Carolyn Thayer, landscape designer and owner of Designs in Bloom, will help guide your residential or commercial landscape project from conception to installation.  The scale of the design project can range from a small side yard garden design to a full master landscape design.  Each design is uniquely created and tailored for your site and your needs extending your living space to the outdoors.

Creating a master landscape design allows for the design theme to flow throughout the entire site. 
Key design elements can include;  

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  • Identify and create circulation routes for pedestrians focusing on the front entrance, walkways, landings, and garden walks and for vehicles focusing on driveways, turnarounds, and parking.
  • Select location and size of seating areas for patios, decks, firepits, and open spaces.
  • Locate view corridors for privacy buffer strips, focal points, and framing a view with vegetation.
  • Create solutions for elevation changes with retaining walls, seating walls, and outcropping.
  • Select hardscape materials to be consistent and blend throughout the site. 
  • Dissipate storm water runoff slowing it down and soaking it in at the source with rain gardens and storm water retention areas. 
  • Design vegetation for all areas with trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials and ground covers. ​​  Specializing in Michigan native plants.

Once​​ the design is created Carolyn can help select a landscape contractor to install the hardscape and vegetation and oversee the project throughout the installation.  Designs in Bloom also offers perennial installation.
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Do you want your landscape to come to life with
pollinators, birds, and wildlife?    Simple...Plant native plants!

Michigan native plants are the key for a healthy landscape and the answer to many design solutions.

Why plant Michigan Native Plants:
They are simply "Beautiful"!
They have a relationship with beneficial insects which creates the "Web of Life".
They attract pollinators; Bees, Butterflies, Moths, Bats, etc.
They provide habitat and create corridors for wildlife.
They are bird feeders that you don't have to fill that keep giving all year long. 
​They soak  up storm water with deep roots to help reduce flooding and filter runoff before entering into the water shed.
They stabilize the shoreline soil, provide food for aquatic and shoreline wildlife, and filter views of structures from the water.
They thrive in local soil types and weather conditions.
They provide year long interest with a variety of shapes, colors, textures, and smell.
They are our heritage... they say this is "Northern Michigan".

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.  - Nathaniel Hawthorne

​About Carolyn Thayer:
​Carolyn has been designing landscapes professionally since 1988.  She earned a bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture from Michigan State University in 1990 and became a Michigan Certified Nurseryman through the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association in 1992.  Carolyn continued designing landscapes in southeast Michigan and Wisconsin until 1996 when she entered into the Peace Corps with her husband.  The two served from 1996-1998 in Tanzania, East Africa working with the soil erosion, tree nursery, and vegetable garden programs.  In the fall of 1998 Carolyn and her husband settled in Frankfort, Michigan raising their two boys.  In 2001 she became a founding member of the native plant group Plant It Wild  and in 2011 she completed the Michigan Natural Shoreline Professional Training and Certification Program.  Designs in Bloom is a participant in the Go Beyond Beauty Program through the Northwest Michigan Invasive Species Network (ISN).
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In the winter you can find Carolyn at Crystal Mountain with her family skiing, working as an alpine ski instructor, and helping behind the scenes supporting the local youth alpine ski race teams.