Landscaping mistakes
Although we had no intention of selling our Washington DC area rambler, we were looking forward to landscaping and gardening.
Studies suggest that an attractive landscape increases the value of a home by an average of 7.5 percent, and reduces the time on the market by five to six weeks. The Wall Street Journal also reported that landscape investments are recovered fully, and sometimes doubled.
About 6 months prior to completing the house renovation, we hired a company to give us a landscape design that covered the entire property. A part of that design was an S-Shaped Entrance Path of Pennsylvania Select Blue flagstone and repairs to our stone wall. Now we were ready to choose flowers, shrubs and trees and get our hands dirty.
Common Landscape Plan Mistakes
1) Insufficient Communication
When we met with the landscape designer, we didn't specify in enough detail what we wanted. Actually, we had a notebook full of pictures of flowers and shrubs that we like, but the landscaper did not have access to this. That was our first mistake mistake. We should have given her the book.
2) Did not visualize the plan during the four seasons
We talked about the plan as if we were only concerned with when the plants would be blooming. This is a classic mistake. You really want plants that bloom or have leaves at various times of the year to give your landscape interest. Otherwise, you have a great spring garden and dead sticks during the Fall and Winter.
3) Have no clue about what the plants actually look like
We saw pictures from magazines at first. These pictures are provided by professional photographers. As often is the case, we were not so impressed when we saw the actual plants during when blooming and not blooming.
4) Didn't visualize what the garden would look like in 5 years
When looking at those little circles that signify trees, shrubs and flowering plants it is easy to overlook what things will look like in 5 years. Most people are concerned with how tall something will grow, and totally ignore the spread of the plant.
For example, that fantastic Japanese Snowball shrub that blooms during the spring. The problem is that it spreads to 5 feet and loses all its leaves in the fall. So you have a big bare space for 5-6 months of the year.
Keep in mind that you will be buying younger trees, shrubs and plants. When these are planted, your garden will look fine and uncluttered. However, when you imagine them in 5 years, those three hollies planted in a nice triangle will each have about 5 foot spreads. They may not be so distinguishable from each other in 5 years and may be growing into your porch area.
It is also important to visualize the relationship of the plants, trees and shrubs to your paths, driveways, porch area, and house, etc. In our case, our front porch as a wrought iron railing. It is 42 inches high. Therefore, we did not want a shrub that would grow higher than the railing.
We also wanted ourselves and guests unimpeded passage free from overhanging tree limbs or shrubs. Sure you can trim shrubs, but why fight nature and besides, the tree or shrub may not take too well to trimming.
5) Select plants that won't do well in your area or landscape
Be sure to select plants that are right for your area or region. Most landscapers know the hardiness zone that they are in and will not recommend plants that are not right. Also determine whether or not the area that you are landscaping is primarily sunny or shady. We base this on the afternoon sun when we selected plans.
Solutions to Common Landscaping Mistakes
Fortunately, there are a number of easy solutions to the above problem. Some are obvious, like really telling your landscaper to design a garden for 5 years out, that has decent coverage all year round with evergreens and deciduous (lose their leaves) plants and trees and to keep larger trees and shrubs away from the house.
One common mistake that landscapers in our area make is that they design beds that are too narrow. We have 50 feet from the front of our porch to the street. Yet the landscape design called for a bed that curved and had a maximum with if 4 feet. When we took our landscapers design and overlaid it with the what the trees, shrubs and plants would look like, we quickly realize that everything would look like a big blob five years out.
The solution is to widen the front bed by an additional 2 to 3 feet. The widened bed gave the trees, shrubs and beds room and also enabled us to plant specimens that bloomed at different times of the year.
The next step was to look for substitute plants that could replace those that we did not like. Armed with our design, we went to a plant nursery for assistance and found adequate substitutes for some of the original plants in the design.
We also cut down on the number of trees and shrubs we planted even after we widened the bed. Yes our current landscape looks a bit lean, but in 5 years it will not be overgrown.
Working with the landscape plan
We would have been totally lost without the landscape plan. You should fee free to tweak the plan since there are many trees, shrubs and plants that can be easily substituted for the specimens in your landscape plan. Just try to match the height, color and shape of the plant, shrub and tree that you are trying to substitute for.
The landscape designer gave us some terrific beds to work with. When we widened the front bed, we also modified the bed to the left of the front path. So in the end we were very consistent with the plan.
What plants we used
Because the front of our yard is sunny we went with the following plants in the front of the house:
- A variety of heavenly bamboo (firepower and another dwarf),
- Two Stevens Hollies,
- Two varieties of evergreen Azaleas that bloom in the spring and fall,
- Perennial fountain grass,
- Lots of blue Liriope,
- Korean boxwoods to the left of the entrance path,
- Three white dogwoods,
- Ornamental cabbages in the fall, and
- Two large beds of pansies that the deer in our area just loved [we'll be doing a separate article on how we solved that problem]
- We also transplanted our hydrangeas from the backyard toward the front yard and reseeded our lawn.
