- Herb Frank Memorial Award
- Best entry from all commercial installation categories.
- Jensen Corporation Landscape Contractors
- Project Name: Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel & Spa
- Award Sponsor: Birch Financial
From the July-August 2010 issue of California Landscaping magazine:
For what project: Installation at Rose-wood Sand Hill, a luxury hotel and resort in Menlo Park. The 22-acre site includes 16 acres of hotel grounds and six acres of adjoining office space. Installation was being performed as the resort was being built.
Who’s who on this project? David Murphy, superintendent; Matthew Hessel- berg, assistant superintendent; Anthony Robles, project manager; Carlos Valencia, estimator; key foremen were Adan Gonzales Jr. and Gerardo Diaz. “This was one of those projects that was a true team effort,” Murphy says. “I think almost every one in the company was involved in one way or another at some point.”
Who was the landscape architect? SWA Group of San Francisco
What was Jensen’s scope of work? Drainage, soil testing and preparation, planting, irrigation, installation of header board and walkways, and all self- watering/self-draining planter pots. Jensen installed more than 10,000 square feet of gravel pathways, about 40 planter pots and 41,000 square feet of naturalized hydroseed turf. About 17,000 linear feet of landscape drainage and bioswale drainpipe was installed.
What kinds of plantings were installed? More than 790 trees, including four 20-foot Phoenix canariensis palms at the main entrance. Also included were a succulent garden, a flower garden showcasing annuals and perennials, a formal garden, a rose garden and an herb garden for use by the kitchens.
Who maintains the site? Jensen Landscape Services has maintained the site since installation.
About how long did the project take? Work on initial drainage began in June of 2006. “We were out there for four months at that time, and we started up again about a year later, finishing the project in April of 2009,” Murphy says. “Since then, we’ve put in some additional planting areas and have helped with drainage issues.”
Did you install any special features? “There are several garden areas where we installed very intricate gravel pathways that had to have very clean and precise lines,” Murphy says. “The layout and installation of these were very labor intensive with a lot of tweaks to the metal header board to get it just right.”
Any water management issues? The landscape was designed with water conservation in mind, both with plant selection and irrigation system design. The irrigation, a two-core (two-wire) system (controlled from a laptop computer) uses satellite data for evapotranspiration rates.
Did you use any sustainable landscape installation methods? Many plants were chosen with an eye towards low water use. There are extensive plantings of ornamental grasses and California natives. A planted bioswale filters rainwater run-off for the entire site.
What were some of your installation challenges? “The sheer size of the site and the heavy clay soil were our major challenges,” Murphy says, explaining that close to 25 different soil samples were taken to evaluate the soil. Some of the soil was close to “unplantable” because of its high clay content, low infiltration rates and high salts. A plant pathologist was called in to help create a soil remediation program, and preparation of the planting areas was extensive and labor intensive. The poor soil also presented drainage challenges and required installation of drains in landscaped areas and subsurface perforated drain lines. Drain fields were installed under many of the buildings in an effort to mitigate soil expansion. Several drain tie-ins were 10 to 11 feet deep. In addition, in order to stay on schedule, much of the landscape was planted in winter.
Did you learn anything on this project that could serve as a take-away for fellow landscapers? “We had a lot of brainstorming and team meetings and we had some great ideas that came from the field,” Murphy says. “We really learned to get input from other people in the company, especially when we were doing the drain lines.” Hesselberg adds: “Because there were a lot of changes made to the soil, we learned a lot—not only about how to make mechanical changes to the soil, but how to do the work in tight areas and big areas and we continued that process after the plants were installed as well.”
