Common Topics:

Starting Over or Starting New: What do you need to know to assess your site correctly?

Determine what you want from your landscape. Once you know what you want and need from your landscape you will be able to determine the functionally of the design.

Getting started

Ask yourself these questions:

1. How will I use the area?
Example: Will it be for play or for ornamental use only?

2. Do you have water to the area?
Are you willing to put in an irrigation system or water by hand?
If you never quite get the chance to get out the hose and water your yard, you should probably stick to a design that will succeed even its neglected.

3. Do you need to amend your soil?
Bring a soil sample in to your local garden center for analysis. Gardening is like cooking: If you do not create a good, solid base at the beginning of the recipe, the chance for greatness decreases immensely.

4. Do you have a color palette in mind?
Finding a color scheme will help determine all of your other landscaping decisions. By coordinating colors in advance, you can choose your plant material, hardscaping and accessory features to match…then add on as you go.

5. How much maintenance are you willing to do to keep up this landscape?
Anytime you want a landscape to fill in quickly, your chances of maintaining “happy” plants increases dramatically. On the other hand, if you would rather not have a lot of maintenance issues, you can install plants that grow slow—but you will need to be patient until they fill in, or purchase more of them, if your budget allows, to gain the desired affect earlier.

Special note for older gardeners: Many plants look really nice in magazines but require a lot of work to keep them up. Ask your local garden center personnel, what would be good choices or you to get the desired affects you want, without the “usual” maintenance. For example: You really don’t want to pick Golden Creeping Jenny (super fast grower) as a bark substitute if you can’t be bend down to keep it in check. Archers’ Gold Thyme or any of the other “slow” to “moderate” growing STEPABLE® would be a better choice for you.