DMCI Homes’ Plant Nursery Facility and Landscape Architecture Process
After exploring the fit-out facility last episode, DMCI Homes will now show us around their landscape department also called the Nursery Facility. We found out in the previous episodes that DMCI develops houses with a resort-inspired theme and this naturally requires tons of plants to be displayed to create a beautiful landscape. And we can safely say that this is not a problem for them because of this facility. This Nursey Facility covers 2.3 hectares of land with over 50 plant species and is literally every plantitos and plantitas dream.
Arch. Alexis, the senior landscape manager of DMCI Homes greeted our host Julia upon her arrival at this facility.
Currently, the nursery house contains:
- 20+ species of shrubs
- 20+ pieces of palms
- 50+ species of ground covers
- 20+ species of trees
- 60 pieces of indoor plants
As explained by Arch Alexis, landscape developers combine recreational spaces with park-like amenities. These decorative plants are both for current house projects or upgrades for previous projects. These upgrades are necessary because DMCI Homes do not want homeowners to feel left behind in the fast-changing trends of landscaping and definitely, the maintenance of the plants.
The landscape architecture process of a house exterior can be divided into two: softscape and hardscape. Softscape consists of plants, trees, flowers, soil, or anything plant-related. Hardscape, on the other hand, is the solid parts of the outdoor such as the facade, walkways, entrance, etc. Even outdoor lighting such as street lamps is under landscape design. In other words, landscape architecture is a great contributor to urban planning.
To further dive into the technical aspects that go into the DMCI’s process of designing a landscape, our Presello host Julia is introduced to Arch, Lloyd, the landscape horticulturist, and Domingo, one of the landscape foremen. A horticulturist is an expert in garden cultivation and management. Indoor and outdoor plants are separated in this plant nursery since indoor plants are significantly more sensitive to sunlight.
One excellent suggestion they provided for indoor plants is to use plastic bags as a covering to preserve soil moisture, allowing the plant to develop more quickly.
Arch, according to Alexis, having a personal plant nursery facility for DMCI Homes makes their work more flexible and offers them a competitive advantage in the house development industry. Instead of having to outsource, DMCI can control the amount of landscape they desire to infuse in their projects.
After the tour around that beautiful plant nursery facility, Julia and her team now went back to the Make-over Project. The Landscape team’s goal in this specific house is to use the landscape to make the facade inviting and make it homier. Even though the scale of the landscape in this house is small, when executed properly the landscape design will make it more domestic and livable.
Aside from that, if a house has an appealing landscape facade, it contributes positively to the chances of the house being sold. This is because it draws more people to actually check out the house.
The make-over is almost done, by the next episode, you will now have an extensive tour around how DMCI Homes have executed their expertise into this home so stay tuned, and see you in episode 4!