Sisters’ landscaping skills hit small screen again

Rima Shah

The two sisters who own Remarkable Gardens, a landscaping company,

are getting pretty comfortable being on camera.

After all, this is the second time that the Burbank-based sisters’

designs have been chosen to be on HGTV’s “Landscapers’ Challenge.”

This time, the house, a Spanish colonial-style structure built in the

1920s, is right in their backyard -- in neighboring Glendale on the

1200 block of Cordova Avenue.

The first time the sisters -- Christine Chesney and Nancy

Valentine -- were chosen to be on television was to design the

landscape of a house in Altadena for HGTV. The aging house, with its

ivy and asphalt drive, created a problem for the two sisters. But

they decided to upgrade the yard with a textured driveway, a jar

fountain and a split rail fence with roses, the sisters said.

HGTV officials were so impressed with their work that they asked

them to compete again for the show.

“Some designers go off on an arty world,” said Monica Ramone, the

show’s director. “[Chesney and Valentine] take the clients’ interests

into consideration. They’re easy to be around.”

“Landscapers’ Challenge” invites three professional landscapers to

compete for a homeowner’s approval to design a house, fitting the

owner’s budget on a deadline.

Winning the Spanish colonial-style project was like a dream,

Chesney said. Spanish colonial-style is marked by wrought-iron gates,

stucco, a wood trim, a tile roof, low walls, tropical landscape and a

fountain, Valentine said.

Their plan for the house incorporates all three. The sisters, both

of whom have degrees in art and have been in the landscaping business

for about seven years, turned an unusable dirt space at the front of

the house into something the homeowners could entertain in.

“We bought the house a year and a half ago,” said Anna Schocket,

who owns the home along with her fiance, Vitaly Vishnitsky. “It is a

beautiful house, but it needed the extra pizazz.”

To give it the extra pizazz, the sisters got rid of the dirt floor

and the dull red coloring on the front porch. The porch and the dirt

floor were instead replaced with blue and earthen-colored tiles. The

sisters chose the same hand-painted tiles for the outside of the

house as the inside, to provide a continuous flow between the

exterior and interior.

The new homeowners loved the sound of water from a blue mural

fountain. Getting rid of dead and high-maintenance plants, Chesney

provided for tropical plants, which would be low maintenance for the

working couple.

“We liked their approach, their style and the understanding of

Spanish architecture,” Schocket said. “So far, it is just looking

beautiful.”

A carved, wrought-iron gate and a bench for seating completed the

area, which could be used for dining and entertaining by the couple.

“We wanted to make the outside as wonderful as it is inside,”

Valentine said.

The show provides them the excitement of winning and showcasing

their talents to a wider audience -- the show has an audience in more

than 30 countries.

“It allows us to be actors and sound good and look good,” Chesney

said. “We’re so used to being out there in the field.”

For the homeowners, who get to be on the show, it gives them the

perspective of three designers, professional services at a discounted

rate and an involvement in the process.

“They are having to do something more than write the check,”

Chesney said.

The show on Schocket and Vishnitsky’s home will air in the summer.