what should I do with landscaping?
Hi everyone. Last year I had all of these plants planted and it looked nice and well proportioned. However, as the plants matured, they seem a bit clustered to me. I have cut down the plants a bit but I kind of want to swap out some plants and redo it. What do you guys think? I quite like cannas and I was thinking to maybe replace the bird of paradise on the end of the house with an orange one, but not sure. I’m open to removing any and all plants. I want a Mediterranean style garden and I would just like to make it more elegant and as beautiful as possible overall. All ideas are welcome, thanks!
Comments (27)
houssaon
2 years ago
JoJo (Nevada 9A)
2 years agoRelated Discussions
What should I expect to pay for residential landscape design?
Comments (5)You can pay anywhere from $0 to the sky. Ninety dollars is a common rate for a landscape architect or a very well polished designer. $1,400 is a reasonable flat rate for such a person and the work you described. The next questions are these. Is this designer actually a very well polished designer? Do YOU value or need such a person? Is 15 hours enough to produce a plan that is worth that much money to you? Is she giving you a flat price based on 14-15 hours, or actually billing you by the hour? It is quite possible that she does exactly what I do which is to write up a contract at a flat price and keep you within the terms of that contract by making all additional work be at $90 an hour. It takes a good couple of hours to measure up a site when you start with a surveyed plan. It takes a few hours to draw up a base plan of existing condition. It takes at least an hour of discussion and walking around your site with you to have a clue as to who you are and how you use or want to use the site. Then hopefully there will be lots of thought and consideration done as the plan is developed. Typically, there will be at least one review meeting as the plan is nearing completion in order to make revisions and then the revision. That is an aweful lot to pack in 15 hours. If you are actually being billed by the hour, I believe it would be a rather hurried plan. But, if it is a flat fee, it is more likely that a lot more time than 15 hours will be put into it and you will get good value. Again, I would charge you about the same as a flat fee and I use $90 as my spill over rate as well. I've been doing this for 30 years, a bachelor of LA, and a licensed landscape architect. So, I don't think it is unreasonablle if you are getting what you need and have a very good designer. There are several things that can come up in a landscape plan beyond the planting. The knowledge of those things and the experience of being able to recognise them and deal with them can be critically important. Understanding what needs to go on in the property and how much space those activities require are important. Your designer should be talking about such things with you right away, if she is more than a garden designer. I believe that $1400 or $90 is way too high for just a person whose knowledge is limited to plants and and arranging them. You have to understand that garden centers have hundreds of people looking for design advice every day. People know that they get good plant advice there and the logical progression is that these people can do anything related to plants. So, the public values them right away which makes it possible to charge a lot of money....See Morewhat color shutters should I do or should I do shutters at all?
Comments (6)thanks for the suggestions on photoshop. I did add the shutters in paint but we're still not decided if we need shutters for all or center or no windows. Enclosing pictures with shutters on all of them and shutters on center block. Also, we're thinking of matching the door color with the color of the shutter. Any opnions? As for adding picture to the post, I uploaded the picture to tinypic.com and pasted the html link....See MoreWhat should we do with this shady area covered in landscape rock?
Comments (11)"We ... then put in a ditch/drain next to our foundation which we covered in white rock." Please explain the mechanics of this solution. How does water get out of this ditch/drain, and where does it go? It seems to me potentially problematic and that this night not have been the correct solution from the start. Since the space is primarily serving three functions: access to the back yard and for maintenance within the hall, access to light, and for drainage; the simple obvious solution is extending the neighbor's concrete walk to also serve as a flume of sorts, allowing for access and drainage at the surface, without the complication of taking water into an underground system. To be sure, you would not want to invite water into the ground next to the foundation. Plantings might only be necessary near or at the openings of the hall, but are probably not desirable within it on account of potentially restricting drainage, access, or light. I'm amending to add that the downspout adjacent to your porch should be faced to run into a side walk that if serving as a drainage flume ... instead of being extended with a homely looking corrugated pipe that runs directly toward the front....See MoreWhat color should I stain or paint my landscape edging?
Comments (14)Unless you are attempting to restrict a movable underlayment for hardscaping (sand or crusher course), you never need edging. It is only a personal choice. The right type of edging can help with the ability to mow well and close to the bedline but flimsy wooden pickets are not it!! Just a clean, sharp edge between lawn and soil is all that is required and that can be done with a good, sharp edged garden tool. As to the width of the bed, 30" is undersized for virtually all shrubs and many perennials.....36" is scarcely better. You want sufficient bed depth (from foundation to lawn) to accommodate the mature spread of the plant in question without encountering the structure plus room to access behind for maintenance needs. And most folks do not favor a narrow row of shrub soldiers lined out but would prefer a layered look of a mixture of plants of different sizes. And that requires more depth than a skimpy 30". There is also the aesthetic question of the depth of the foundation beds being in scale with the structure, so they should have a depth equal to at least 1/3 the height of the structure. 5-6' at a minimum but deeper is better....See Morearcy_gw
2 years agoUser
2 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
2 years agoJacob Retana
2 years agoUser
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoI think framing the window with the white urns + tall trees is a very good idea.
I’m wondering if your big blue planter should have pride of place front and center in the bed to the right of the door, but with a lemon tree in it, or kumquat. or tangerine/clementina
Gardens · More InfoThe photo was taken at a house in LA
JoJo (Nevada 9A)
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoUser
2 years agoJoJo (Nevada 9A)
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoAnna (6B/7A in MD)
2 years agoUser
2 years agoJacob Retana
2 years agoUser
2 years agoJacob Retana
2 years agoJacob Retana
2 years agoUser
2 years agoJoJo (Nevada 9A)
2 years agoJacob Retana
2 years agoJacob Retana
2 years agoUser
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoI do not think it is tropical or too colorful but maybe it would take over if added to the front. It is very vigorous in sunny dry places.
The place I would put it is on the left side of the house, but rather far back, so the real effect would be to see it on the roof, near the 2d story windows.
by the way there are bouganvillea that have a lot of white mixed into them, or pure whites, plus light salmon pinks
Blue plumbago can be a lovely addition in mediterranean gardens. it climbs very well
Casa Rustica, Mallorca, 2015 · More InfoJacob Retana
2 years agoJacob Retana
2 years agoI forgot to take a picture of the bay window though but this is the entrance, I was thinking of maybe putting an address plaque on the right side of the door where the wall is bare?
User
2 years agoAlready it looks lovely.
Where I live you would get a handpainted ceramic plaque with your address, if anyone bothered to put up an address because everyone knows where everybody lives. You might be able to find ”numeri civici” for your needs online, or get them handpainted and sent to you from Italy
Jacob RetanaOriginal Author