What do you think would make it better in the winter.
Let's not discount the seed heads from the sedums, digitalis and the echinacea. I gather you need more evergreen, tell me what you'd use?

that garden was installed in June 05 and pics were in Sept or Oct 05. I'm hoping to pop over there one day when I get a chance as then it will be just over a year old.

my curiosity was sparked and I went for a drive.

It's now a year old, notice that the plants in bloom now are quite different than what you see in the shots from last fall. I'm loving the Digitalis but it remains to be seen what will self sow for a new crop.

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'Terra Cotta' has faded to it's pale yellow color - still nice but I have yet to see it at this place in it's clay tones.

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some of the files are corupt so I'm missing some key shots
here's what's left

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You will only hear a critique if you stop talking nicethyme. It takes forever to download you pictures and then you add more. Relax

I absolutely love it because it is different and it changes with the seasons.

I would agree with the others that more evergreens are needed for winter interest and for substantive form and shape against which the grasses and perennials can be offset against. What's in bloom now can be satisfied also by using flowering evergreens or variegated foliage.

If the lawn was rehabilitated, then it would help to provide a unifying mass of green to blend in the tapestry of textures and stalks.

I, too, would include some plants for winter interest besides the seedhead of perennials and grasses. There are a lot of beautiful dwarf evergreens available that fit in nicely with other plants. Check out Adrian Bloom's
"Gardening with Conifers". I don't consider evergreens "placeholders", nor are they "three season performers".

The area to the right of the walk is so narrow that you'll never be able to make any kind of impact there. Third-year perennials will be large enough that they'll be single file, at least that's how it looks from the photos, depth and distance can be hard to judge in a photograph.

The areas that are large enough to allow for some layering of plants look a lot better, but I think this is not going to be a low maintenance planting unless the homeowners are hands-on gardeners and don't mind dividing plants, thinning the spreaders, and replacing any that decline on a regular basis.

At least it's different, but I think a meadow-like planting of mostly herbaceous plants would work better in a sweeping border of massed plants a little farther away from the house, with more woody and winter interest plants up near the foundation. I also think you can use some plants with height and substance, like larger shrubs and small trees to be in scale with such a large house.

Thanks for sharing your efforts, I think you were courageous to do something different. I wonder how it will look in another couple of years, or if it will get weedy and overgrown.

I think one of the key points that you've missed in this kind of planting design is its overall simplicity. Drifts of grasses are juxtaposed with plants that break up the linear texture and masses of the grasses--Oudolf calls them harmonious associations and umbellifiers.

You don't have to use a lot of different types of plants, what you have to do is create visual tension between the types of plants you choose. When you look at Oudolf's plantings, they have an underlying structure that yours lacks. Evergreens are one way to supply that structure, stone is another. In your many examples, the house doesn't supply that structure and there is little relationship between the house and the garden. Even if your client wanted something different, was this the best choice of 'different' for the site and the architecture? I'm not saying that the choice of a design based on grasses is wrong for the site, I'm asking whether the design you chose creates a visual dialog between the house and garden.

It's always tempting the first time you try something new to want to use everything in the toolbox. Most times, less is more.

Like this?

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:35532}}

The color combination in that last picture (at link) is nice but otherwise the coneflowers look like they are attacking the lone grass in this view. Interlocking drifts would be better because the colors could really be seen against one another and the two kinds would be balanced in number. The grass(es) should also be at the front of the planting as they are basal foliage clump types (as are ferns and hostas, some eryngiums and most foxgloves).

Where is the enkianthus?

I think perhaps "winter interest" and "evergreen planting" mean different things to people in different zones.
Where it snows, you're probably looking for structure.
Here where it never snows, you just want green and flowers 12 months out of the year.
Is this garden going to be covered with snow? Does the house protect the entry garden even if it does snow a lot? Are we talking a dusting of frost or a heavy blanket of snow?

What are you looking for in the winter if it does snow: pops of green? hedge/mass o' green? No green, but with interesting structure?
Realise, when it comes to cold gardens, I'm mostly working from pictures-- but my family lives in Ohio, and while I found evergreen trees charming, evergreen hedges I thought were just silly under a blanket of snow. Give me snow-covered grasses.

I was wondering that too spunky, since enkianthus is one of my favorite, funky shrubs. Didn't see it there.

Patty

I'd agree to add some evergreen interest to stretch the seasonal appeal, but even beyond that, the plant list is almost entirely herbaceous perennials. Seedheads only go so far - as far as I can tell, there is virtually no structure or "bones" to the design......seems like it would be a pretty bleak scenario in winter, snow cover or not. Why no small trees, shrubs, dwarf conifers? They don't even have to be evergreen, deciduous material would work almost as well and could contibute some needed stature, possible flowering, seasonal foliage color, bark or berry interest. What is there doesn't look bad for midsummer, but what do you have for the other 6 months of the year except some bedraggled seedheads, straw-looking grasses, bare ground or newly emerging foliage?

And excuse me for saying so, but how on earth could you consider a conifer "performing" for only 3 months of the year?? What the heck is it doing for the other 9? One of the greatest attributes of any evergreen - coniferous or broadleaved - is that it adds presence and color and structure to a garden all 12 months of the year, something I fear this design is sorely lacking.

Besides broadleaf (how about azalea, pieris, hardy camellia) and coniferous evergreens (a Skyrocket juniper at that bend in the curve would be notable, and you could balance it with two more placed asymetrically on the other side of the path), some hardscape would go a long way to add bones and structure.

Perhaps in place of a juniper at the bend, try a granite post with traditional black iron hanging electric lantern, or a pier made of bricks to complement the house materials, topped with a well crafted concrete finial or lantern.

Other than Miss Rumphius I don't know if anyone has picked up on the fairly basic problem that nicethyme had to deal with and that is fitting the house to the landscape or making it look like it belongs. It was a pretty wild leap but they did ask for something different. The path that exists is a bit severe but we are told that this is a transition and something will be added to it later. I disagree totally with the evergreen suggestions and the cliched 'bones' or 'structure' idea because a Piet Oudolf inspired design negates all of this. There are perhaps too many varieties of plants, although we don't want to reduce it to the three plant combination of Oehme and van Sweden. There will be a maintenance issue and it is best tackled now rather than wait for it to become what Russell Paige would call "coloured hay".

It did not escape me that this appears to be a formal structure plopped into a cottage-type garden. However, it seemed pointless to suggest that everything be ripped up and the design started from scratch.

I believe that evergreens would indeed enhance the appearance, especially those with an architectural appearance, such as the columnar junipers, or formal clipped boxwoods both in the ground and in large containers. I don't find them "cliche" at all, used in a way that enhances and complements the lines of the house. Barring their use, then hardscape such as brick piers and other treatments - maybe a terracotta-toned tile entryway instead of a curved path - would offer the year-round interest and bones.

But

Whether the "bones" are evergreens, small trees, substantial shrubs of any kind, or the suggested brick pier or stone pillar, it does look like it needs something that looks "solid". While the plantings look interesting, they also look very ephemeral, seedheads notwithstanding. A little to light and airy, too weightless. Especially for such a large house.

Ink, I couldn't disagree with you more :-) Oudolf's designs most certainly do have "bones" - vast pruned yew hedging, the Bosque at Battery Park, various walled gardens that offer trees and shrubs as well as his characteristic expansive sweeps of perennials. And those that do heavily feature herbaceous perennials do so in a much more significant context than the subject design - we're talking dozens of the same plants. What we have here are onesy-twosies with very little visual impact other than confusion. It may be Oudolf-inspired but it rather substantially misses the mark.

Gg48 said what I was trying to say about structure and Oudolf's design philosophy. If you look at his work, there is always some visual structural relationship between plants in the scheme. In his own garden, linked below, wonderful undulating yew hedges provide some of that structure.

In our climate, grasses do look okay until February/March and it's really early-mid spring where the interest is most needed. Grasses themselves can provide structure and punctuation also--Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' is often used (and misused) for this purpose.

INK mentions Oehme and van Sweden who are the main proponents of the New American Garden. (We can save that for another discusssion!) A great example of their work is in the June issue of Gardens Illustrated. Their plantings tend to be simpler than Oudolf's and used in large masses.

Here is a link that might be useful: Oudolf's own garden

Well I will stick to my guns and say that it is precisely the "light and airy" "weightless" or "ephemeral" quality that Oudulf's grass and perennial designs provide that make them unique. He is a garden designer though and has to meet a clients brief and it would be difficult to have a bosque with only ornamental grass. The yews in his own garden/nursery were there before he began his business and areas that carry his trade mark design do not rely on them for effect. An effect that is like walking through an overgrown meadow. In the pictures shown here I think the view from the house over the garden to the wooded area opposite works better than the other way round. This needs some work but I am not convinced that evergreens will do the trick, perhaps some small indigenous trees?

Actually, some of Oudolf's grass designs are among the weightiest landscapes I've seen. Thick, inpenetrable banks of tall, dense miscanthus grasses fronted with lower-growing grasses and forbs that provide interest even in the winter with their dried foliage and seedheads (think teasel and coneflower in front of a densely planted bank of miscanthus). Such plantings are luminous when the light catches them right, and they have movement. But they are also substantial.

That could actually work with this house, in contrast to a traditional approach using clipped parterre gardens, which I believe would also work.

The two things that I get from studying Oudulf are, that winter death is a seasonal change to be celebrated, and that it is the forms and how they work off of each other. If you look at his writing on sublime and mysticism in Designing with Plants. Yes, a great deal of his commercial works include vast sweeps not unlike van Sweden but I think that it is for the average viewer who may have no plant appreciation but can emjoy the simplistic textural appeal. His own experimental perennial beds are very eclectic as they are a collectors beds.

Vast sweeps are breathtaking, especially in pictures but they are just one moment in time. A 2 plant mass can only provide the seasonal interest and change of 2 plants, when one or both of them is "down" you are left with a vast sweep of down. Adding smaller accentuation points for outer seasons can draw ones attention from whats down, Peonies and Poppies doted here and there singularly will not need to be massed to provide interest albiet are great enmass but again would leave a nonblooming mass through the majority of the year. In those first pics at 3 months, you see a few smaller groups of Dendranthemum, the last hurrah, to use them in bigger groups would be to provide a green space through out most of the season.

Its interesting that those of you looking for bones can't find the nine shrubs in those beds. Could that be because these are not the seasons where those plants are on center stage? I know that you wouldn'd miss the deciduous Azaleas when they're blooming or the Enkianthus in fall color, nor the chamaecyparis and junipers in the winter. They come and go on the stage. I'm sure as they mature, they will become more prominent in their off seasons but must they be always prominent to count. Does that mean we are looking for gardens to be statist? As for maintenance, there is always work with living plants but planting them for what they do and not what we must do to them does cut down the requirements.

are you wanting it on the inside curve or the outside? I'm trying to imagine where it would "cut" the house when viewed from the street.

We only have the visuals that you showed us. No one has said the overall design is bad, but if you, like me, feel that if you walk away from a project one hundred percent satisfied, then that should be the last garden you ever make. What would you change? Let's hear your critique of your own work instead of a defense.

when I arrived for the first meeting, the front lawn was dotted with trees and they had lost over a dozen. They were specific about not wanting to add any more. I explained that they could expect to lose the rest (which they did, the next year) because of the construction, changes in elevation and that trees grown in the woods to maturity can not just "become" stand alone specimens due to their weaker cell walls. I gave vast advice on aftercare for those trees, just as I gave advice on lawn renovation, neither was heeded. oh well...

so this design was done while there was an open wooded front yard that no longer exists,

Where would you suggest a small tree in this design? I couldn't see one because everything I imagined, recessed that front door even more than it is.

there are no perfect designs, otherwise there would always be a right thing to do and all else would be wrong. Obviously alot of designs are about individuals tastes but there's always room for improvements and I'm looking to grow. I don't find this garden to have massive problems or I would never have installed it. I'm just looking for others opinions, that is why I took a chance and posted this thread. To see my work through others eyes.

is it possible to post a planting scheme? it would help me follow the discussion. i still can't find the enkianthus!

sorry Spunk, I stopped doing actual designs on paper years ago. I do my presentations with conceptual drawings and the clients keep those as art work most often...go figure -it's chicken scratch! lol

I can't pick out the Enkianthus in those pics either but I think it was only a 3 gal last year. It's on the inside corner of the garage as you turn toward the entry, on your left, mixed into the back mass of Miscanthus gracillimus.

A three gal. Enkianthus probably can't hold its own adjacent to Miscanthus.

I agree with the above posters that the design needs more bones, evergreens, and a sense of 'flow'.
Where are the groundcovers and trees? Is there a way to the lawn near the front door from the entryway walk? Did you use mulch and is it thick enough? I see weeds beginning already. Who maintains it?
Is privacy an issue? Will there be , or is there, a house next door?

We all have different styles we like, but it's too light and airy for me. It gives me the feeling that it will blow away in a good wind.

You are brave or naive to put a landscape up for critique from this tough bunch. Most shudder at the thought, even the critiquer's rarely, if ever, show their gardens.
The bottom line is the customer is happy.

Here is a link that might be useful: My garden

I find it difficult to understand a lot of what you say nicethyme but can you explain "planting them for what they do and not what we must do to them does cut down the requirements."?

I find it difficult to understand a lot of what you say nicethyme but can you explain "planting them for what they do and not what we must do to them does cut down the requirements."?

Sure, if you explain "colored hay"?

My point is that I try not to make extra work in the garden by planting things that require manipulation to look good, ie formal elements. Or if it must be done, do it in measured amounts. For instance in the French country design, there are 3 parterres and they must be sheared tightly for the effect. I made a planting of Ilex 'Soft Touch' require a ton of work, but in the scale of that landscape it's balanced by the huge masses of Nepeta and Perovskia in other beds that require a single yearly cut back.

So often, homeowners believe that doing their "yard work" means shaping plants, so they "look good". Or so they can get down the walk or see through their windows. It's almost comical to watch someone rip out those plants and replace them with something that will require the same thing.

So this is my version of, right plant - right place. Landscapes should evoke feelings and not of stress "OMG I have to do... because it looks like chit"

It is from "The Education of a Gardener" by Russell Page in reference to unkempt perennial beds. Russell liked a bit of structure, as most people here seem to, and his was a warning against reliance on herbaceous perennials. His gardens are a better example of how to bring coherence with mixed planting than Oudolf's in my opinion which is not to say one is good and the other not. There are so many ways to design a garden that it is best not to skip over the preliminaries, read the book to read how Russell Page did this. Oudolf was chosen to design the Battery gardens because, typically, his work shows the passing of time, the fragility of youthful beauty and life re-emerging from death:appropriate feelings to evoke as a commemoration of the 911 losses. This also seems to need saying: if you ask for a critique from your peers then you need to set the criterion so as not to leave it open, botann offers "The bottom line is the customer is happy." Is this what you intended? It is also worth noting that a critique is not an exercise in fault finding neither should it be taken personally.

are you wanting it on the inside curve or the outside? I'm trying to imagine where it would "cut" the house when viewed from the street.

Inside curve. Where that big pennisetum is, or just to the left of it.

So the solution is to plant a bunch of vicious self seeders and thugs? And that is what they do *here*. What they are going to do there is positively frightening. The well behaved plants are going to be eaten alive, unless some extremely necessary thinning is continually being performed. Keeping up with bronze fennel alone in my experience is worse than occassionally clipping a few evergreens.

trust me, I'm neither naive nor personally affronted. Hearing the perspectives of other designers is interesting to me. What difference does it make whether we dissect one of my gardens or some well known designer who doesn't post here. (shrug)

As I post, I'm not intending to be defensive of my choices, I'm simply trying to be clearer. yes bottem line is that the client is pleased but should they be? That's what I'm looking into here. It's an exploration of sorts.

"I'm simply trying to be clearer. yes bottem line is that the client is pleased but should they be? That's what I'm looking into here. It's an exploration of sorts." Does this meet your criterion of clarity? Don't misunderstand my questions, I am not merely being argumentative only trying to understand and I don't know what you mean. Are you saying that the bottom line should or should not be customer satisfaction and if it is not that, then what should it be?

Nicethyme,
I am not a professional--just someone who knows what they like. I really like what you have done here-so much better than the usual cookie cutter. I hate the srtaight lines and formal landscaping. However, I do agree with what may have said about needing a little more structure. I also find it hard to understand why you get so defensive or try to justify to others what you have done when it is you who asked for their opinions. You may not agree at all with what they have to say and that is fine. But some of these people obviously have a lot of knowledge. Listen to what they say and take what you can to learn from it and let the rest go. You abviously have a lot of knowledge and talent. Don't be offended or defend yourself when others offer a critique. Lean and grow from it. I am sure that is why you asked. Pardon me if I read some of your responses wrong but it sounded defensive rather than listening. Keep up the spreading of beauty!

If you're asking whether a design's quality can be evaluated strictly by whether the client is pleased, I'd say no. You only have to look around at some of the really poor designs out there that the homeowners are perfectly happy with, to see why.

If you're asking if client satisfaction is enough to keep a designer in business, the answer is yes.

Not the same thing, IMO. But where does it say that a "good" design has to be perfect? As laag has pointed out on several occasions, I don't think any design will stand up to close scrutiny without revealing a few elements that could have been done a better way, given a perfect world. You have to work with client tastes and budget, site and climate limitations, and the purpose the design is to fulfill. You also have the various skill levels of the designers doing the work.

We can make suggestions that might improve a design that's submitted for critique, but unless we have all of the facts, you may not get realistic suggestions. Any that you do get will be offered on the assumption that the client/budget/site/etc. would have supported them, when in fact, they might not.

Can you post a photo of this landscape in January or February next year so we can see how it works then?

P.S. By the looks of the lawn, I'd say these clients are not into doing any maintenance.

"As long as the customer is satisfied" has been a convenient slogan for centuries. Perhaps for millennia. That's why a man can walk into a serve-yourself clothing store and walk out in baggy orange and green plaid trousers, a hot pink shirt and cheap nylon red-and-purple polka dot tie, and be happy. Nevermind what the folks he passes are thinking.

Or, you can send that man into Brooks Brothers or a Saville Row haberdashery and have trained, educated clothiers and tailors use sound and solid principles of sartorial design and fit and send the man out in a beautifully tailored outfit in colors and fabrics appropriate for him. He'll be happy either way, but the second way is one that is more likely to be universally appreciated by passersby with an intuitive or cultivated sense of taste. And, he may learn something about design and the process by which his particulars were addressed and served, to boot.

There's a classic Thurber cartoon showing a Walter Mitty-type male in a department store trying on a suit. His large and overbearing wife is telling the salesman, "I'd don't want him to be comfortable if he's going to look too funny."

:)

I've been thinking on the advice in this thread all day and considering what more bones would be like in my designs. (we were working in a garden I did last fall) and I kept chewing over the colored hay remark. Looking at this one today, I can see that it could be much more substantial than it is. At the moment, the focal point it a weeping Beech, evergreens are Black dragon Cryptomerias and a large sweeping arc of Vardar valley Box, deciduous plants are several Viburnums, Oakleaf and Annabelle Hydrangeas, syringas, rugosas, cotoneasters, a varigated salix, Berberis concordes, shrub roses abound, Potentillas and Spirea mellow yellow. But it is still very herbaceous, it's a very large garden. I'm seeing all your points on substance, but where I look I tend to crave grasses for that purpose. Some tying plant to thicken the effect...???

Anyway... I do see what you all are pointing out, I think it's all a matter of degree. At what point does a grass garden become a dwarf evergreen garden? - The amounts of each... I can appreciate and have copied Adrian Bloom at times turning a rose garden into a conifer garden with roses as accents, yes it's very appealing. But is it the rule to live by? I'm not sure.

some 25 years ago, in another life I can remember a prof going over K.I.S.S. and then many moons later I bristled as the estate owner requested a garden that provided constant change from spring to fall and I told him of Gertrude Jekyl's thoughts on the high drama of massing and not all spaces need to be all things especially if it weren't not constantly in view. "the delphineum bed is astounding in bloom but by all means place it down a path that you don't have to travel when they are not..." or something along those lines, hey?

So where did I leave that direction and land here? Is it simply a matter of becoming a plant fanatic, maybe so. But gone are the days of staked campanulas and barren mulch awaiting spring's arrival. The introduction of IPM in pest control may have led me to develop tolerance levels in my maintenance habits also, as I write this, Mis gracillimus, Eupatorium Gateway and Physocarpus Diablo are wrestling each other for space in my front border, do I need to referee the fight or wait to see the outcome, winner takes all.

Basically, I thought you did a nice job. The most important thing is...did the client like it? The second most important thing is...do you like it?

I'm not use to the choice of plants from your neck of the woods. You took the critiques quite gracefully, I thought. I do see what the one main criticism is. Its like someone who prefers granola for breakfast compared to someone who prefers steak and eggs (and maybe biscuits and gravy too).

I prefer landscaping with a heavier substance. I would like to see a pic in another year or so. By then it will have grown in even more.

I'd be curious to see what your own garden looks like. I've always wondered how much a professional's personal preferences make their way into someone else's garden.

UPS must pay well!

-Ron-

I would like to see the front door made a much bigger focal point. It isn't much of a focal point in the architecture, so I would consider it a priority of a new landscape.

A criticism is the grass in front of the garage and around the corner in the last picture you provided. People make fun of "bubblegum ball" shaped yews, but to me the dark green grass planted every 3 feet is just as bad. And it covers the beautiful long windows which is even worse.

Lime

I have read through this entire thread with great interest as although my home and garden are a very different style and yes I am the last gardener on the planet that has not planted any grasses I have a large walk through front entry garden that runs the entire width of the house. I have learned over the last eight years that front entry gardens just by their location are an in your face garden and prior to designing another one I would highly recommend that you live with one for a few years. In the everyday comings and goings you become intimately more aware of its successes and failures to much greater extent than I think most folks are aware of. It is a garden of extremes keep in mind running into your home already having a day when your plate is full instinctively the last thing you would do would be to run to a gaze upon your side yard garden that you know needs some type of tending the opposite of this example also holds true for me. A year ago I posted a thread titled "Balance in the Garden" Alan Bloom was recommended to me as well and at the time I found myself thinking but I do have a substantial amount of conifers and evergreens. The thread was extremely helpful and this winter I implemented some of the suggestions and so it goes the constant fine tuning that seems to be more exaggerated by its constant presence. More than once posters in this thread questioned what the garden looks like in the winter this led me to think about winter photos of my garden and I could find very few hmmmÂme thinks that says something. I would highly recommend you make a point of stopping by this winter for a few photos if only for your own study. kt

There is a lot of good stuff in this thread and I have thought about it off and on over my long holiday weekend. Looking back through the posts, I think that Jo summed up many of my general thoughts here:

"At least it's different, but I think a meadow-like planting of mostly herbaceous plants would work better in a sweeping border of massed plants a little farther away from the house, with more woody and winter interest plants up near the foundation."

I am a struggling amateur in all this. In general I do like this planting, but something does seem missing. When I look at pictures of Oehme and van Sweden gardens, there is a wow factor that is missing from this one. Maybe it is because this garden has taken ideas from a "natural garden" and tried to cram them into a typical foundation planting*. It seems like many Oehme and van Sweden designs rely heavily on hardscape materials (patios, paths, pools, walls, pergolas, art, etc.) to provide structure (and useable space) in close to the house and then use sweeping meadows of grasses and flowers further out.

"I'm seeing all your points on substance, but where I look I tend to crave grasses for that purpose."

Maybe it is not about finding the right grass, evergreen shrub or small tree to provide substance. Maybe it is about creating structure and substance and then using plants to fill in around the edges.

- Brent

* it may also be because a typical Oehme and van Sweden design cost well into the six figure range!

Well I read most of the thread.....can't resist, does this house even need foundation plantings?

nicethyme, you've got guts, I congratulate you for dragging yourself out of the design rut that many of us are in. Artists must take chances. It's far from perfect (onesies, twosies and threesies) and it doesn't need evergreens to be perfect, but it will be noticed, that's a good thing.

whoopsie is right....(redfaced) sorry I was messing around over at photobucket and forgot that these were linked when I deleted a few pics before I caught myself! It was just the 2 before shots so anyone still interested just imagine that house with nothing planted around it. LOL