This before photo of Tasset Eye Park shows just how outdated and dull the landscape was. The eyeball sculpture is eye-catching feature of downtown and deserved a more beautiful landscape to showcase it. The empty lot next door would become the luxury retail store of Forty Five Ten.

On the Main Street end of the site, we ran into an existing utility and a vault that couldn’t be moved. The Silva Cell layout and installation had to be changed to work around these unexpected conditions.

In order to accommodate the trees in the Forty Five Ten courtyard that is used for valet parking, we installed an extensive amount of Silva Cell. This provided root zone space for the trees while ensuring the courtyard remained structurally strong enough to support cars.

Because of limited access for equipment, the Allee elms and live oaks had to be craned in. This portion of the elms were installed with a crane located on site, but the later portion had to be installed with the crane located on the street, requiring us to close it off to pedestrians and vehicles.

The arched planting bed behind the eye sculpture is known as the eyebrow. The smaller ornamental trees and shrubs were existing, but we refreshed it with elms and groundcover to enhance the beauty.

By the time the rooftop balcony of Forty Five Ten was ready for us to install our planters and plants, much of the interior was finished. We had to take great care and be extra cautious to ensure we did not damage or dirty anything within the building.

To carry out the theme throughout the property, the planters on the balcony match the planters that we installed in the courtyard of Forty Five Ten. The understructure of the floor was not perfectly even, so we had to use shims to level out the planters. We also had to use a scissor lift to install the Jakob wire for the espalier.

The bench with the gentleman sitting on it in the distance is custom made with teak wood and Corten steel. We hired a subcontractor to do the Corten steel, but we did the carpentry portion ourselves. The bamboo plantings were chosen to help screen the aging brickwork of the adjacent building.

The trees located in the courtyard of Forty Five Ten are where the largest section of Silva Cell were installed in this project. This area also serves as valet parking for the store’s visitors. The primary plantings in the courtyard are koi bamboo, baby gem boxwood, and Berkeley sedge.

The unique pleached live oaks were a rare commodity. The nursery only had one additional tree from the amount we needed, so there was no room for error in the installation of these trees.

These stairs connect the two properties of Tasset Eye Park and Forty Five Ten. The private park is normally blocked off from the public except on days when a special event is being held.

More pleached live oaks were installed around the Corten steel pergola. These trees had to be craned in from Main Street.

The planters located beneath the pergola were handmade by an artist in Mexico. These planters match the planters located at the Main Street entrance of Forty Five Ten and on the sidewalk on the North side of Tasset Eye Park.

This view of Tasset Eye Park shows the tremendous transformation of the site. The upscale design elements of Forty Five Ten are perfectly complimented by the simple, yet timeless aesthetics of the landscape. The park now appears to be a beautiful extension of the luxury building next door.