Craftsman transforms garden debris into outdoor furniture

David Hughes, a landscape architect with an affinity for native flora and natural landscapes, often rips out dead, overgrown or otherwise undesirable plants to make way for new ones.

But he doesn't haul away that nasty Japanese honeysuckle, Chinese white mulberry or Norway maple for delivery to the dump, curb or chipper. Instead, Hughes prizes what other designers and gardeners dispose of -- more so if it's scarred by deer browsing, insect damage or disease.

That's 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 bench built by David Hughes from red cedar and black locust. (Courtesy of David Hughes/Philadelphia Inquirer)

"To me, it's a nice marriage -- landscaping and woodworking," he says. In fact, his 5-year-old business in Doylestown is called Weatherwood Design. It comprises about 70 percent landscaping and 30 percent woodworking.

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

One of Hughes' friends, an arborist, scouts out intriguing branches and discarded trunks. And Hughes helps local preserves thin out invasive or dead trees. Each July 4, again with permission, he rescues unwanted driftwood from death by bonfire at a public beach in Maryland.

The rescued materials might sit for years on the one-acre property Hughes shares with his widowed dad, Merritt, a retired English teacher. Logs, planks, sticks and scraps are stacked along the driveway, in the yard and in and around Hughes' densely packed 8-by-12-foot workshop.

"It's hard to throw anything out," he says a bit sheepishly of the jars of nails, screws and bolts and the saws, planes and other tools of his trade.

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

Read the original here:
Craftsman transforms garden debris into outdoor furniture