Common Landscape Design Problems
Outline and Checklist to Coordinate Landscape Planning Processes
Mar 24, 2008
Overview
The Landscape Design Process is more than choice and placement of plants and physical components. It is a series of steps that help landscape gardeners work in an organized manner. It is the foundation of a workable and attractive garden landscape. An effective landscape design allows revising certain steps to change desired results. Checking and revising outcomes also make design a circular process.
Avoiding an organized landscape design process may lead to common design problems that are frustrating, irritating and perhaps costly. The resulting landscape garden just does not look or feel "right."
A well thought out plan checks beginning impulse projects like walkways, decks and planters that are never finished or do not accomplish anticipated functions. A plan avoids impulse plant purchases that lead to hit and miss borders and often-poor plant growth.
Landscape Design Process Checklist
1. Useable and well-defined paper plan. This lays the groundwork and should include:
- Compass directions;
- Property lines, easements and restrictions;
- Driveway and bordering streets, sidewalks and paths;
- House, garage and any outbuilding;
- Entrance or public areas;
- Private, garden and recreation areas;
- Existing plants and garden areas; and
- Service areas like compost and trash bins, clothes lines and storage structures.
2. Survey of site and environmental conditions. Do not omit this step, as plants will not grow in hostile environments. On the paper plan, include at the minimum:
- Soil tests done by reputable laboratories;
- Presence of animals such as deer and rabbits which like to eat plants, and
- Prominent physical features – like boulders and streams.
3. Survey of existing and proposed plants or plant groupings. This step, when considered in terms of function and done thoughtfully, will take the most amounts of study and time. All considerations need to take into account steps #1 and #2.
4. Time, money, and maintenance. This step demands honesty and costs for time and money of project implementation as well as that of maintenance. This is also a good step to consider availability of large trees and shrubs and hardscape materials like gazebos and boulders, their costs, and suitability to the overall plan and budget.
5. Aesthetics and visual impact. This is an opportunity to determine the landscape's overall function. Is it as lovely from the inside looking out as it appears from the street. There are garden landscapes that are lovely to look at and perhaps dream within, but not the functional ones in which we want to rest or play, and with which we want to surround families and ourselves.
Watch, Record and Plan Ahead
The most difficult of these five categories with which to come to grips is that of learning site and environmental conditions. It is difficult to go slow, arrange for tests, and take time to collect, record and analyze data. Landscape gardeners want action!
The beginning of a new project is, however, the best time to stop everything, including the chain saw and trips to the local plant outlets. Now spend several months, including those during your area's snow or rain season, to watch, record on paper and film, and plan.
Quick Tips
- The quickest way to bring flowers and color into the landscape garden is by planting containers full of bright and interesting plants.
- The article A Homeowner's First Landscape shares more tips on how to landscape, step-by-step, a relatively new house. The example used is one in Charlottesville, VA (plant hardiness zone 7).
©Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage, 2008. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
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