Modifying Wind for Cool Season Landscape Design Purposes

As wind moves through your landscape, it is modified by buildings, tree canopies and other solid and porous objects.  In cool season wind areas, the greater the difference in temperature between the air and the object, the greater the cooling effect and in winter when the temperature difference between a person and the air is at a maximum, modifying wind can reduce “windchill”.  This means that landscape designs for areas to be used in cool seasons, such as an outdoor living area, should focus on reducing wind speed by creating a wind block.

Of all the elements in a landscape to characterize and control through design, both biologically and physically, wind is probably the most difficult to control through design, however there are a few standard approaches that can help modify winds in your landscape design.  Once you have determined your cool season prevailing winds, orient your outdoor space away from these prevailing cool season winds and provide upwind barriers perpendicular to prevailing cool season winds.  A good example is to install a coniferous windbreak that deflects your cool season or winter winds.  By selecting the porosity of the object to utilize in your wind modification, you can control the amount of wind reduction and size of area, commonly referred to wind reflection zone.  Trees with 50 percent porosity that are low branched to the ground will reduce wind speed greater and create a wider wind reflection zone than open branched deciduous trees and conifers whose branches don’t reach to the ground.  As water will continue to flow after it encounters an obstruction, so will wind and will flow over and around.  Through design of properly placed vegetation, this wind can be reduced further or channeled to flow through areas that would benefit from increased winds. 

When modifying wind through proper design principles, we can also modify solar radiation to provide beneficial microclimates, a landscape that has been designed to modify both the wind and solar radiation to provide a thermally comfortable place for people.  In the upcoming blog we will discuss strategic modification of solar radiation and the benefits of active and solar heating, survival of plants and habitat for animals.  It will contain information on landscape design utilizing proper landscape vegetation that can modify and increase poor air quality in urban settings.  

Resources:  Brown, Robert D., and Terry J. Gillespie

Microclimatic Landscape Design:  Creating Thermal Comfort and Energy Efficiency

John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Ponds to Water features- Design through Implementation (2nd of a 2 Part Series)

Once location and size of your water feature has been determined, water movement and flow rate calculations are necessary.  As mentioned in the first part of this series, creating “live” water is essential for the proper maintenance of your feature and to create oxygen in the water to support aquatic and plant life.  The simplest design is to create a ledge or rill through which water flows (supported by a pump) back into a lower basin.  The higher the vertical lift (bottom of pond to top of rill or ledge), the larger the flow rated pump should be.  A good reference is a that a 4,800 gph flow rated submersible pump utilizing a 1.5” diameter return line creates great flow rates and sound for a vertical lift of 48” – 54”.  Always remember submersible pumps are all about water flow, not pressure, so it is important to maximize return line size in accordance with your pump’s flow rate.

Under natural conditions, ponds are part of an eco-system that contains a marsh area filled with reeds and sedges.  This is a good strategy to incorporate in your pond construction and should be part of your overflow system.  Designing an overflow that infiltrates this marsh area will be perfect in the wetter months, supporting these types of plants, and then allowing the marsh area to dry out in the less precipitation months.  This natural condition is vital for the proper growing cycle for plants that like “wet feet”.  Some of the plants that are capable of growing in wetland conditions include astilbe, gunnera, iris sibirica, and trollus to name a few.  Many plants flourish in these conditions with the elimination of competition from vigorous plants such as equisetum and algae.  Amphibians such as frogs and toads will enjoy these seasonally dry marshes as their fish predators will not be able to prey on their tadpoles.

Properly managing your plants in and around your water feature is easily accomplished by understanding and matching the conditions in which they grow naturally.  These matrices are supported by the proper soils and wet meadows occur in heavy loams consisting of clay and silt, and occasionally peat.  It is important to study these natural environments and recreate them forming a dense and permanent plant cover to reduce weed growth that can be tenacious in these environments.

If you are considering or dealing with a bank, the point where static water meets land, rapid stabilization of the bank to resist erosion is important.  Some very good soil-binding plants include acorus, athyrium, dryopteris, rodgersia and spartina.

Shallow waters are home to numerous plants which can help stabilize the waters edge as they spread slightly into the moist soils where water meets land.  These plants have exploratory root systems and this readiness to produce new roots enables them to spread easily throughout a water system, creating a fast growing upperstory essential for the aquatic life below while creating a balanced and healthy pond.  Many of these marginal plants are intolerant of frost and will need to be protected during the winter months and can be accomplished by covering them or simply removing them and storing until the following season.  Calla, juncus, peltandra, and hydrocharis are some good choices for smaller sized ponds. 

There is an unlimited way to create ponds or water features in regards to shape and style, but the dynamics are consistently the same.  Creating live water supported by proper flow rates, water movement and depth along with proper vegetation selections will support a successful, easily maintained and sustainable water feature.

Ponds to Waterfeatures- Design Through Implementation (First in a Series)

Small and large ponds to trickling, low-flow water features add amazing dynamics to any landscape.   They can be created in small spaces with the “what’s around the corner” atmosphere to wide expanses where space is not a factor and you can encourage local fauna to make this area their home. 

There are many facets of a healthy water feature and the next few blogs will discuss many of the ebbs and flows of creating your “live water” water feature, your piece of paradise that melds with nature and your surroundings.  Over my years as a landscape designer and contractor, I have created water features and ponds of varying sizes and dynamics, from grotto to small lakes and I have gained immense knowledge from my failures, and a few reinforcements from my successes.  I hope this series will supply significant knowledge to provide the confidence to design and implement your creation and at the same time, minimize, if not eliminate frustration and costly re-dos.

Design implementation should begin with considering what size and where to locate your creation, open water versus pond-less.  Oxygen and water movement are two main key areas in developing live water.  Live water is best described as non-stagnant, oxygen filled healthy water that can sustain life in your pond / water feature.  To successfully create a water feature that will sustain live water, especially small ones, there must be a supply of dissolved oxygen in the water.

Since sunlight is the driving factor in photosynthesis which sustains plant life which releases oxygen into the water, a pond should be sunlit.  If your water feature will be small in scale and shallow, it will be important to study and understand your proposed site, considering seasonal sun angles, shading and passive solar techniques along with vegetation layering around the edges and how to utilize aquatic plants such as large leaved water lilies.  In your design process, consider what type of tree will be utilized for shading, since leaves deplete oxygen levels with bacteria that are created when the leaves enter and sink to the bottom of a pond, plants such as weeping spruce and phormium species make good sense (depending where you live, what planting zone).  Other possibilities of creating shade include structures; from a simple walkway bridge to decking can be effective and eliminate leaf litter dilemmas.

Once location has been determined, the next step is to finalize the style of your aquatic retreat you wish to incorporate into your landscape.  One that has an open body of water, complete with waterfalls, rills and creeks or a more subdued, yet impacting architectural element, with softly bubbling water cascading over the lip of a ceramic vessel and returning into the below surface sump that is pondless.  At this point, design sense (your boulder-based water feature does not appear to be coming out of the side of your stucco garage for instance) should take a back seat as it is very important to fully understand what style, what dynamics will best fit your lifestyle, to successfully maintain, and sustain years of enjoyment from.

Ideally, you want to create your feature to be in scale with its surroundings, for water features that are too small in scale will be ineffective and you want the dynamics of your creation to be manageable yet impacting.  If you are creating an open water feature with exposed static water regardless of size, depth is critical.  A pond with 2’ of depth will be sufficient and easy to maintain proper water temperatures (if you have inhabitants) in summer and winter and it is the proper depth to create live water; through a small fountain acting as an aerator or a driven by a larger pump recirculating water though rills over ledges of stone and boulders back into the pool below.

In the upcoming blogs as part of this series, we will continue to discuss the dynamics of designing your water feature including creating movement and sound, pump sizing and configuration, filtration techniques, water levels and overflows and choosing the proper plants for your creation.

The Soil Food Web- Mulch, Compost Tea &, Mycorrhizal Relationships

As we understand that the soil food web is the foundation that creates the soils needed to support healthy, sustainable plant life, we will explore the importance of fungal compost, compost tea and mycorrhizal fungi and their relationships with the soil food web and maintaining trees, shrubs and perennials.

Just a reminder, trees, shrubs perennials prefer their nitrogen in forms of ammonium, not nitrate.  If you have ever wondered why your picea pungens (blue spruce) did not survive in the middle of your turf grass, the major contributor probably was your turf grass lawn as it is nitrate-fertilized.  By early detection or knowledge, you might have been able to protect your spruce by creating negative lawn area, in this instance, a planting island.

Mulches, fungal compost and tea work best on maintaining the health of your shrubs, trees and perennials.  When applying amidst your trees, you’ll want to make sure there is negative space between the compost and the trunk so the microbes aren’t in contact with the trunk, so the microbes don’t attack the bark.  It also makes perfect sense, both now and for future maintenance, to create planting or greenspace under the trees in place of turfgrass.

If you look at nature, leaves fall and cover the roots, naturally recycling the nitrogen and carbon with some making it back to the plant.  By applying a form of mulched leaves within a layer of brown mulch, preferably a couple inches thick, it will provide slow release nutrients and protect the roots though the winter months.  By applying a compost tea in the fall and once again in the spring (about 2-3 weeks before your shrubs and trees leaf out) is a sustainable way to insure the health and integrity of your plants and trees.

Mycorrhizal fungi products have been around for nearly a century but have mainly become main-stream within the last 5 years.  It is a natural form of nitrogen, one that envelopes and takes hold on the roots of your plants and is created by plants.  Hardwood trees form mycorrhizae known as ectomycorrhizal where most shrubs, perennials and softwood trees form mycorrhizae with endomycorrhizal fungi.  The heath family, which includes rhododendrons, sub-specie azaleas and blueberries, thrive on mycorrhizal fungus. 

If your garden is mature and you have compacted soils without noticing mycorrhizal activity (mushrooms growing under the drip line of your trees) you may wish to use a deep root feeder to inject your mycorrhizal drench to inoculate the roots.  With shrubs and perennials, it is simply excavating around their drip lines into their root zones with a spade or trowel and applying Endomycorrhizal spores.  If you have mushroom growth in and around your trees drip lines, then your soil has not been degraded to the point where natural mycorrhizal has been effected and you don’t necessarily have to add to create one.  Mycorrhizal fungi spores must be in contact with roots within 24 hours after exposure to moisture to grow and this is why mycorrhizal fungi is applied as a drench to assist in their delivery.

By applying mulches, teas, composts and mycorrhizal, your trees, shrubs and perennials will be less stressed and keep them from becoming attacked by insects.  They create extra pitch; their leaves are coated with beneficial bacteria and fungi to outcompete disease.  By having a soil food web –based system in place, you will continue to build a sustainable foundation for a healthy garden and greenspaces. If your plants do become stressed or diseased, at the first sign, don’t hesitate to put your soil food web knowledge to use and re-apply, especially compost teas. 

The Soil Food Web & The Relationship to Healthy Soil

To support sustainability, a good foundation is necessary.  Just as important as a well constructed building foundation, the soil food web is the foundation that creates the soils needed to support healthy, sustainable plant life.

Good soils are teeming with life, from earthworms to centipedes and ants, there is a world of soil organisms such as fungi and bacteria in which every organism needs energy to survive.  They derive this energy from nitrogen and sulfur and carbon that is produced from plants and waste products produced by other organisms.  The soil food web, beneath and above the soil is simple eat and be eaten existence.  Organic matter produced by healthy plants and root systems create organic matter that is turned into bacteria (subsurface) while fungi is being created closer to the soil surface.  In a cross-linked soil food web, root and fungal feeding nematodes are then preyed upon by birds which in turn are preyed upon by larger animals.  To simplify, it always starts with the plant.

Plants secrete chemicals that are important to the soil’s condition, through photosynthesis in the leaves and these secretions are referred to as 'root exudates'.  These carbohydrates exudated by roots grow beneficial bacteria and living fungi which commences the food web.  These beneficial bacteria and fungi are natural fertilizers for healthy plants and are spread by nematodes by eating the bacteria and fungi, digest what they need to survive and excrete excess carbon as waste.

As we gardeners all know, not all soil bacteria and fungi is beneficial and many cause plant diseases.  Having good soil food web containing a large, diverse population of different species will help control theses non-beneficial troublemakers.  This healthy soil food web will keep these pathogens in check and in some instances to their deaths.  Mycorrhizal fungi is a special soil fungi, interacting with roots, producing nutrients such as water, nitrogen and phosphorous.

The importance of understanding the soil food web, the foundation of good soil, is to also understand the negative impacts on the soil food web.  Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides affect the soil food web in a negative way, toxic to some and chasing others away.  You have now started altering the soil food web as you will have to continue to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides as plants microbial method of obtaining nutrients has been affected by reducing the natural fungi and bacteria and chasing away a major contributor, the earthworm. 

The living organisms within the soil food web will be continuously at work, building defenses against pests and disease, creating soils that drain well and pathways for oxygen and carbon dioxide.  By employing soil food web knowledge, you can reduce / eliminate the use of commercial chemicals and fertilizers, improve your soils overall health and usefulness and start building a sustainable foundation.

Next blog release, we will discuss the soil food web and its important relationship with compost tea, mycorrhizal and maintaining trees, shrubs and perennials.

Beautiful, Animated and Bio-diverse- Ornamental Landscape Grasses

As far back as the early 1900’s, gardeners from a wide range of climates have been enjoying various species of perennial ornamental grasses in their landscape.

Ornamental landscape grasses allow us to rapidly change the dynamics of our landscape, creating works of art by maximizing various colors, textures and physical characteristics of the specie or species selected.  They allow us to be conserving (as most are drought tolerant once established), high spirited, inspiring and maximize out time management by offering low maintenance.

In the broad sense, ornamental grasses (including sedges and rushes) are ever expanding, as the grass palette which started with maybe a dozen perennial grasses to choose from in the early 1900’s has increased to over 100 exhilarating choices.  The increase in diversity and ease of day-today care, the popularity of ornamental landscape grasses has never been greater, reflecting the rhythms of our shared places, of the sun, and the seasonal change.

The two main growth habits of grasses are referred to as runners or clump forming.  When applied appropriately, running grasses can minimize maintenance as they knit together stabilizing soils and making excellent groundcovers.  When used in the wrong situation, you can imagine the problems that might be created, as these runners take over less vigorous neighbors creating monocultures instead of the diverse garden you were hoping to create.

Tufted grasses, as some clump grasses are referred to, grow slower and their space within the garden is easier to determine and many clump forming grasses make excellent architectural pieces, such as Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ and Pennisetum orientale ‘Lil Bunny’.

When discussing ornamental grasses growing seasons, grasses are typically referred to as cool-season growers and warm-season growers.  Their periods of growth are determined by temperature, days of sunlight and soil temperature.  Cool season grasses grow well from sub-freezing temperatures into the low 70’s as warm-season grasses respond well to hot weather, superbly adapted to temperatures reaching the mid 90’s.  The hotter the day, the more they revel, growing steadily larger and producing magnificent flowers (awns) at summer’s end.

The almost over-looked aspect of maximizing landscape grasses is they continue to pay forward, as over the years most ornamental landscape grasses can be divided with a knife or narrow edged trowel and discarding the dead material will provide a healthy and strong plant the following spring.

Creating Your Kitchen Garden

Trying to stay true to the earliest medieval kitchen garden, le potager (vegetable garden with deep historical tradition), is about understanding them, and not trying to re-create them.  It is about simplicity, becoming self dependent on fresh authentic food.  It is about balancing spirit and soul.  

Our kitchen gardens should be paradise, a mainstay of our everyday landscape, not a disjointed separation of space.  It should be an artistic expression of you, your passion and personality.  This can be achieved from layout through the plants that you choose to grow, from vegetables to perennials. 

There are a few main things to consider when designing your potager such as site conditions (sun angles, micro-climates), the amount of space you wish to develop, your maintenance and harvest of your kitchen garden, watering, fauna, and proximity to your kitchen as a well placed potager is an extension of your kitchen, not placed in the ‘back forty’ of your property.  Are you going to create raised gardens within your kitchen garden (preferably) and how are you going to create your welcome mat, your entry piece that tells people they are welcomed, and please enter?  his can be accomplished by a simple trellis planted with grapes or simpler yet, a gate attached to a free standing pole that is always open, mingling with a hedgerow of lavender.

Infuse art into your kitchen garden, by adding colored planting vessels or a bright blue picnic table immersed in monochromatic hues of green background such as pole beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) hops (Humulu lupulus) and hardy kiwi (Actinidia argula).  Create intrigue by developing a secret garden within your kitchen garden, a light and airy space, a place to escape the day – to – day routines.  A place enclosed by an edible wall of elderberries, with a fountain and a place to rest.

Plant plants that nourish beneficial insects such as anise hyssop (Agastache spp) coneflower (Echinacea) and bee balm (Monarda) to name a few.  Have fun, be creative and always remember never plant from the same family in the same space in successive year.

LEED Application in Sustainable Landscape Practices (second in a series)

Credit 7:  Landscape and Exterior Design to Reduce Heat Islands

Sustainability begins with design; clear, precise design objectives with long term management objectives.  Long term planning and management to reduce heat islands, is a LEED accredited application that can be obtained by several design methods.  Heat island effects are caused by solar energy retention on constructed surfaces in urban areas, elevating the temperature differential between urban and rural environments between 2 and 9 degrees.  Streets, sidewalks, parking lots and roofs are the primary contributors.  The increased urban development and rising temperatures caused by heat island effects also has proven to have a negative effect on wildlife and their habitats.  Mitigation techniques include maximizing shade-producing vegetation that can increase shade during all seasons to combat varying sun angles and by reducing heat island effect by increasing shade by 30 percent will meet LEED certification requirements.  Vegetation will reduce solar absorption on non pervious surfaces and also cool the air through evapotranspiration (commonly referred to ET).  Using an alternative material for paving or concrete that has a high-albedo solar reflecting value of 0.3 or higher will also reduce the heat absorption that leads to heat islands.  Materials such as subsurface grasscrete (a structural grid / paver installed below grade that is typically planted with vegetation) and turfstone pavers planted with vegetation are perfect alternatives to your traditional paving materials, allowing you the flexibility to reduce heat absorption and the cost per square foot is typically lower to install.  Green roofs and living walls will mitigate heat island effects and create passive solar and currently only green roofs are recognized certified LEED when a vegetated roof envelops at least 50 percent of the roof area.  Living walls are currently being reviewed by the LEED program and will be recognized and accredited in their new standards scheduled for release in 2012.

Innovation in design is a LEED certified application and by choosing sustainable design topics such as heat island reduction within a sustainable site, the accredited value for LEED recognition continues to increase.

Resources:

Heat Island Group Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:  http://eetd.lbl.gov/HeatIsland/

LEED Application in Sustainable Landscape Practices

Part 1 of a Series

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) was first released for new construction in 2000.  It defines high standard / high performance green building promoting environmentally responsible, healthier, and more profitable building projects.

New rating systems continue to be developed for different building types, and currently there is not a rating system devoted purely to landscape and landscape architecture.

 

Each of the rating systems assumes a “whole-building design practice,” with a primary use building associated to site planning.  For instance, a pure landscape architectural project such as a park would not be excluded; it would not score a certification as high as if there was a structure on the site.  The good news, as the LEED system is being re-evaluated to contain and recognize more landscape elements to be certified, currently landscape architecture elements and site planning can be responsible for contributing up to 43 points to a project.  The point valuation system is given in the “LEED-NC Version 2.2 Registered Project Checklist”.  For quick reference, LEED certification levels are listed below:

Certified 26-32 points

Silver  33-38 points

Gold  39-51 points

Platinum  52-69 points

Over the next several releases of this blog, I will discuss the potential applications of LEED-NC (NC standing for ‘new construction’) within the scope of the landscape profession beginning with some of the more common categories within Sustainable Sites which has the potential to earn 14 points.

The prerequisite of any project should be to develop an erosion and sediment control plan which reduces negative impact on water and air quality.  Urban redevelopment is also defined in LEED accredited sustainable sites, encouraging development in urban areas with existing infrastructure and reduce site disturbance by restoring 50% of remaining open area on previously developed sites by planting native or adapted vegetation.

Stormwater management is a critical part of any sustainable site, including the use of permeable materials such as permeable pavers; those of you who have worked with me understand how valuable permeable pavers are in residential and commercial sustainable landscape.  Permeable materials can decrease run-off by a minimum of 70% with most permeable surfaces reducing run-off by 85% which removes the strain from storm water systems that are now insufficient due to urban and rural growth.  I will return to permeable pavers in future blogs to discuss in greater detail including proper installation methods of permeable pavers.

 

The more training and experience I have with such sustainable practices allows me to play a leading role in promoting and implementing these sustainable landscape practices.  The more I become a “systems thinker” (the ability to work with and see connections with other disciplines) and my environmental mind-set, the potential to increase LEED accredited landscape awareness becomes a way of life.

Creating Your Peaceful Retreat- Landscaping for Privacy

There are many factors we face creating privacy within our landscape, from buffering sound, preventing trespassing, creating windbreaks, reducing noise pollution, keeping unwanted wildlife at bay to screening unwanted views.  Over the years I have been able to create innovative ways that can help you create your sense of space and a peaceful retreat, even in small space areas.

Our greenspace areas have always been that one place we long to keep life’s everyday disturbances to a minimum; a place to feel protected and our retreat from the aspects of the modern world.  Creative ideas will turn your landscape into an extension of your home, whether it is an urban courtyard or a 10,000 square feet corner of your property, through thoughtful design, not quick fixes, there are sustainable and obtainable solutions that fit in seamlessly.

When buffering is accomplished correctly, it will create the impression of distance, an illusion of separation and reflect your personal style.  Vegetation layering, maximizing conifers and deciduous trees will create seasonal color, textures and privacy.  Simply changing elevations in your narrow greenspace with rolling berms and boulders instantly creates depth and the sense of buffering and privacy and these are perfect for planting seasonal bulbs, like deer resistant Alliums such as ‘Purple Sensation’, ‘Mars’ and ‘Gladiator’.  Utilizing planting vessels is another solution to establish screening and privacy while expressing your creativity and adding color to small space areas.  Groupings of colorful vessels with billowing Hydrangea spp. will mask noise and offer you the luxury of seasonal cut flowers.

In areas where larger space is available to create privacy, small space, mounding evergreen plants such as Pittosporum tenuifolium, Ilex crenata ‘Northern Beauty’ and Chamaecyparis obtuse offer many flexible and interesting colors and textures.  These are perfect plants for maintaining sightline corridors or as understory of trees, as they typically will not grow above 4’ in height.

There are other ways to help buffer road noise pollution such as an energy efficient low flow water element mixed amongst evergreen screening, such as Pinus flexalis ‘Vanderwolf’.  A properly placed water feature, located near the main ‘listeners’ area, such as outside the master bedroom window or somewhere positioned between you and the unwanted noise, creates peace and tranquility in small urban settings while removing unwanted noise.

Solutions for reducing fauna and other trespassers without constructing overwhelming and cumbersome wood fences would include trellises and arbors, maximizing wonderful vines such as Clematis, Lonicera, and Wisteria species.  Espalier ‘living walls’ using Pyracantha ‘Government Red’ provides a narrow, yet dense wall producing a food source for birds in the fall and winter.    In milder climates, planting a thicket of Optunia will deter intruders while adding architectural interest and wonderful color when they are in bloom.

For a complete list of versatile plants for small space screening, please contact me at eric@florapacifica.com

The Power of Display

It is understated to say how effective a properly created and located display can increase your sales.  From the days of staging residential and commercial landscapes for sale in Texas to my years creating vignettes of nature in water parks across the country, I have been able to see the results of effective display.

I recently was reminded of this “power” at our retail garden center.  We have a wide, diverse selection of beautiful and flowering plants and trees that are visible throughout the garden center.  When I started to create these “vignettes of nature” incorporating vegetation layering, mixing textures along with colorful blooming plants, and complimenting with our premium mulch product, these vignettes attracted our retail customer’s attention immediately.  You could see their new found excitement as they wandered through the garden center, visiting these newly created display areas.  Over and over again, you could hear them discussing among themselves “creating these styles of landscape” within their properties and that weekend we sold nearly 35% of the plants from within these displays; the same plants and mulch that we have for sale, typically stationed in their dedicated areas about the garden center.

It reiterated how important it is to keep things fresh, not only from our staple of bi-weekly arrivals, but also changing our displays regularly.  It is wonderful to see how customers took notice, for example of the Thuja plicata (Emerald Green Arborvitae) as it was the monochromatic background to a blaze of layered color.  These properly created displays help your clients visualize how a monochromatic, rigid plant such as this Arborvitae can play such an important role in the garden supplying controllable vertical height and texture when it is coupled with bright blooming Coreopsis or wispy Gaura.

Creating these displays has always been a major enjoyment over the years and is even more-so when it directly impacts your sales and bottom line.  Have fun with your displays, and maximize your current traffic patterns to discover that perfect location that draws your customer’s attention.  It is a nice problem to have, re-stocking your display gardens within 24 hours of creating them.

Vines- Versatile and Beautiful

Vines have primarily been used as draperies to cover walls, trellises, arbors, and fences.

Vines are finally becoming mainstream and being utilized as groundcovers, fast growing and cost effective.  Many vines root at the leaf node and spread rapidly, making it especially useful on steep banks or rocky areas.  Focus of vines as groundcovers should also be creating uniform and semi- evergreen high carpets, usually needing little maintenance, keeping in mind the invasive vines species that need to be avoided, such as English ivy (Hedera helix) in the Pacific Northwest and bittersweets (Celastrus) in the South and Central states.

Some of the vigorous, non-invasive growers can be kept in check by annual pruning, such as the five-leaf akebia (Akebia quinata) and silver lace vine (Fallopia baldshuanica).

Other great groundcover vine choices would include trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) and various clematis spp. such as Clematis Montana ‘rubens’.

Next time you are looking or in need of an inexpensive and fast acting groundcover, don’t overlook these wonderful choices.

How Much Turf Grass Is Enough?

It is and understatement that a well manicured and healthy lawn brings peace and a sense of tranquility, while reducing heat islands and fulfilling needs for carbon and dust sinks.  Large, lush expanses of well manicured Kentucky Blue turf grass takes me back to my childhood, running, rolling and then stopping to rest on this magical carpet while watching the billowing clouds float by overhead.  However, the amount of water and natural resources needed to maintain these lush carpets coupled with the time and financial commitments coupled with potential environmental damages being caused by fertilizers running off into waterways should make all of us ask “how much turf grass is enough for my landscape needs?”

With our changing environmental awareness and changing lifestyles, it makes perfect and financial sense to determine exactly how much manageable turf areas you need and recreate the turf areas you don’t need. 

There are ways to create bio-diverse meadows that will benefit birds and butterflies, in place of those vast acres of single plant turf fields.  We should realize by now that our gardens and landscape are connected to the soul of the gardener or gardeners.  The art does not exist merely within the landscape. Whether it is replacing turf with stepable plants and groundcovers such as creeping potentilla or blue star creeper (see below for further list of turf grass alternative plants) to creating a bird and butterfly habitat filled with evolving seasonal perennials such as penstemons, blue fescues and purple cone flower.  Eliminating existing turf areas is a “one and done” project that will continue to pay forward, and when it is well designed, it will mean less work and more pleasure not to mention the financial savings you will enjoy.

This truly is gardening for the future, it is about building healthy landscapes and lifestyles and it is more than sustainable, it is regenerative.

Other Turf Grass Alternative Plants:

Ajuga reptans (Bugleweed)

Antennaria neglecta (Pussytoes)

Callirhoe involucrata (Purple Winecups)

Fragaria virginiana (Wild Strawberry)

Isotoma fluviatilis (Blue Star Creeper)

Lysimachia nummularia (Creeping Jenny)

Phlox subulata (Creeping Phlox)

Thymus serpyllum (Creeping Thyme)

Trifolium repens (White Clover)

Designing The Perfect Child’s Garden

Without saying, kids love to play in the dirt.  When we were young and few possessions, staying outside all day long was the norm.

Children need the opportunities to be architects and builders, learn about responsibilities and dangers, and the child’s garden is the perfect place for them to carry out these essential and imaginative works.

Elements within the child’s garden can be simple or diverse and should contain areas such as simple sandboxes, earth form play areas such as grass swales and fallen timbers for balance beams.  The child’s garden might contain a backyard habitat equipped with a low flow stream for frog ponds and other interesting creatures.  The urge to seek water and its soothing sounds, such as a meandering stream flowing over a series of small falls, is one of our deepest needs.  Some parents might think that children and water in the garden are a recipe for danger and wish to avoid this element.  With safety clearly addressed, fountains, ponds, streams and pools should be part of this children’s paradise.  Water in the garden can be used as a basic lesson of life, learning to distinguish foolish risk and prudent behavior.

The perfectly designed child’s garden should create a refuge and a place for make believe.  Childhood is the time to create caves and fortresses from found materials.  Willow nests and miniature small space forests create with materials such as bamboo or sumac all serve as safe and mysterious havens for children to develop and explore.

Children are marvelous explorers with their unscathed imagination; they can embark daily into their garden and be greeted by whimsical landscape elements such as a contorted filbert or weeping larch and willows.

Planning for an interactive garden to accompany adults with different bodies and mindsets with children’s outdoor needs is essential.  Children are more flexible, more physical where adults tend to be more cerebral.    Keep in mind a perfect child’s garden will welcome and create satisfying outdoor time for adults and children, close in proximity, not necessarily engaged in the same outdoor room.  Create an adult area that is peaceful and serene yet allows sightlines to the child’s garden and activity areas as children need a place for freedom and a place for privacy as well as adults.

Backyard habitats will allow creatures and children to coexist, equipped with natural bird feeders such as grasses, bushes, vines and trees that produce berries, seeds and nuts.  Children will spend hours in these diverse habitats spying on beautiful winged visitors fluttering about their garden paradise and don’t forget that the perfect child’s garden is equipped with a fitting pet palace or two.

Art in The Garden

When art is incorporated into the landscape, there is nothing ordinary about it.  When a landscape is transformed by art rich with ideas and feeling liberated, it creates a ‘daring’ in all of us.  When a landscape is transformed with art, it is a simpler scene, made up not so much of plants but of shapes (upright, rounded fan), colors that harmonize or contrast with one another (sliver leaf with vivid red), and textures composed by the scale and arrangement of the leaves.  Art within your landscape may come in the form of a trellis or arbor, a meandering decomposed granite walkway contrasting amongst the monochromatic colors of green that surround it.  Vertical and rigid allium bulbs, in all their purple majesty against a backdrop of arched trellises covered in Three-Leaf Akebia (Akebia trifoliate) vine.  The nature of art is to delight and to instruct, and there is no better way than to create delight within your garden with the combination of art and vegetation.

Melding indoor and outdoor space should flow seamlessly together, through glass windows or doors, your gardens should be designed to bring fragrance, flower and foliage into one.  Indoor repose is extended into your garden with cushioned benches and chairs, fitting snugly beneath the overhangs or tucked into a vine covered pergola.  Creating movement and momentum is important, in art and in your garden for you do not want your garden to appear static.  This can be accomplished in many ways, from creating transitional color and texture as plants change from season to season and also by the

infusion of art, in this case a steel trellis with wide swoops, its spirals and tendril directing the eye to the brightly blooming climbing red rose.  People also add movement and momentum in your garden, by simply installing a meandering pathway, humans become the 3-D object and for those that like to keep it simple with clean lines, you could also chooses plants with bold and striking shapes to be the form in the garden, such as planting Roundleaf Alumroot (Heuchera cylindrical), or False Spiraea (Sorbaria sorbifolia) amongst a backdrop of pruned Boxwood (Buxus michrophylla).  Having art as the form in the garden, more than a color or texture for example, can be achieved by keeping your plantings simple, and maintaining your pruning for architectural lines.  You can create form with vertical pieces, such as large cylinder shaped vessels, in which you may not decide to plant anything at all.  In this case, color, texture and flower, the normal language of the garden, are heard as barely a whisper.

Crime Prevention through Environmental Design

There are many ways to prevent crime, and crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is the 'design or redesign of an environment'.

Regardless of the type of landscaping and planting designs applied, the fencing installed or type of plants used, if the property is not maintained to the standard of care for that property type, the image of 'neglect and lack of care' will speak directly to those who can use this weakness to trespass or commit crimes.  As a landscape designer, my objective in CPTED is to create physical space that considers the needs of the immediate users, the intended and expected functions for the space.  In this process, I also have the responsibility to predict behavior of illegitimate users and intruders.

There are three strategies I implement for security design; natural access control, natural surveillance and territorial reinforcement.  Natural access control strategies are intended to deny access to crime targets and to create a perception of risk to offenders.  Natural surveillance is those methods directed at primarily keeping intruders under observation.  Both of the natural methods can be accomplished through layout and site planning, creating or eliminating circulation.

Territorial influence is created by designing a cohesive feeling amongst neighboring and adjacent properties, creating a sense of proprietorship so that would-be offenders perceive that territorial influence.  Professional series low voltage lighting featuring LED lights is a cost effective way to maximize your crime prevention while adding value and diversity to your landscape.  Lighting should be designed for proper photometrics, proper illumination that reduces glare and increases view corridors. Your lighting can provide up-lighting, down-lighting and pathway lighting that is providing sufficient and cost effective lighting throughout your property, detouring offenders.

The kind of shrubs and trees included in your landscape and where they are planted can add to home security as well as beautifying the property and increasing the resale value.  The advantage plants have over architectural elements such as low walls or fences is cost and versatility.  The disadvantage of plants is they require some frequent maintenance and care.  Plantings will contribute to a positive and attractive environment, softening the frigidity and raw elements of urban living, while enriching the spatial qualities of the site.

When addressing a mature landscape, clear and maintain sightlines between street and residential property to allow better visibility from the street or sidewalk.  Trees and low shrubs are perfect for defining an area but you must allow visibility between the shrub and lower branches of the tree canopy.  When utilizing trees to define a project perimeter, small trees are most effective at separating potential conflicts between adjacent use areas and remember these trees must be positioned not to block site surveillance areas.

Stormwater Chain, Capturing Stormwater Run-Off (Final in a Series)

Landscape, Street and Parking Swales

It has been stated and proven the need to create greater environmental awareness in dealing with water conservation is evident. Bringing awareness and understanding will create the means to implement some of these simple principles.  Landscape, street and parking lot swales are threads in the stormwater chain and part of these simple and responsible principles.

Landscape swales temporarily store run-off water while reducing pollutants with its vegetation from small to moderate rain events.  These swales are usually low depressions designed to collect, reduce flow, and move stormwater run-off with its greatest attribute of allowing water to infiltrate into the ground, re-charging ground water while cleaning the water of its pollutants.

These swales, as recommended by The Portland Manual are average 6” deep by 2’ in width in private and commercial use, and a maximum of 4’ wide for public swales.  This is one of the main differences between a swale and a bio-retention pond that may include a forebay area to encourage sedimentation and substantially deeper to accommodate greater amounts of water run-off.

Street swales provide tremendous benefits to residential neighborhoods, not only for reducing run-off and flow rates, but also for integration within streets to slow down traffic by narrowing the street and essentially creating green streets.  These street swales are small scale features designed to take run-off from the street.

Typical parking lots have been designed with raised or curbed greenspaces dividing parking rows.  To take advantage of collecting stormwater, they are now being properly designed with depressed sunken greenspaces that are vegetated within these large scale non-pervious parking areas.  Again, the vegetation is essential to filtering contaminants that may be within the run-off water.  Landscape architects & designers are now looking at ways to actively and aesthetically install these swales alongside domestic driveways and parking areas near gardens and residential yards to continually expand the possibilities of capturing stormwater.