First,wow, breathtaking views front and back!

Second, what a sad, yet funny, story.

Third, why not just install as to the plan you have, consulting with the new, hopefully non-flaky, landscape company about the few changes you wish to make? Is it that you've come to question the decisions the first, flaky, landscape company helped you make?

Fourth, just for noisiness, did the landscaper high-tail it out of there with your cash for work-yet-to-be-done?

Patty

It is a bit too hard to see clearly and difficult to mentally connect the segmented photos, but it doesn't quite look like what a finished plan should look like - a little too sketchy and with a few too many ????. Other than making the substitutions of a few plants, are you happy with the design in general? If so, go ahead and make whatever substitutions you like and finish it off. A good local nursery should be able to help with some alternative plant choices and those you pose do not seem to be significant enough to compromise the intent of the design.

FWIW, nandina will be seriously stressed in your climate - I'd opt for the teucrium. 'Rose Glow' barberry can be a stunning plant but is best left to grow without pruning, which invariably limits its fountaining habit. Or, there are other, more compact forms of Japanese barberry that can offer similar color effect without the size (don't freak, eastcoasters - J. barberry is not invasive here). Consider a Parrotia to replace the Fagus.

barefootinct: Thank you. It is a remarkable spot - we are quite happy with it.

In terms of the plan, we actually like it for the most part and would have enjoyed using the designer we started with. Unfortunately, she apparently is no longer doing this type of work. In terms of high-tailing it out of here - no, she did not. She did the work she was contracted to do and I thought she gave us good value for what she did.

gardengal48: Since we know very little about landscaping, it doesn't take much to impress us...lol! But, to answer your question, we are mostly happy with the plan. It is a bit unfinished, since we wanted to look the plan over and do some research before finalizing it. As I mentioned, this is all new to us and it is pretty overwhelming. I have a lot of respect for those of you who are skilled at doing this.

I am sorry about the disjointed nature of the plan I wish there had been a better way to post it. It is the right front area of the house that we were more concerned about at this point, but I posted everything to give the proper context.

Fortunately, we are working with a great nursery here in town. It was when the designer did not return their calls that we knew something was up. We will talk with them about substitutions.

Thank you for your suggestions on plant choices - we will give them serious consideration.

Just to echo what gardengal said--the plan looks very sketchy and unfinished. Some of the plants aren't drawn to scale, so make sure that you know the mature sizes of those you choose before you install them exactly as planned.

If you have a good independant nursery--someone on staff should be able to suggest substitutions that they have on hand (or can get easily) and they ought to be able to give you approximate mature landscape sizes. I'd start with your nursery. GAWJUS piece of property, BTW!

melanie

swanoir,

You have a beautiful house on a great site. But I am most impressed that you have the ability, and have taken the time, to come to this forum with photos and drawings.

When I look at the "plan", to me it is a working drawing a designer would use as plant selection is done. If it can be called a plan, then one can refer to me as the Queen of England, and I ain't even female. And I say this not because of the crudeness of the drawing. Good designs can be represented with rather crude artwork.

The drawing is not to scale. The tip off is the angle of the garage at the NE corner. The drawing is woefully devoid of dimensions and the property lines are not shown.

There is no consideration of grade, drainage, or a means shown of constructing the grade change for the terraces shown.

I think if you take this drawing to a new designer, he will toss it in the trash, and start anew. If you tell him you really like most of the plant selection, he may give it a good review, then toss it.

If you go forward with construction based on the present drawing, I predict it will require many changes and adaptations to complete. The result will not be what you envision today, though it may turn into something you really like. Most jobs that go forward as fix-it-on-the-fly tend to get way out of any original budget.

I'm not sure what level of help you seek at this forum. It has occurred to me from time to time that it might be fun to see a homeowner go through all of the design process from start to finish. I sometimes wonder if there would be an interest in a group project. I can only say if this group ever wants to do an online design, guide a homeowner through the whole process, it will take someone that has the savy you displayed in putting together the original post.

miss_rumphius_rules and mjsee: Thank you both for your comments. :-)

pls8xx: Thank you for your thoughtful reply and I appreciate your compliment on the organization of the post. Since I started without pictures, scans, or a hosting site for the pictures and scans, it did take quite awhile to put it together.

I called the nursery and spoke with one of the owners about your observations/concerns. Since they will be doing much of the initial planting, and the other owner is a professional landscaper, they felt that they can compensate for the flaws in the plan. Apparently it is not uncommon for them to receive crude plans to work from, so they are accomplished in doing this. Your comments did motivate us, however, to want to become more hands on about this project. We were exhausted after building the house, which I am sure many of you can relate to, so it was easy to feel overwhelmed by taking on another significant project like this one.

In terms of what level of help I was wanting, I really tried not to have an agenda about that. After all, we are all very busy and so I wanted to be open and grateful for whatever people were willing to share. I posted our situation in the form of a case study so that someone looking at it would be able to engage the information at whatever level suited them. For example, I know that landscaping design students come to this forum, so hopefully this would be a good real world example for them to look at. But it is also set up so someone who only wanted to casually look through the information should be able to do that as efficiently as possible too.

Your idea about a group project is intriguing. I would certainly be open to whatever guidance is given and, if people would like, post updates so anyone participating in the process could see how things were going.

Kelly: Thank you for your comments. You are correct - we live in the Wenatchee Valley, at the base of the Cascades.

We did get a soil sample at one time, but I can't find it so I guess I should get another one. Good suggestion.

The wood piles in the picture are there because we are getting ready to load them on a truck to be hauled away. We had friends that were caught up in the recent Fischer fire, so we have been pretty cautious about that: no deck, no shake roof, etc.

Hope things are going well out there in Pullman. :-)

As Pls8xx mentioned, the drawing is not to scale. My sense was that it was "planted" too densely, with the objective being to fill the area with plants for immediate effect. (And remember, a nursery's objective may be to sell as many plants as possible, with an eye to their bottom line).

Trouble is, plants grow, and in five or ten years you have an over-crowded mess. Take Miss Rumphius' advice, and be sure of MATURE size when planning and planting. Fill in with mulch and annuals while waiting for shrubs to grow.

Swanoir -I ran into this post by accident (new member). I hope by now you have got your plans done. If not I know a great local landscape architect who might be able to help you. He helped transform my project (home) into a well designed plan and beautiful yard. Anyways I will give you a link to my project on Flickr. If you want his contact information just let me know. Good Luck and Happy Planting.

Just an observation that agrees with several of the other comments; the design is probably overplanted given the mature sizes of the plants chosen, and you will be looking at alot of pruning over time to keep it all manageable. Also, given the climate and the plant selections, this is in no way a low water use garden, so if that was really an objective, i would suggest you rethink the planting choices.

As to fire hazards, you are already enclosed by some existing large trees and other houses, so a 30 foot firebreak clear of trees is not going to work. Other posters concerns about lack of grading information doesn't look to be a major concern to me, as you already have your lawn in, the concrete paths and patios, etc., and the rest shouldn't be that difficult to finess in the field.

I probably wouldn't recommend woodland plants that hate dry air and hot winds; in particular dissected leaf Japanese Maples are going to look bad by the middle of summer unless located out of the wind and given lots of water, and even then will most likely have dried out leaf edges for long periods of time.

If you really wanted to go more drought tolerant/xeriphytic, I would suggest using more natives to your region, and combine with more drought tolerant mediterranean climate plants that can also take your winter cold and wet. Your plant list appears to me to be more of a well watered woodlands landscape, that will require large amounts of water all summer long to keep it looking good.