Barbara Sondgerath

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by Errol Croft   from Buying, Owning, and Selling Your Home

Introduction
Getting Started
Working With A Pro
Doing It Yourself
Where To Start
Where To Get More Help

Introduction
The English optimistically refer to any patch of ground attached to a house as "the garden."  Passionate gardeners that they are,  they usually do create lovely landscapes wherever they get the opportunity.  We admire their country cottage gardens that spill over picket fences with bushels of blooms; even the postage stamp gardens that  line the residential lanes of urban London are enviable accomplishments.

We're not all natural-born gardeners as the English seem to be, and facing "a yard" at a new home can be a dismaying experience.  No matter that your new stretch of yard is an old garden that needs  restructuring  or a bulldozed lot that cries out for major work, you can achieve a well-designed landscape by understanding some basic principles, some of which even the English had to learn.  With these under your garden bonnet, you'll soon be able to create a landscape that best suits your home, your family, and your lifestyle.

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Getting Started
So often when we move into a new home, our first and major efforts go into completing livable spaces inside the house, leaving the yard to whenever we can get around to it.  Then we go on a shopping spree at a nursery and arrive back home with a load of plants for which we suddenly have to find a spot.  The results are rarely attractive.  That's why  a workable plan is essential, even if you're planning to have just the basic lawn,  shrubs, and trees.

Look at your property as an extension of the interior of your home.  Your yard or garden should be designed with the same care and intent as the interior of your house, and reflect your taste in the same way.  From the street or driveway, the landscaping should frame the house in an attractive way.  The side yards should present pleasant views from the windows; and in the rear, the all-important backyard,  a design for privacy and outdoor living should be considered.  Here more than elsewhere, you will probably modify the existing landscape for your own family's use, comfort, and pleasure.

Start by making a list of ways you want your backyard to function:

1. Give priority to a place for relaxing and entertaining outdoors.  Sometimes just an expanse of lawn with a shady spot for garden furniture and a portable barbeque will suit your needs.  If you envision something more elaborate, like a pool, patio, or deck, include these on your plans, even if you won't complete them right away.
2. If you have children or expect to have children, a play area will be important to you.  Something as simple as a sandbox may meet your immediate need with a place designated for more extensive play  equipment to come later.  Teenagers will require special consideration:   a place for sunning, a volleyball net, a basketball hoop.
3. Include work areas where you can wash the car, store lawn and garden equipment, maintain a compost pile, and complete any other tasks that require space outside.
4. If you are a serious gardener, it's a bet you're already planning flower beds.  If not, chances are you'll want some kind of area for flowers, if nothing more than a few plants for summer color such as  annuals you can buy every spring and plop into the ground without much effort or expertise.

Once you have this basic framework in mind, you can proceed towards a workable plan.  A good starting place for ideas is in your own neighborhood.  Go in search of existing landscapes that please you  visually.  You'll be able to see how different types of trees and smaller plantings develop in your area.  Study their shapes, spreading habits, and how they work in relation to each other when planted in groupings.

Talk to your new neighbors about how they developed their landscape.  Ask for recommendations for nurseries and landscape professionals, and for names of anyone in the neighborhood who does mowing or odd jobs in  the garden.  Also question nursery personnel who are knowledgeale about which plants thrive in your area and in the local soil type.  You'll soon have a good notion of how you want your landscape to look  and function.

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Working with a Pro
Great gardens are not created in a day, but you can have a finished landscape in a few weeks by  hiring a landscape designer or contractor.  Be prepared with a hefty budget if you decide to go this route, and be ready with ideas of your own for your property before your initial meeting with a  professional.  His or her job of detrmining how you want your yard to function will be easier, and you'll be more likely to get the results your expect.

Shop around for a landscape professional as intently as you do when making any large investment.  Be wary of those who request large payments up front, but be aware also that some very talented designers and  contractors with small businesses may ask for partial payment in advance to cover major plant purchases.  This does not mean they are not reputable businesses.  (Remember they are taking on your project on  good faith, too.)  Get references and check them out and ask permission to inspect finished jobs near you.

If you're prepared to do some of the work yourself, you can spend considerably less money.  For a small fee, a designer will create a landscape plan for you, including a list of plant materials.  The  advantage of this is that you can shop around for the best plant buys and proceed with your landscaping according to your own timetable.

Some nurseries have designers on staff and will charge a small fee for a landscape plan.  If you purchase the planting materials from their nursery, your fee is refunded or reduced.  Choose one who actually will come out to measure your property and do a site plan to scale rather than selling you a standard planting scheme from their files.

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Doing It Yourself
If you are one of the many who relish doing a complete job yourself, making your own landscape plan can be very satisfying and not as difficult as it may seem.  A garden or landscape design is not a static plan, but is one that you will change from time to time and that will develop over the years.

To start, measure the boundaries of your yard, along with all existing buildings and other features.  Using graph paper with squares to represent a set scale, such as 1 square equals 1 foot, draw in the house, storage buildings, driveways, walks, fences, etcetera, as well as trees, shrubbery, and flower beds.  Indicate location of lighting and water sources.  Use large paper that allows you to draw easily but not so large as to be awkward for carrying around the site.  Tape several sheets together if necessary and tape or tack the plan onto a sheet of sturdy cardboard to keep it flat.

Once you've accurately reproduced the existing features of your property onto the paper, you can begin making decisions about what will stay or be removed, and new elements that will be added.  Instead of drawing directly onto your graph paper plan, use tracing paper taped over the original to experiment with changes.

In developing a design, pay special attention to balance.  A tree or planting should not overpower a small area, and conversely a large area should not be planted with delicate, sparsely placed plants.   Plan areas as parts of a balanced picture, considering both size and mass of plantings in relation to the space they will occupy.

Repetition gives a garden a look of cohesiveness.  Repeated use of the same materials, like brick or slate for walks, and wood or stone for fences, is a way of making the design hold together.  Similarly, with plantings, repeat the use of varieties.  For example, place three to five silver maples in different sizes around the yard, or mass three or more rhododendrns, and at different locations in the yard.

Remember perspective when placing different size shrubs and trees.  Larger, taller masses will seem to bring the border of the yard closer.  Smaller trees and shrubs make a space seem more expansive when placed around the perimeter.

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Where To Start
When you think your landcape plan is complete, there is no rule that says you must begin work immediately.  It's not a bad idea to live with the existing landcape for awhile, even six or more months, until you're more familiar with it and have experienced the changing seasons.  The way the sun moves across the property will be different in fall than in  the spring.  After a few rains, you'll know if there are any drainage problems and how the damp places will affect your plan.  You may discover that your new neighbors are not to your liking and want to  screen them out.  Get to know your property in contest and make adjustments accoringly.

Complete any major grading before you start planting.  With newly constucted homes, the lot is usually graded for proper drainage and seeded for grass as part of the construction package.  If you want to  terrace a slope for planting or reshape the site, now is the time.

Start walkways, decks, patios, and other outdoor living features now if you plan to complete these with your initial design stages.  If not, cover the barren spots with grass or ground covers to wait their time in your work scheme.

Trees, the major, most permanent element in your desing, come next.  Their placement must be carefully decided based on eventual size and spread.  Planting too close together can damage the trees  themselves, and planting them too close to the house will invite problems for the future.  Roots of large trees, for example, can be damaging to house foundations and septic systems.  Branches growing over the house not only are dangerous during storms, but they can encourage termite and carpenter ant infestations in the house.

Front door and foundation planting come next.  Try to achieve an attractive, balanced design that is appealing from the street as well as varied enough to provide interest to anyone approching the hosue.   Foundation plantings anchor the house, and may be used also to hide an unattractive foundation.  Here evergreen textures, ornamental grasses, berry or small fruit-bearing shrubbery, and plants with different  bark textures make a welcoming design.  Consider maintenance here.  Avoid plants that overpower windows and walkways.  They will require constant trimming and reshaping to keep them from looking wild.

With this framework complete, you are ready to move on to island plantings placed some distance from the house.  An island planting is a composition within itself, so called because it can stand on its own as a design, a thoughful balance of tall and short plants chosen for texture, shape, and color.  Even as such, it is important to place islands so they blends into the overall design of the yard.

Carefully plant and slect border and perimeter plantings so they act as a visual frame for the yard, similar to a frame for a work of art, chosen to enhance the elements of the art.  Do this by repeating some of  the varieties from other areas of the yard, remembering scale and perspective.  Perimeter plantings serve well as privacy screens or can back up privacy fences.

Finally, options to suit you and your family, like flower beds, a vegetable garden, or a small wildlife habitat, can complete your design.  Use one or more of these natural devices to make your yard as uniquely yours as the rooms you've designed inside your house.

Don't think that your landscape will ever be finished.  You may not change anything for years, but its shape will change on its own, and its use will change as the children grow up and as you develop different  interests.  What won't change is that is will always be your special garden as long as you choose to live in it.

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Where To Get More Help
For additional information, check out the following books at your bookstore or library.

1. The New American Landscape Gardener by Phebe Leightona nd Calvin Simond; 1987, Rodale Press.
2. The Garden Book by John Brookes;  1984, Crown Publishers
3. Landscaping that Saves Energy Dollars by Ruth S. Foster; 1982, Timber Press
4. Arboriculture: Care of Trees, Shrubs, and Vines in the Landscape by Richard W. Harris;  1983, Prentice-Hall
5. Taylor's Encyclopedia of Gardening by Norman Taylor; 1961, Houghton Mifflin Co.
6. A Guide to Site and Environmental Planning by Harvey Rubenstein; 1969, John Wiley &Son, Inc.

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