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12 Deadly Sins of Landscaping
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15013 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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9 / 1988 |
1,940 Words |
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Virginia Greiner
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Even daredevils who sky dive, buy stocks on margin, and answer ads in the personal columns may quail at the thought of doing their own home landscaping.
The easiest and safest solution is to hire a landscape architect or designer to do the work. But, as garden writer Geoffrey Charelsworth notes, that would means that you would have "inactive ownership of a changeling, a brainchild only partly yours that is fed by a steady flow of cash."
And so every spring and fall, garden centers beckon, and millions of men and women pick up their shovels to have a go at it on their own.
As in all endeavors, forewarning help amateurs avoid mistakes. Here are a dozen common sins that many novice landscapers commit. You may spot some of these transgressions in your own neighborhood, but hopefully not in your own yard.
The Doorway Linebacker
In the Orient, ferocious-looking statues of temple gods often guard the doors of shrines. They scowl menacingly from heights of ten to twenty feet, trying to scare off evil spirits and unwelcome visitors.
Something equally sinister towers over the front doorways of many American homes: the hulking, overgrown evergreen linebacker. These big bruisers usually were drafted as sturdy little specimen plants from the garden center. Soon they are too big for their spot on the team, and after several years they throw up a body block against anybody trying to get past. They hide the architectural bones of the house, sprawl over the path, and shut out light and views from nearby windows.
On a football team, the wrong player usually gets cut. At a home's entry, the wrong plant has to be constantly pruned to keep it in bounds. And it will never be as attractive as the right plant.
The solution? Find out the ultimate height and spread of any shrub under consideration, particular the ones planned for the entryway. This information should be printed on plant labels at the garden centers. Before making your purchase, go home and measure its maturation size against your home.
A more reliable guide is to look around a neighborhood that's at least five years old to see how things are actually growing. Don't be afraid to knock on doors and ask homeowners about their plantings. Do-it-yourself landscape designers, especially those who have made costly mistakes, like to help each other. The owner may not know the exact names of plants but probably remembers where they were purchased.
Dwarf varieties are obvious solutions to keeping plants in bounds. But do not be fooled by the name "dwarf." This doesn't mean that the plant will be tiny at full growth. It just means that the particular variety is smaller and grows slower than the standard variety.
Ring Around The Split Level
New homeowners often plant in concentric circles, starting close to the naked new house.
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