“What I love about landscaping is the challenge of trying to achieve perfection when Mother Nature never gives you a fair hand. You have to beat her or play the game her way.” Education: Experience: 35 years Project: 
Mike Ray
Carl Ray Landscape Nursery Inc.
Business: Carl Ray Landscape Nursery has been family-owned and -operated since 1928. In 1986, several years after his grandfather’s death, Mike Ray purchased the company outright from his uncle and father, moving the office and shop to Eastwood and farm operations to Finchville. The nursery grows and installs specimen-quality plant materials for both residential and commercial clients.
Thirty years ago, Carl Ray Sr. installed the original reflecting pool and patio at this historic
“This pool was the first pool in
“To create space for the canvas pavilion, I built a retaining wall out of railroad ties and brought in truckloads of soil to form another terrace. The pavilion floor is paved with limestone blocks set into grass, which I keep long to give it a more natural look. To age the limestone, I treated it with buttermilk. It dirties the face of the rock very quickly.”
“The client purchased the stone gazebo in
“The pool deck is made of
“The pool house was designed by architect Bob Harris with clapboard siding, a shake roof and four-pane window to resemble an old-fashioned outbuilding. I buried it in large bushes — viburnums and hydrangeas — to make it appear as if it’s always been there.”
“My client loves boxwoods and we needed a formal shape for the stone pots next to the patio steps. Most boxwood topiaries are shaped like balls. I came across these unusually shaped spiraling boxwood topiaries in
