Ted Fisher: Fall is time to Landscape
Dewey Coffman
[Scanned in from Austin American-Statesman(10/08/94) and posted to the
Internet with permission of Ted Fisher and the AAS ]
Landscapes are for living, and if you are not living in and enjoying
your landscape, then you not realizing the full potential of your home and
property.
Almost everyone considers their family's comfort and convenience when
buying a house, but too often the outdoor living spaces are forgotten or
ignored. When not planted and maintained, these outdoor living areas become
unused space.
If you would like to improve your landscape, now is an excellent time to
do so. Fall's cooler days provide an excellent time to plant and to make
those changes you need and want to make.
To create an attractive and functional landscape for your home, begin
with a plan. Design your own plan or have one drawn up with the help of a
local nursery professional or landscape architect. This is an important
first step. A plan will save many planting mistakes.
A landscape design plan involves more than placing trees, shrubs and
other plants on the property. It details the conscious arrangement of
outdoor space for the satisfaction of your family.
When developing your landscape plan, consider the hobbies and special
interests of family members. Do you want a vegetable garden, fruit trees, a
cutflower garden, a playscape for the kids? Do you entertain outdoors a
great deal? Do you want a large expanse of lawn? Keep your plan simple.
Each plant or accessory you use in your landscape should have a purpose. If
it's just going to be covered up and forgotten, don't use it.
Use good landscape principles in developing your plan. Remember, you are
trying to accentuate the beauty of your home and play down its ugly spots.
Use trees to frame the house, but not to obscure it from passers-by.
Use the same plant repeatedly throughout the landscape for a feeling of
simplicity and continuity. Rather than harsh formal rows of plants, use
clustered groupings of plants to give a more natural, relaxed feeling to
the area.
Every landscape will have one area primarily visible from the street. This
is called the public area. Another part of every landscape is the private
area intended for use by the family. The third major area of the landscape
is the service or work area. This area houses the compost pile, swings,
clothesline, dog run, etc. The three areas are different and should be
separated and defined. Each of these areas might require a different degree
of maintenance.
When developing your landscape, consider maintenance and don't "bite off
more than you can chew." In landscape terminology, that translates to,
"don't plant more than you have time to take care of." Any plant will
require some maintenance, even the natives. Plants such as azaleas will
require a high degree of maintenance. If you are not prepared to spend a
lot of time on landscape maintenance, avoid those. Few of us have the time
or money to meet the needs of an extensive landscape. So choose low-
maintenance plants and materials and arrange them so care will be minimized.
Assess your level of gardening expertise and the time you're willing to
spend, then tailor your plant selection to that level. When selecting any
plant, always consider its growth rate and mature size. If you're not
prepared to do much pruning, choose plants that will maintain a desirable
size without a lot of attention.
Other suggestions that can help you implement and enjoy your landscape
more include:
* Use ground cover plants, such as liriope, mondo grass, sedum or ivy in
difficult-to-maintain areas to reduce the size of the lawn.
* Use a permanent edging around flower beds, gardens and other
designated landscape areas to make soil control easter. This will also
prevent the encroachment of grasses into the bed areas.
* Avoid small patches of flower beds or other plantings in the lawn.
These require constant edging and upkeep.
* Consider the use of structural materials, such as brick, wood, stone,
lava rock or gravel, instead of plants in some areas. There are areas in
almost any landscape where it seems impossible to grow plants.
Fortunately, the cost of landscape development can be fitted into
almost any budget because it is not necessary to install the entire
landscape in one year. In fact, once you have a plan, a landscape can be
implemented gradually over a period of several years, as time and money
permit.
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Ted Fisher is the horticulturist with the Travis County Extension
Service. His column appears on Saturday. (512)-473-9600
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If you like these postings, you should tune into KLRU, Public TV channel
18 on Saturdays(check listings) and Sundays for The Central Texas Gardner
Show. Ted Fisher has his own spot on these shows and the shows are always
very local and informative. They are on every 4th Saturday and repeated
on Sunday and sometimes the next weekend.
Side Note: Currently, I'm scanning these in because Ted Fisher writes these
on a *typewriter*, if you like to contribute PC parts, software or dollars to
a cause to get Ted a computer with some good wordprocessing software, and
modem, please contact me, not Ted. It's a surprise... ;-) -dewey
--
Dewey Coffman de...@ctci.com de...@cactus.org de...@bga.com CTC Texas Inc.
Notary Public, after 5pm service available. USDA Zone 8. Compost Happens.
All opinions expressed are unrelated to reality. Austin Beer Club
"If you fail to plan, plan to fail" "One Dollar, One Vote" [\]