Where the Wild Things Are

Celebrity garden designer P. Allen Smith is building a home and garden to
serve as a new set for his national media venues that include two weekly
television shows, reports on The Weather Channel, books and garden publications.
But this construction job isn’t one he can do with a shovel and trowel. The
50-acre estate with its 3,600-sq ft house, seven outbuildings and two 320-ft
terraced gardens requires several specialized pieces of equipment.

Smith’s “Garden Home Retreat” will include a Greek Revival
style home built with energy efficient materials, an ornamental farm-style
garden and several buildings to house a state-of-the-art production studio and
host various public events. All of this overlooks a breathtaking view from atop
a mountain about 30 minutes away from Little Rock, Ark.

The entire construction process is being taped and
photographed. Smith’s weekly PBS television series, “P. Allen Smith’s Garden
Home,” focuses on the construction of the site showing various pieces of compact
equipment in action.

“Size, horsepower, versatility, fuel efficiency and
reliability are key considerations in choosing equipment,” said Smith. “I look
for products that can maneuver through tight areas and have enough power to do
the job with the right attachments that can take on everything from construction
to nursery work to maintenance chores.”

Smith has adopted a “green theme” in all his construction and
product selections. The entire project will serve as a working model to teach
lessons in garden design, sustainable living and good stewardship, so his
equipment choices must reflect these standards.

Smith’s construction team is using a Kubota 42-hp compact
excavator with a dedicated bucket and quick-coupler. The emissions from the
environmentally-friendly engine pass the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
regulations, providing fuel efficient enhanced output and lower levels of noise
and vibration. Its compact size has been ideal for trenching irrigation and
underground utility lines, reworking the earthen dam on an existing pond and
digging footers for the house, as well as a site for a fountain in the garden.

A Kubota 50-hp diesel tractor with a single pedal-operated
hydrostatic transmission and a cab has several attachments that make it
versatile in the field. A 65-in. box scraper attachment is ideal to prepare the
surface and sides of the half mile entrance drive into the site. In the garden
and landscape where Smith will be demonstrating his design concepts, bed
preparation is crucial. He uses the tractor’s 72-in. quick-attach loader to move
and mix large piles of soil and soil amendments.

A rough terrain utility vehicle with a hard cab and a manual
dumping cargo bed is used daily for transportation and hauling garden tools,
chainsaws, firewood and hay bales for Smith’s two Belgian draft horses, Kit and
Atticus.

You can keep up with the current developments at P. Allen
Smith’s Garden Home Retreat by logging on to his Web site
(www.pallensmith.com). There you can also check for local listings of
his television programs and his latest publications.

Betsy Lyman is director of publication for Hortus Ltd., Little
Rock, Ark.