BASIC LANDSCAPE DESIGN
I want to talk to you about landscape job that we just got done wrapping up and a little bit of what goes into our landscape designs.
When I am doing a design on landscaping, what I like to do is I use framers. This is usually in threes, so you can see I'm kind of carrying them across the property, and that way it balances the landscape. Typically I like to use larger stature trees for these as an anchor point in a flower bed, either out in berms or even next to the buildings to soften the corners. I also like to use evergreens to soften some of the corners of the building or even come in and frame out the doorways. And this job specifically, what we did is used a combination of different frames such as the Golden Deodar Cedars. These are larger stature evergreen trees that we like to use in our landscape designs. We also use Japanese Maples, which are dormant in the winter, but when they start blooming they're going to be absolutely beautiful with deep red leaves (this usually happens around mid-April in Arkansas. Another plant we use in our landscape design is Pampas grasses. Pampas grasses are ornamental grasses, superb as an architectural specimen or large accent. Foliage has a clumping habit; plant in groups to create a screen or windbreak. Long, showy, silvery white, silky plumes have gorgeous autumn coloring, persist into winter, and are superb in fresh or dried floral arrangements. The Pampas Grass makes a great addition to this landscape design.
We use these three plants because they give you different textures in your landscape design. The texture of the Golden Deodar Cedar, Japanese Maple, and finally the texture of the Pampas Grass.
We typically plant these in threes or fours and you see them carry across the front of the flower beds. I like odd numbers of plantings, but sometimes we install an even number of plants (depending on what looks best for each application) In this application, each plant are in a cluster of 3. Specifically, we put in our large stature evergreen, the Golden Deodora, and then we put in a Japanese Maple. We like to install Japanese Maples 15 to 20 feet (at an angle or diagonal), away from the Golden Deodora, and then we came in and we put in the Pampas Grass. Typically, I don't do the same pattern every time, but in this application, I was framing in the driveway. What we do after we framed in the driveway is installed boulders to anchor in the landscape. We then like to soften with fillers (fillers are plants like Day Lilies or variety smaller ground cover plants like junipers or roses, Kaleidoscope). On this project specifically, we used the Drift Rose. (the Drift Rose is a flowering shrub) Another plant we used in the Kaleidoscope. The Kaleidoscope added a yellow color to the foliage. (Variations of colors and variations of textures and that's what we're looking for). Drift Rose bloom all summer long and are going to give us another flowering shrub all summer. The Drift Rose paired with the deep yellow foliage of the kaleidoscope, and then the deep red of Japanese maple soften by the green and the white at the Pampus grass, And then we have that yellow, and green of the Golden Deodor, which is our evergreen tree adds a nice variation in this landscape design. The only thing that's going to lose its leaves is the Japanese Maple, so it's going stay full of color, especially when the landscape matures three to five years from now. Again, this is what we installed in the flower bed by the driveway.
Our customer really wanted a western rustic landscape design, and this reminded me of Longhorn Steakhouse's landscape design. Against the building, we installed a row of evergreens. The wall on this building didn't have any windows, so I tried to soften it with columnar evergreens. Then we accented in between the columnar evergreens with Kaleidoscope Abelias. The Kaleidoscope added a splash of yellow foliage in between each of the evergreens. After we installed the plants in this area, I wanted to go ahead and use oversized three to five-inch river gravel as our landscape material to cover the flower bed. We installed this across the front of the building as well. We also installed a dyed brown mulch in rings in the landscape. The mulch was installed so the customer could plant annuals in the spring around the front of the building.
Another plant that I used in this landscape design was the Golden Boxwood. I chose the Golden Boxwood because they have a nice orange tint to their leaf in the winter and this added another color variation, but also are compact so they're going to be low maintenance. To complement and accent the Golden Boxwoods we added some more the Drift Roses. The Drift rose will help with ground cover and provide color all summer long. We also used Golden Box woods along the outside of the edge of the parking lot and they softened the outside edge, just to break it up between it and the grass on the lot next door.
After installing the plants in this flower bed, we installed more of the landscape material, 3 to 5 in Ouachita Gravel. 3 to 5-inch gravel is low maintenance and reduces erosion of soil. Hopefully, if any trash or debris gets in these flower beds, the customer can blow them out when blowing it off the parking lot, and not have to worry about blowing landscape material into their parking lot.
This landscape design is very beautiful and low maintenance. And our customer was very happy with this design and installation.