Pre-designed landscape plans for free -- what are your thoughts?

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

As far as I know, this type of thing wasn't readily available when we started landscaping our home, so I haven't tried to use the plans. However, I'm very curious if they are actually useful IRL, or at least a good starting point for anyone who wants to try and install a professional landscape w/o the design costs. Where I live, typical lot sizes are sometimes barely 1/4 of an acre, typically 1/6 or smaller (in case you think these yards seem too small).

I've recommended the plans to people who don't have designing budgets, but so far no one has tried them. If we move in the next few years, it's likely to a home with a basic yard that I would want to landscape, and I hope to try the free designs at that point! I realize the plant selections might have to be modified, but I would hope that competent nursery employees would be able to choose alternates (or I could, too, I consider myself a competent gardener).

Can any of you take a look and share your thoughts on pros/cons of these kind of design plans? My thoughts are that the cons: not factoring in the house facade, not providing plans for irrigation and drainage, plant selections might not be readily available. Pros: cost (free), plant growth/size accounted for, overall layout ideas provided, generally geared toward certain type of yard use.

Here are some of the links:

http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=3734

http://www.ecolandscape.org/new-ca/

http://turfreplacement.watersmartsd.org/free_designs_plant_lists

http://www.watersmartsd.org/content/residential-landscape-design-templates

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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)

8 years ago

Since the fees associated with a professional landscape design are one of the least expensive aspects of the entire process, the perceived savings with using a "free" design are minimal. And while I acknowledge I am coming at it from a professional viewpoint, this is NOT the area where I would be looking to economize. It is the quality and site-appropriateness and personalized aspect of the design that makes the distinction to the landscape.

The primary con in my opinion - and it's a major one - is there is NO site evaluation. The assumption is made with these designs is that the site is level (or reasonably so) and basic in its configuration, there are no issues regarding privacy or screening or focusing/directing of views, no consideration of soil quality or drainage or how rain water flows across the property, no factoring in of the house footprint or how the landscape interacts with the house (or any other structures), how light conditions, weather or prevailing winds may affect the landscape, how the 'proposed' landscape interfaces with the surrounding neighborhood, what zoning or HOA issues may impact the design and that the property is a complete blank slate - no existing plants to be considered or conserved.

As a practicing landscape designer, I can say without qualification that every site is unique. Even in newer developments where there is an overwhelming sense of uniformity, each site will be somewhat different from the others, often in ways that are not readily apparent at first glance. The most successful designs will come from an acknowledgement and interpretation of that uniqueness and that cannot be achieved without visually seeing and evaluating the property. I guess if you have a basic, flat, rectangular cookie cutter-type lot with a cookie cutter-type house, then a cookie cutter-type landscape design could be superimposed on it but IMO, it's a lot like fitting a square peg into a round hole.

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Yardvaark
8 years ago
It would be the rare case where using a factory-made design would work. A common theme on this forum is people asking for and getting good advice ... and and then going forward to grossly misinterpret and ignore it. Trying to adapt plans that ignore some important elements, as mentioned by Gardengal ... there's little hope of it ending up well.
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melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/
8 years ago
gardengal48 -- thanks for weighing in on this. I can see how OSFM generally can mean it doesn't really work for anyone. However, I live in cookie-cutter land where there are no views except for things you'd want to screen out ;-)

Yardvaark -- it's what keeps me coming back to this forum!

So how can someone use these kinds of plans, or are they a complete waste of time? Worse, are they setting people up for disappointment because you'd install a bunch of plants and then they wouldn't necessarily do well?
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
8 years ago
"are they a complete waste of time?"

Not necessarily :-) I think home gardeners could find some benefit by studying plant placement and/or selection when developing their own garden design. But that is just a very small segment of the design process and one that is pretty far along the sequence. After all the site analysis and layout considerations are addressed, as well as a myriad of other factors that are routinely part of a landscape design.

"Worse, are they setting people up for disappointment because you'd
install a bunch of plants and then they wouldn't necessarily do well?"

This is certainly a possibility. It would be pretty darn difficult to develop 'design plans' that had a plant selection that would be universally appropriate to all climates/growing zones/areas of the country and the assortment of growing conditions each may offer.. And if they were somehow able to accomplish this feat, I'd expect it to be a very ordinary and commonplace plant selection. I didn't go through all the links, but the ones I did look at seem to be more regionally oriented and that would make much better sense.

The bottomline is that it is extremely difficult to develop a successful landscape design in a vacuum. It's like trying to ID a plant just by saying it is green, has rounded leaves and produces purple flowers - dozens, if not hundreds of plants would fit that description and you may just get lucky on your first guess but chances are you are going to miss it by a mile! The more information you have going into the process, the greater your chances of success. And these pre-made free designs just don't have much - if any - necessary informational input to be successful. Garbage in; garbage out.
Lavender Lass
8 years ago
I think it's like house plans...there will probably be some modifications, but it gives you a good place to start. And you may see some possibilities that you might not have considered, otherwise :)
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Yardvaark
8 years ago
I looked at a couple more of the plans. While I think some of them might please a gardener's fancy because, in general, they are gardens. But, I wouldn't call them landscapes or say that they solve landscape problems. In fact, like gardening often can, I'd say that the plans I looked at have the capability of creating as many problems as they solve (based on a landscape perspective, which is how I always see it.) They can't anticipate where screening of off-site eye-sores may be needed. While they might could accommodate the architecture of the theoretical homes they are built around, they weren't doing that to a very high level. For my taste, they were a bit smothery overall ... too many plants and too many of them too high. To me, they look like the kind of things that people can't wait to rip out in 7 years time as it closes in on them.
Kim in PL (SoCal zone 10/Sunset 24)
8 years ago
I looked at the "Southern coastal" plans for a 30' x 80' lot as it is something I can relate to personally. Of course your first observation is the most glaring problem: no site evaluation. However, for that very reason, I have the sense these plans are not intended to be interpreted 100% literally. It IS useful that the plans include irrigation recommendations and estimated water use -- a huge issue here in California right now.

The plans themselves are somewhat overstuffed with plants. It is amusing to see Dracaena draco listed as a "small tree". It may be slow-growing, but eventually becomes massive. Also some of the plants listed, while fantastic plants, can be very finicky, such as the Dudleya brittonii. I t would be better to suggest plants that are easy to grow. Then 10 Agave attenuatta are shown lining the back fence between cycads paired with a dragon tree in each corner. You just know that will not fit into a 30 ft. space, except immediately upon planting immature plants! What a nightmare that will create a few years down the road.

Another plan for an inland garden with a 30' x 80' lot places a Schinus molle in the front garden, a tree that is described by San Marcos Growers as "a fast grower to 25 to 40 ft. tall and wide, larger with age."

A plan for empty nesters was much more restrained and practical.

Proceed with caution!!

Pre-designed landscape plans for free -- what are your thoughts?

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)

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Yardvaark

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melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/

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