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.