Before shovel meets dirt, take a deep breath and close your eyes and picture … nature run amok? Trust me, it can happen. When it comes to creating beautiful and functional outdoor spaces, a little thought and foresight (and graph paper) goes a long way. Here are some firsthand tips to help you avoid beginners' mistakes – my own!
Have A Plan
I figured, nature does not have a plan. Why do I need one? Well, it turns out nature does have a plan – survival of the fittest. The strong overtake the weak. And the concept of aesthetically pleasing is a concept unknown to nature. We homeowners, on the other hand, want all of our plants to survive and thrive-strong and weak, hand in hand singing Kum By Ya as the focal-point birch clump sways us gently on hammocks, our lips stained with Kool-Aid. And when we open our eyes from that August nap, we want to see rolling, flowing waves of plant life and envious neighbors. It's not going to happen without a plan.
In planning landscaping, start with a paper and pencil sketch (plot plan). Outline your lot, home and driveway, and begin doodling some ideas. Sketch out flowerbeds – do you want curved, flowing boundaries or crisp, formal lines and angles to the beds? Freestanding clusters of shrubs, grasses and flowers – where? And trees – evergreen or deciduous, standing alone or clustered or incorporated into a bed?
Need some more ideas? Check out those dang neighbors. Take a drive and pick out yards that you find especially well landscaped. Take notes or even pictures. Hint: leave the telephoto lens at home to avoid neighbors calling 911. Better yet, ask permission of the homeowner first. You'll likely get permission, a gleaming smile, and a detailed dissertation of each plant.
Find more ideas in books and magazines, great sources not only for relevant photographs and in-depth planning guides, but critical help in identifying individual plant for your climate zone and preferred level of maintenance.
Do not Crowd Those New Plants
Every container plant from your favorite nursery or garden center will have attached a little plastic tag identifying the plant and offering planting suggestions. Treat those suggestions as gold. Especially the spacing suggestions. To wit, the three Blue Pfitzer junipers purchased by yours truly and spaced two feet apart in a front flower bed when the tags said to space them 5-6 feet apart. My thinking was: but they're so tiny. And they looked ridiculously tiny in that big old empty flower bed. So I pushed them together and two years later I was digging up the middle one and planting it further out and two years after that I was digging up all three because they had collectively outgrown the flower bed. I threw'em in the ground along the back fence and now they're trying to push the fence down.
So here are some words to the wise: Plants grow. Some plants grow mightily. So space plants accordingly from the start.
Remember, You've Still Got To Mow
Unless your plan calls for a bush or flower on every square foot of your lot, remember that the remaining lawn needs maintaining. One of the early mistakes I made was not allowing for ease of mowing. I positioned low-hanging trees in the middle of the yard, created a few too many freestanding clumps of this and that, and fashioned flower beds that made following along with a mower especially difficult. Soft green grass is a lovely thing and I'm a big fan. But remember when planning the home landscaping, you'll be mowing that grass every week.
And the older you get the less amused you'll be while doing the limbo under low tree branches.