Landscape design plan and complimentary plant ideas needed
Hunter Coleman
5 years ago
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NHBabs z4b-5a NH
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agocecily 7A
5 years agoRelated Discussions
Landscape design and planning, plant help!
Comments (3)My sister and I and our DH's have been working on the landscaping and plants at both of our houses. Their style and ours are very different. My sister and I started walking in the mornings for a 1/2 hour 2 or 3 times a week, right after the kids go to school. One of the things we do is look at all the hardscaping and plantings in the yards we pass by and talk about what we like and don't like. Gives you lots of ideas to determine what you want and what grows well in our area. The next thing I would do is to interview your kids! Ask THEM if they could design and create that space, what would it be? What activities would they do there, what kind of plants do they like? What kind of furniture or decorations for it? You may get some very interesting answers! There are some good childrens' garden books and children's gardening books out there with lots of ideas. We did this when we started to plan, design and "imagine" the side yard "Secret Garden" we're creating with and for our two children. Our 10 yo son wants a pond and a rainbow flower garden, our 12 yo daughter wants a vegetable garden. They both want a place to read (they are both avid readers, we have no cable and no video games or nintendo here), and a space to play games like checkers, cards or chess.And a table and chairs so they can enjoy a snack outside in their garden and invite friends over to play in the garden. Both children said they wanted fragrant plants. We put in an arch and a birdbath to also further encourage and attract hummingbirds and butterflies. They want two ducks or a chicken too- we'll see! We already have a dwarf rabbit and a outdoor cat. I want a corgi, so like I said, we'll see! To see some pics of their Secret Garden in progress, check out my Picture Trail: careytearose Here is a link that might be useful: look in the Landscaping Projects 2007 album...See MoreNeed help with a landscape design / plan
Comments (51)Sunbum, one of the best ways to get to the right question is to ask yourself "what do I want this landscaping to achieve?" It's actually a question that suits design decisions in general, from paint colours to fashion. Ink has provided the clue to getting there with his observation that the garage is the prominent feature of your house, visually dominating the house itself, and that this is exacerbated by it being built at the high end of the lot. People with a design sensibility do tend to have an aversion to the "welcome to my garage look." The flip side of "welcome to my garage" is "where the heck is the front door?" and probably (I don't have a house like that so don't know) kind of an unpleasant feeling for people who approach the house, especially after dark. Of course, if you enter through the garage and never order pizza, perhaps this is not an issue :-) So the question you could start with is "does that bother me?" By chance, the sample photoshop that Goldie has provided also has that design feature; actually even more so, where the house is subsidiary to the garage. Of course, the contrast with yours is that your garage at least has a side entry. And you know, maybe people don't mind this look so much, now that millions of people have it. But still, there seems to be some effort being made to make the house attractive, so it does make sense that the landscaping would try to de-emphasize the garage and give the house more prominence. Now, my amateur design skills fall down at the question of "just how do we accomplish that?" but there Goldie's design actually provides a hint... at least, I think shows the effect that landscape design can have. While it is a pretty layout and very tidily done and maintained, I think it exacerbates rather than solves the problem. I stand to be corrected, but here's my rationale. A couple of months ago, someone posted a house for suggestions that was very different from this, but with an instructive element. The house was very close to the street and the lawn was an inverted U shape, with the bottom of the U being closest to the house. I don't remember what the OP question was, but Laag made the point that the lawn shape functioned to visually elongate the yard and thus to make the front yard seem as big as it was going to. Goldie's design puts a similar lawn shape - with a dominant line paralleling the driveway, thus more or less forming the U - in front of the already receding house. It is unfortunate that the photo angle of the later pictures is lower, but it almost seems in the actual installation that the house appears if anything further away from the street than in the photoshop. You may be somewhat protected from the full force of this effect by the line of your sidewalk, but the point remains that the lawn shape is a design element that will have an effect on how the two parts of the building are perceived. My expertise is sorely exceeded by the task of compensating for the fact that the house is on the downhill side, but hopefully you get the point that landscape can affect how the building is perceived - and decide whether you want to play with this element (vs just saying, "yeah, that's how the house is, so what?"). I do hope others with more expertise can chime in to at least explain what principles might be applied. KarinL PS: DrtyGrl, see what happens when you encourage me: I keep talking :-) PPS: Sunbum, you should also read the two threads by v1rtu0s1ty, you might enjoy them. Copy and paste his name into the search field to make a bunch of his threads come up, they are always instructive. PPPS: Or if all you still want is shrub suggestions for the existing beds, you can just sneak off to the local nursery to ask for advice, and ignore us all :-) Here is a link that might be useful: Virtuosity's thread on shape of planting bed...See MoreNeed tropical landscaping design ideas...(long)
Comments (8)Did a little searching on this forum and Ricky and junglegal are my inspiration! I don't think I want to go quite as jungley - but I really like the natural feel to both their gardens. Until we tore everything out, we had those boxwood bushes that were shaped in balls and square hedges - yuck! I have no idea why the previous owners would have tried to turn it into a formal English garden. I would post a photo except I have no idea how. A bit more research required on that but it seems like everyone uses Photobucket and we use Picasa. There's really nothing to take a photo of anyway except scrubby lawn and big dirt areas where we took out most of the hedges, a really ugly juniper tree thing that's coming out, and some of those Pygmy Date Palms (I think) that I don't like either. The backyard is on hold - we've got to take out a laurel oak and decide on a pool, but that's where we'd probably put the royal palms - along the seawall. My biggest thing is trying to incorporate edibles into the landscape as much as possible after reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma". That's why I'd like at least one coconut palm (think "Castaway") and some fruit trees. I already have a Winter Mexican Avocado and a Key Lime tree from Jene's, still in pots, already made 2 Key Lime pies! The neighbor on the skinny side has agreed to "share" the fruit, so we can put the trees right on the property line there. We also already have bananas that we share with them, since they've grown up on both sides of the fence between our side yards. I just like the way bananas look - very tropical looking, and that Siam Ruby is gorgeous, although I believe non-fruit-bearing. I live in South St Pete right off Boca Ceiga Bay, so we don't take the freezes quite as badly as everyone else in our zone (which is why I can say "10a" when I think I'm supposed to be "9b"), and everything I listed grows in my neighborhood, except I don't see much citrus, avocado, or starfruit. Mostly because everyone is afraid of fruit rats and not very original in their yards. We have one jungle yard on my street and there's a native yard down a ways, but almost everyone here loves their lawns! Most people have just stuck a couple of palms in the middle of their lawns, but too boring for me, and that still requires a lot of mowing! Here's where I get really wacky - I'm thinking about setting aside the first 12' or so in front of the garage to put in a veggie garden. Then I'd put a small retaining wall in front of it and berm up a few feet, sloping down to the street. And probably put some vines or bushy stuff along the top of the berm to "hide" the veggies and the palms in front and on the side, too. The street runs north-south, so I'm pretty sure that area would still get plenty of sun during the growing season in fall/spring. My DH is totally against this. I think that even a wall or berm, without veggie garden, will give the otherwise flat yard some dimension. Or maybe the jungle look is enough. Just trying to sort through all this.......See MoreNeed help design frontyard landscape with drought resistant plants.
Comments (5)I would recommend driving around and finding some yards that you like the look of. Copy what they have done, or take some ideas from a few different places. We could all make suggestions, but if someone has been successful in your same climate, your chances are better if you do something similar. I would also strongly encourage you to knock on the doors of homes that you like the look of. Most gardeners are happy to talk about their processes. They might even offer you seeds or divisions of some of their plants that do particularly well. Another issue to consider is providing plants for wildlife. Shrubs that bloom for the pollinators and provide cover for birds and insects are excellent choices. You could also focus on "hard scape," meaning rocks or benches. I'd be careful about theft, since your spot is so exposed. Actually, your site is small enough that you could just plant a mixture of low-growing sedums and sempervivums in place of a lawn. I experimented this year growing both from seed and they did amazingly well. So, it could be done pretty inexpensively. There are companies that sell cuttings of such mixtures already grown, and sell them by the garbage bagful. Generally they sell to large businesses who have incorporated green roofs into their businesses. I bet you could get one bag and cover your entire yard quickly. Try googling "green roofs industrial" or something similar. Good luck and congratulations on thinking water conserving. Martha...See MoreHunter Coleman
5 years agoNHBabs z4b-5a NH
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoSaypoint zone 6 CT
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5 years agoDig Doug's Designs
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5 years agoHunter Coleman
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