, and seating for family and friends.
Hazeltine Nurseries’ professional staff is experienced
in hardscape design and installation, and creation of summer kitchens to make entertaining easy for any size gathering.
   Water features are a crucial design element. The pool is no longer the cement pond out back. In Florida, the pool is a focal point to be enjoyed – through floor-to-ceiling expanses of glass - from the first step through the front door.
   “It’s certainly not just the aesthetics,” says Joe Ferretti, general manager. “The soothing sound of water is a wonderful complement to a good design.”
   Hazeltine Nurseries creates the private spaces, including pool environments, where people spend the majority of their time. And it doesn’t end with a pool. Incorporated into a courtyard entrance, the correct fountain, koi pond or reflection pool will instill the impression of a well-composed scene. For a tropical setting, landscape professionals will construct waterfalls and free-form lagoons of natural stone, even boulders, and adorn them with palms, ferns, sea grapes and orchids.
   When carefully planned, architecture and greenery will work together to great effect. Structures such as pergolas and latticework trellises create beautiful frames for areas that become rooms as plants and flowers mature. Often these are private gardens away from the pool.
   A good spatial organization goes beyond a trained appreciation of proportion and balance; it has to do with enchantment. Mystery enhances a design. Viewed from indoors, a winding cobblestone footpath disappearing between trees can lead to reflection. An arch tucked to the back of a property might look like the entrance to a new world. Passageways – the entrances, exits, and transitions – become especially important in a garden designed as a series of related, but distinct, experiences.
   “These things draw the eye into the experience and are important,” says Ferretti. “The planting is integral to pulling off the design of any space, but with the sophisticated home construction taking place today, our clients require so much more.”
   A thoughtfully designed outdoor lighting plan will increase the enjoyment of your landscape by adding drama long after the sun goes down. Hazeltine Nurseries carries a full line of top-quality low-voltage lighting products, which the staff will install to increase visibility and safety at night.
   When designing a harmoniously-composed outdoor space, factor in a regular maintenance plan to ensure that your creation is healthy and beautiful year-round.
   With maintenance crews that can tackle everything from irrigation to digging out after a hurricane, and a full staff of landscape professionals, Hazeltine Nurseries is ready to assist every step of the way.

HAZELTINE NURSERIES
2401 North River Road, Venice
941 485-1272
www.hazeltinenurseries.com

Written by Sam Moser

Photography by Doug Evans