too many plants - too much variety?

15 years ago

I had a landscape design drawn up by a local nursery and while I like the spirit of the design I'm not sure I can agree with the concept of the design. I should have started by saying that I know nothing of the principles of landscape design, but I'm not exactly sure that the person who drew up the plan did either.

Essentially what I have is a large back yard surrounding by 310 feet of wooden privacy fence. Around most of that fence I have dug out landscaping beds and delineated them with a stone border. I would say I have about 250 feet of beds, and for the most part the beds are 4-5 feet deep, with a couple of "jut-outs" that go to 8-10 feet deep.

So far I've planted five frangrant tea olives in a row. They will eventually form a screen to offer more privacy from the houses behind ours. Next to those I've planted six loropetalums to bring in some darker color and give me a little bit of the wilder hedge look (I won't trim them to a sculpted hedge).

These plants are contiguous, and next in the lineup come anthony waterer spirea, dwarf hollies, lantana, pittosporum, etc.

My question is whether all these varying plants, essentially planted in rows, make good sense in landscape design. It seems to me that plants should be repeated in the landscape and depth should be added with multiple plants in the same area. It feels to me like I'm just going to have a row of one plant for 25 feet, followed by another row of another plant for 15 feet, etc. until all the way around the perimeter of my yard are 25 different plants that are never repeated.

Am I right in thinking that I should bring the loropoetalum back in later, that I should use some of the azaleas I have planted next to the house out around the fence, and that fewer varieties of shrubs would actually yield a smoother landscape design?

Sorry to be so wordy, but I need some advice and I don't think I'm getting it from the guy who drew up our plan.

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bahia
15 years ago
For claiming not to have much of a sense of design principles, I would say you have hit the nail on the head with the problem with the design as proposed. Repeating some of the same shrubs in different areas of the garden, using layers of different height shrubs juxtaposed against each other in the deeper areas, are all tried and true design approaches that make a garden more interesting. You might also consider the use of smaller perennials that combine the same foliage color or texture to knit the garden together. As a example, you could pick up on the foliage color of the Loropetalums by using some of the same foliage color Heucheras as edging, or contrast them with some chartreuse foliage such as lime green Heucheras or Acorus gramineus 'Ogon' or similar. You could also bring these same foliage and flower colors into the tree level by including a specimen Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' as part of the mix. You could work with flower color in a range of the same color, picking up on the magenta flowers of the Loropetalum with complementary pinks, reds and purples or closely related flowers of the Azaleas, or Verbena bonariensis or things like Salvia chiapensis or Dierama pulcherrima.

The only info you haven't given, but that does enter in to the equation, is what will go in sun or shade, and whether the plants as located are appropriate for the amount of sun.

I would suggest that you relay your concerns to the original designer, and have him/her give a whirl at tweaking it. If they just don't have that certain "it", it does sound like you could probably spot the plants yourself and do your own design using the plants you've already selected, if upon reading up on them, they work with your sun/shade patterns.

As an example, Loropetalum is unlikely to be as happy in full hot sun as it would be in bright shade or morning sun, and lantana doesn't bloom nearly as well without full sun. If your conditions radically vary around the yard, plants that will tolerate either conditions may be the best "glue" to hold it all together, and things like Nandina and Pittosporum tobira, while perhaps not the most fascinating shrubs, work well this way. I'd suggest dwarf forms of each as a lower level, using Nandina domestica 'Harbour Dwarf' and/or Pittosporum tobira wheeleri as lower edging, or combining with the equally useful Trachelospermum jasminoides, Bergenia crassifolia, etc.

These may not all work as well in your area, but are classic dependable shrubs here in northern California. Perhaps a visit to your local botanic garden, or looking at gardens in your neighborhood that you enjoy will give you better ideas of how you could tweak your planting plan...
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too many plants - too much variety?

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bahia

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