Recycling nature: Rustic furniture from garden 'debris'

Bradley C. Bower/Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT

Landscape architect David Hughes is also a skilled woodworker who salvages garden debris to make rustic furniture.

Flagstone terrace is featured that David Hughes, of Doylestown, Pa., carved out of the face of a cliff for clients in Upper Black Eddy. (Courtesy David Hughes via Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT)

David Hughes created this 4-foot-tall garden gate using native Eastern red cedar and Moravian tiles. (Courtesy David Hughes via Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT)

PHILADELPHIA David Hughes, a Doylestown, Pa., landscape architect with an affinity for native flora and natural landscapes, often finds himself ripping out dead, overgrown or otherwise-undesirable plants to make way for new.

But he doesnt haul that nasty Japanese honeysuckle, Chinese white mulberry, or Norway maple to the dump, curb or chipper. Hughes is that rare soul who prizes what other designers and gardeners despise, more so if its scarred by deer browsing, insect damage, or disease.

Thats because, in addition to designing ecologically responsible landscapes in the Philadelphia region, Hughes, 46, is a skilled woodworker who makes rustic furniture from garden debris, a kind of plant-world Dumpster diver.

To me, its a nice marriage, landscaping and woodworking, says Hughes, whose five-year-old business, his second, is called Weatherwood Design. It comprises about 70 percent landscaping and 30 percent woodworking.

Storm-felled trees and gnarly vines make good raw materials. So do pruned branches, old barn boards, and stuff plucked, with permission, from the side of the road.

An arborist friend scouts out intriguing branches and discarded trunks. Hughes helps the Natural Lands Trust and local preserves thin out invasives or dead trees. And every July 4, again with permission, he rescues unwanted driftwood from death by bonfire at a public beach on Marylands Eastern Shore.

Link:
Recycling nature: Rustic furniture from garden 'debris'