The Welker Residence in Wheaton

By Kathy Richardson, Landscape Designer/ Marketing Coordinator, Grant & Power Landscaping, Inc.

The lights on the inside of the home illuminate the area directly outside the windows. There are 30 path lights (24-watt) on the property. Two 35-watt FX Trellis Solare down lights in the trees add subtle illumination.
Photos courtesy of Linda Oyama Bryan.

The Welker residence in Wheaton, Ill. has been an ongoing landscaping project for Grant & Power Landscaping over the past 18 years.

Wheaton (pop. 55,676) is a community in DuPage County, about 25 miles west of Chicago. It is part of the Illinois ?EUR??,,????'??technology and research corridor.?EUR??,,????'??

A small garden statue is accented with a
20-watt uplight.

When the homeowners began building their home, they discovered the soil was all clay, which played a role in designing and creating their own private resort. The features in the landscape include several outdoor rooms, a fireplace and patio. A large variety of trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals for every season are the decorative flora.

The design and flora were important to the clients, but so was outdoor lighting, as the yard was pitch black at night. They love the outdoors and wanted to spend as much time as possible outside, including evening and nighttime entertaining. They wanted to give the yard a resort feel and be able to use the yard at all times during every season.

35-watt uplights illuminate the stark trunk and brances of a red maple, creating something of a gothic winter scene a la Tim Burton.

A Few Challenges

There were a few challenges with this project. To give the yard a ?EUR??,,????'??resort feel?EUR??,,????'?? we walked a fine line between too much lighting and not enough. Also, the client likes to be able to enjoy the yard and not have ongoing projects, so we kept the digging to a minimum and did a lot of the work during the day so they could enjoy their yard after work.
A tree climber was hired to hang some of the lights high into the trees.

The entrance to the flagstone stepper path is marked with path lights. The specimen trees in the bed, and elsewhere on the property, are uplit with FX Reflector Stellato (24 in quantity, bronze finish, 20 and 35-watt). There are also two FX Metallo Pesante fixtures at 20-watts, to give the specimen trees depth against the flower bed.

Extra care was taken when installing the cable for the lights, because of the amount of plant materials and the irrigation lines. We also made sure the cables that were located near the edges of the flower beds were run through PVC piping so that the cables would not be cut when edging the beds during normal maintenance.

The backyard includes an ancient lighting technique?EUR??,,????'??+glass bowls simply lit with candles. Some of the bowls hang from tree boughs and some are on posts.

Additional outlets were added to accommodate the extra wattage and properly disguised so that the client would not see them. Finally, the lights were angled to create the atmosphere the client was looking for and also placed in the trees. After the lighting installations, the team went back in to adjust the lighting wattage so that we could capture the desired look. All of these effects helped the yard look bigger in a small suburban setting and give the client the overall ?EUR??,,????'??resort feel?EUR??,,????'?? they desired.

The flagstone path in the rear of the property is illuminated with 24.4- watt path lights with a bronze finish and more candle lights. There are two FX transformers (900-watt) on the property.

About Grant & Power Landscaping

Grant & Power Landscaping is an award-winning landscape and maintenance company serving residential and commercial clients in the west suburban Chicago area. Elaborate planting design, functional patio and outdoor rooms, retaining walls, peaceful water features and outdoor lighting are a few of the many landscape services the company offers.

Grant & Power has over 30 years of professional landscape experience and a talented team to go from design to installation and protect clients?EUR??,,????'??? landscape investments.

Path and up lights carry the illumination into the middle of the yard. Two medium wattage FX Trellis Solare fixtures down light the trees with subtle illumination.

About the Landscape Architect

Jan-Gerrit Bouwman, MLA, ASLA is the senior vice president of landscape architecture, sales manager and partner. He is a registered landscape architect in Illinois. Born in the Netherlands, he received his MLA from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. He has lived in the United States since 1985 and has been in the green industry for 25 years. Jan-Gerrit has worked in many facets of the industry: garden center, landscape maintenance, landscape design and installation. He has worked as a landscape consultant, landscape architect, sales manager and executive manager and also trained people in sales, management and personal improvement. He has over 20 years of management training, including total quality improvement training and conflict resolution.

For over 25 years Jan-Gerrit has assisted over 4,500 homeowners to improve their home?EUR??,,????'???s landscape. The largest residential project he helped design and develop was $250,000. In the last 25 years, he has sold over 24 million in residential landscaping projects.

Highlights of his career have been working for sports figures such as Mike Singletary and Phil Jackson and radio host Spike O?EUR??,,????'???Dell. Several of his projects have received gold and silver awards at the Cavalcade of Homes for landscaping and hardscaping. He?EUR??,,????'???s also received a beautification award for his home?EUR??,,????'???s landscaping.

Jan-Gerrit is an ASLA member. At Grant & Power Landscaping, Jan-Gerrit is a member of the President?EUR??,,????'???s Club, which means he has sold consistently over one million per year in residential landscaping projects, and in 2006 over two million.