Simple landscaping design recommendations (pics)

14 years ago

Hi there. I'm looking for a simple landscaping design for a border around my condo. The residents are free to design the border however they choose as long as it is attractive. I'm not that creative as you can tell in the pics. Any simple recommendations would be appreciated, even if the recommendation is to hire somebody lol.

PS. I'd even like plant a few pepper plants and some basil around the southfacing part of the building since it gets a lot of sun. If you need any other pics, I wll try to provide them.

Southfacing part of building.

{{gwi:19370}}

West facing part of building

{{gwi:19371}}

Southwest facing diagonal

{{gwi:19372}}

Closeup of the southfacing part of border.

{{gwi:19373}}

West facing part of border..northern end.

{{gwi:19374}}

North facing part of border (mostly shady)

{{gwi:19375}}

Comments (5)

kuriooo
14 years ago
Hi,

One tip that I might suggest is moving your bulbs into groupings. If you drive around MI right now, you'll see that the more 'professionally' landscaped places have bulbs in groups so that they look more like 'bouquets' when they bloom. I just did this to mine today, my previous arrangements looked more like yours (bulbs in lines or sort of spaced out).
kjmama
14 years ago
Hi Epic
You can do this! You don't have a ton of land and it should be fun. I found these landscaping books by creative homeowner press to be great. They give pictures and layout for every kind of normal home - not these grand landscapes you see in many books. They surely have a similar arrangement of what you have. The books come out by region. Not sure what yours is, but Lowe's, Home Depot carries these according to what you need. Also, you can go to your library and look at the landscaping section. Have fun. It can be beautiful!
Hope that helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: book I mentioned
Related Discussions
Backyard Landscape design in Progress (pic)
Q
Comments (51)
Screening trees: Arborvitae DeGroots is beautiful and less common than arborvitae Smaarg. Smaarg or Emerald green is what you are more likely to find at Big Boxes and garden centers. Except for Smaarg's overuse, it is a perfectly suitable tree for accent or screening. People who live where there's a heavy snow load are concerned about arborvitae's branches splaying. That can happen but there are ways of dealing with it. I have a "skyrocket" juniper that is lovely. Very narrow and the berries (blue) add texture. I struggle with design. Nevertheless, my thought on screening is to not ""make a point of it." A tall conifer and spreading deciduous or a columnar deciduous screen would be part of the your larger varied landscape plan. If you planted three of the same right in front of the blue house....to satisfy an immediate need for screening....It would just look like a lump of green. If you don't want to lose a season (or save $ this sale season), make a decision and put a servicable conifer or three there. (peraps Degroots....tall, compact,; chamy. gracilimas ( ferny wide) and???? Please do not plant them too close together or they'll shade out each other's branches and brown out. (the risks of monoculture is another reason not to plant many of the same plant. If one dies a newly planted one will look out of place for a while. If one gets a disease, they may all be affected) Avoid a straight line...stagger. If you carefully consider their ultimate size you'll also see why the proportions of your beds should be larger and wider. I honestly think once you have an interesting "front" to that fence and your attention and energy are engaged with planting you will barely notice the offending house. The house is far from ugly and has interesting architecture. Think of it as "visual noise" but it need not dictate all your plant choices . I concur with some others that the beds need bigger more graceful curves and should be considerably deeper. Have you tried using a hose for laying out? You haven't mentioned whether children might be using the space. If that's a possiblity it might be a factor to consider....I firmly believe kids and gardens can co-exist just fine. Touch football and soccer make another situation all together!
...See More
Thoughts on this landscaping layout? Any recommendations or changes?
Q
Comments (18)
Joe one thing I have noticed in professional landscape designs is that plants are repeated throughout the design so the whole will feel cohesive. In your front and left of the door beds only one plant is repeated, a Picea variety. That is one of the plants that people often use alone as a specimen. I think an improvement would be less variety and more repetition on plants on each side of the house. That is a personal preference and may just be a regional inclination on my part. I see that the anarchist sort of planting bed is becoming popular for reasons yet to be named. In most cases I do not like tall plants next to a walk or next to an entrance of a house. Standing at the door of a home I feel like a sentry is looming next to me waiting to ask to see my papers. It also makes the entrance feel smaller. I only like black mulch in the areas of the country that have black soil. Yours is not one of them. I would never mix wood mulch with stone. In fact, I would not use stone at all. Most of the plants used will outgrow their space without constant maintenance. I made a little doodle of your right bed. I think it looks like a jumbled mess.
...See More
Simple and Tidy landscape design help
Q
Comments (7)
It is no particular shrub. It is whatever grows there, fits roughly that size and has characteristics you like. Looks lackluster in the pic but reality depends on what you choose. What shrub fits in your locale? Or it could be patch of perennials (winter boring though.) Or it could be annuals matching other side. Many possibilities. I would put the small tree at the right side.
...See More
Hi, I need recommendations on a front landscape design for this house
Q
Comments (26)
Budget permitting, of course, you should consider adding a nearly flat "shed roof" to the left of your front stoop and enlarge your front porch to the left front corner of the house. Put your bench on that side of the porch. (You might want to create a gate between the left corner of the house and fence on the left side of that porch - or at that corner even if you don't add the porch.) Would want to clad the porch posts with treated boards so they're sturdier and sturdier looking. Is that a road or your driveway? Consider outlining that part of it which is in front of your fence and house (extending it the same width/length as that fence on both sides of your house). You could use a double/parallel row of pavers with their tops ground level to create a 2' wide planting area you can mow around. If you want a green privacy fence, plant taller plants/shrubs; otherwise, you could plant a low growing plant. Choose plants or shrubs that look good most of the year or all year -- something that stays green/keeps its leaves all year. Focus on creating a healthy lawn on any/all sunny parts of your front yard and add moss and/or low growing ground cover where you find you have too much shade for the grass to grow well.
...See More
krazy_karma
14 years ago
I really don't know what grows well in your area, but the first thing that hit me looking at the pictures is that there is no height. You need a couple tall bushes or small trees in there somewhere.
duluthinbloomz4
14 years ago
You just need some bulk; not bitty things in dibs and dabs running in a line along the foundation. I'm guessing most of Michigan is in Zone 5, unless you're in the UP which drops to Zone 4 and 3 in some spots.

I'm in Zone 4 and the ever popular "winter interest" is generally buried under a few feet of snow; so I leave winter interest for those in warmer climes. And if you're limited to the already established planting beds, you want to be aware of how big shrubs and trees can eventually get. You don't want to plant a conifer or potentially large tree 3 feet from your foundation.

What I would do is just add some heft. Tulips are great in mass plantings rather than lined up. I'd move what you have to make one or two larger drifts... or simply buy and plant some more when they come into the stores in the early Fall. I see some lilies starting to poke up on the south side among the tulips, so digging without destroying will make the going a little slower. Also, planting your peppers and basil will help to hide the tulip and lily foliage once it starts to die back.

Some things are just tried and true - hostas are great plants; they come in a variety of shades of green and "blue", some are mounding, some are uprights and in the cooler zones can take a lot of sun. All around no care plant to fill up space. Sedums are good clumpers with long lasting flower heads. Sedums look good with hostas. Walker's Low Nepeta is a real nice plant; mine blooms from early summer until the first killing frost. Nepeta looks good with hostas and sedums. Perhaps spireas have been done to death, but Anthony Waterer is a winner that doesn't get overly large is easy to keep in bounds and has dusty rose flowers which compliments the dusty rose flower heads on some of the sedums.

A tour through a good garden center with a little notebook to write down plant names, mature heights, widths, light and water requirements etc. would be the best first step.

I could never tell anyone where to put what - I have to be physically in a space moving things around in their pots until the arrangement looks right.
karinl
14 years ago
Create a nice bed shape/lawn shape and make a tidy, distinct boundary between the two - a row of bricks or stones or something. Your bed shapes can be a feature irrespective of what is in them.

Your deciduous shrubs look to be growing in nicely. Give them some time, but decide this year whether they are in the right place for the flow of the bed, the placement of windows, etc. They can be moved, but the longer you wait, the harder it gets.

KarinL

Simple landscaping design recommendations (pics)

Comments (5)

kuriooo

kjmama

Related Discussions

krazy_karma

duluthinbloomz4

karinl

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US