Garden Design...A "Quick-Start" Guide

2012-02-13T15:47:00.000-08:00

Gardening Observation:

A Tale of Two Redbuds - The eastern redbud tree, Cercis canandensis, is one of my favorites for its profusion of pink, branch hugging blossoms in the early spring. The redbud on the left was photographed by me in Joliet, Illinois on May 1, 2011. It is small - only pehaps seven feet tall. The one on the right was also taken by me in San Diego on Feb. 4, 2012.

I only recently learned that redbuds can be grown in warm climates like San Diego. The Sunset Western Garden Book lists it for all zones in the U.S. including the hot desert if given some shade. I do not not recall ever seeing one in Phoenix however during the time I lived and worked there.

In the Midwest there is hardly a more charming small to medium tree. It has a profusion of flowers in late April in the Chicago area. It grows 30 ft. (10 m) tall and as wide. When grown as an "understory" tree beneath taller varieties it has a fairy land look when in bloom. If you live in Joliet drive by the home at the corner of Westridge Rd. and Timbercrest Dr. in late April and you will see what I mean. This subdivision is south of Black Rd. across from the Rock Run Forest Preserve near I-55.

A drive along I-94 in southern Michigan between Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor in late April is sure to please. There are hundreds of naturally growing redbuds where the forest meets a clearing beside the road.

Unfortunately, redbuds have a higher than average rate of dying when first planted. Many do not bloom or leaf out the first spring after planting. For this reason we were reluctant to plant them when we were in the landscaping business in that area. They need rich soil and do poorly in the heavy clay found in many subdivisions.

Which brings me to the San Diego specimen shown above. It was planted late last spring in the newly installed median garden in Thorn St. in the Altadena neighborhood in North Park. I believe it is the 'Forest Pansy' variety. For neighborhood beautification the pavement was removed in this wide stretch of Thorn St. and a block-long garden median installed. It is a nice addition to this neighborhood where I live. Five redbuds were planted. Only the one shown shows any outward signs of life now.

I wonder if redbuds were an appropriate choice for this location. Perhaps crepe myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, would have been better. The Sunset Western Garden Book does not list it for Zone 24 where I live but there are many that thrive nearby and throughout San Diego. I don't know why Sunset does not list it for Zone 24.

As a garden lover I find it interesting that to redbuds at least spring comes to San Diego twelve week earlier than it does to the far southwestern suburbs of Chicago.

Free Design

2011-11-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

A "Perfect" Landscape Design

2011-08-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a landscape design we recently created for a client in Escondido, California.

She has a tired looking existing landscape consisting of mostly 3/4" granite and a few palm trees.

Instead, her goal is to transform her front gardens into an outdoor room entertaining space.

When we delivered her finished design, she said, "It's perfect."

Paving Stone of San Diego

2011-06-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

We have recently teamed up with San Diego's finest brick paving company: Paving Stone of San Diego. We will design and supervise the installation of complete outdoor rooms for homeowners in the area. Paving Stone of San Diego has a sparkling reputation and hundreds of satisfied customers.

Now, we will be able to offer not only brick and stone paving but also the complete package of plantings, gardens, irrigation, and lighting.

Please contact us today for a consultation at your home. Call Paving Stone of San Diego at 888-297-4877 or visit the website at: www.pavingstoneofsandiego.com

Or contact me at: dpearl1@hotmail.com

Design Your Gardens With Our Help

2010-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

Need help designing your gardens and landscape? Contact us now.

All of our gardens are inspired by our five easy to follow recommendations:

1) Have a plan on paper and to scale. Maximize the spaces that create planted beds and minimize the areas used for lawns. Create outdoor rooms and focal points.

2) Planted beds are everything. Fill these spaces by using groupings of "set and forget" plants. P. Allen Smith (see link) calls these "workhorse plants." Create areas of colorful, seasonal color in focal areas.

3) Never use the three big "no-nos." These are gaudy colored stone, artificially colored mulch, plastic lawn edging, or the much overused, cheap concrete block retaining wall products sold at home centers.

4) Hardscapes will make or break your gardens. Hardscapes are the bones of your gardens. Stones, boulders, masonry, patios will define your gardens aesthetic value and livability.

5) The finishing touches: planted containers, garden art, lighting, and easy-to-maintain water displays that will make your gardens memorable.

We have lots of experience in designing gardens for most climates in the U. S. from the sun belt to the cold winter zones in the midwest.

Here's what we need to create your design: a legible copy of your plat-of-survey, and at least nine photos of your home and property taken from these vantage points...from the four corners or your property looking back toward your home, front and back, a close-up shot of your front entry, and two photos looking from your entry toward the street in front and two more looking from your back yard toward the back corners and beyond.

It's easy to get started. Contact us today at dpearl1@hotmail.com to get started.

Lets get started. Contact us a dpearl1@hotmail.com today.

Have A Plan On Paper

2010-02-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

Spring is just around the corner. Lets get ready to design your gardens now.

A garden plan on paper has several advantages. Your spaces, or "outdoor rooms," will have the best look and feel. A plan enables you to draw in your plantings at their mature size. This will help to prevent overcrowding or plantings too close your home or other structures.

The easiest to create a plan on paper is with your plat-of-survey. This document is typically given to you when you purchase your home. If you can't locate it, perhaps your county recorder of deeds, city hall, or mortgage company can give you copy. You can also hire a engineer to create one, but the cost might be several hundred dollars or more. You can also create a plat yourself by measuring your property and the buildings and putting this information on paper.

Many plats have a scale of 1 inch = 20 feet. This scale may be too small to easily create your garden and landscape plan. I recommend a scale of 1 inch = 8 feet (1" = 8') or even 1 inch = 4 feet for small properties. You can easily enlarge your 1" =20' plat to 1"= 8' by using a copier and enlarging by 250% (1/8" is 250% larger than 1/20").

Shown here is a sample plat-of-survey that in the days ahead we will develop into a finished garden and landscape plan. You should follow along. Using our techniques your gardens will practically design themselves. It's a lot fun!

Garden Design Blog Post Coming March 1, 2010

2009-12-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

Coming soon, right after the new year begins, we will post some great garden and landscape design tips for you. By using these ideas in your gardens you will have full, colorful gardens that are easily designed, easy to create, and easy to maintain. Plus...they will save you time, money, and be "green"...environmentally friendly. If fact, by using these ideas that I have learned in 20 years in the landscaping business your gardens will practically design themselves. Really! And, be the envy of your neighborhood.

Before we start, perhaps you should gather together a few things: First, a copy of your plat-of-survey of your property. Next, some snapshots looking both in toward your home and out toward your perimeter. Finally, an architect's scale and/or an engineer's scale and maybe a landscape design template. We'll say more about later about where you can acquire these.

So far so good? Email me any questions you have: dpearl1@hotmail.com

Look for the first installment early in March 2010.

Water, Water Everywhere...But Not Lately!

2009-11-11T06:17:00.000-08:00

Due to the recent dry spell in the Chicago area be sure to give your plants, shrubs, and trees a thorough soak at least one or two more times before December. It has been nearly two weeks since the last significant rainfall.

I advise gardeners to not put their garden hoses away until Thanksgiving. It is important that your plants and trees go into the winter with ample moisture in their roots and stems. Otherwise, if the winter is drier and colder than normal they may suffer from dessication (being too dry). Then, in the spring you will have dead branches and perhaps even dead plants.

While many evergreens are especially susceptible to damage from dessication, your deciduous plantings are vulnerable as well. Give them all a drink equivalent to what would come from nature with a 1 inch rainfall.

When December arrives, hopefully enough moisture will fall. A snow cover of 4 to 6 inches or more is ideal to protect plants from drying out. A blanket of snow also protects root systems from excessive cold temperatures because of the insulation the snow provides.

A Quick Stone Patio

2009-11-07T09:06:00.001-08:00

Here is an easy stone patio that can be finished in half a day. All you need are 25 to 30 large, flat stepping stones approximately 18" by 24" each, give or take. You can buy these at many suppliers of landscaping materials. Just dig out any grass that you have and loosen the soil beneath.

You do not need to add any sand or gravel for leveling the stones. Large stones like these are stable enough on their own. After setting stones and leveling them with the loosened soil beneath you can fill in between with mulch or add more soil and ground cover plantings.

It is a good idea to enclose a space like this with some plantings behind. A mix of evergreens and some some flowering shrubs or perennials will finish it nicely.

Keep in mind that you need not locate a patio like this immediately off the back of your home. This patio and garden is placed at the back corner of a relatively small back yard. This "outdoor room" was created at the same home described in the post showing the front greeting pad at a home in Naperville, Illinois.

Front Entry "Outdoor Room"

2009-11-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we neglect the concept of creating outdoor rooms in the front yard. But in reality, this is an important element of design. Too often the front porches of homes are small and not very inviting. You can transform your entry by adding a garden enclosed "greeting pad." This is space for welcoming guests, entertaining small groups, or simply a place to relax and wave across your street to the neighbors.

Pictured here is a front entry garden we created for home in Naperville, Illinois a few years ago. The original entry was simply a 3 ft. wide concrete walk that led from the drive to the front stoop. The homeowners disliked this and desired a more spacious and lush entry.

We removed the old concrete walk and replaced it with brick pavers. To its right (as you walk toward the entry) we created a large greeting pad with more pavers.

The space was enclosed with a "seating wall" made of concrete block wall stones from the same company that makes the pavers. This L-shaped wall stands about 24 inches tall and each leg is perhaps 15 or 20 feet long. No mortar is used. You simply affix the top two courses, coping included, with a suitable adhesive. These kinds of walls can be completed rapidly and with little effort.

Even though I generally discourage the use of concrete retaining wall stones, their use in seating walls is a good way to use them.

Brick Front Entry

2009-10-23T07:51:00.001-07:00

Here is a photo of a simple and easy brick entry at my daughter's home. The same style and color of brick that was used for the back patio is shown here.

The upper left photo shows the the old concrete walk that we broke up with a sledge hammer and used shovels to dig out about 8 inches of soil to allow for the gravel base for the new pavers. That work was done by two people and only took an hour or so. The same landscape contractor we hired to bring in his Bobcat tractor for the back patio hauled away the old concrete walk and diggings from the front entry area.

Like the back patio...we designed and installed these pavers with the idea of not needing to cut a single brick. This is an easy project that two people can finish in a day. With time to spare!

If you want to know the specific brand, style, and color of brick pavers just send me an email to dpearl1@hotmail.com

Kiss Your Ash Goodbye?

2009-10-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

One of the best trees for the upper midwest has been the Autumn Purple Ash (Fraxinus americana 'Autumn purple). I recently took these photos of a grouping at the Naperville Public Library on Naper Boulevard south of 75th Street.

The two-tone coloration this year has been awesome. The outer leaves turn the trademark purple while those further in turn yellow. While some other species also do this, the Autumn Purple ash nearly always puts on a good show.

The reasons I like this tree are the fall color, the dense summer shade, and it is relatively fast growing. And unlike some other quick growers like the silver maple and cottonwoods, the ash is not prone to wind damage. This makes it very good to provide shade for a western facing deck or patio.

Of course, a major disadvantage has struck this and all ash species: the emerald ash borer. This imported insect pest invaded from Asia and was first found in Michigan and Ohio. Sadly, the emerald ash borer has found its way into northern Illinois. The good news is that there are some effective pesticides that will control this pest and hopefully save this tree from going the way of the elm.

I still recommend the autumn purple ash with the caveat that it will probably need some help from you with the application of the recommended products to protect it.

Outdoor Rooms - A Back Patio

2009-10-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Bear in mind that there are many kinds of "outdoor rooms." We will present others in future posts. This patio was designed by me and I helped install it at my daughter's home in Joliet. Along with me and my daughter, we had the help of her two sisters and two friends. The entire project was finished in a single weekend.

It is important to note that we hired a landscape contractor with his Bobcat tractor to excavate the site. He removed the old grass and 8 to 10 inches of soil. This allowed room for the gravel base for the brick pavers. We used his tractor to bring the gravel from the street where it had been dumped to the patio site. I strongly recommend that you not attempt this back breaking work yourself with a shovel and wheel barrow!

During the first day the excavation was finished, the gravel leveled and compacted with a rented compactor. That made the second day's work relatively easy. We merely had to set the bricks on a 1" layer of coarse sand. The sandstone retaining wall was set in place after the pavers were finished.

Future posts will talk about some ideas for how your patio should look...its shape, size, and brick style. But our patio was able to be completed so quickly due to the fact that not one single brick had to be cut. We purposely designed it that way. Brick cutting is time consuming, messy, and you have to rent a loud and expensive diamond saw. We will show you how to design your own patio to avoid any brick cutting.

You can see from the pictures that the patios consists of rows of concentric circles. Several manufacturers of brick pavers produce these in a number of colors and styles. There are four or five different brick shapes on the same pallet and the manufacturer will give you a "cheat sheet" that show which shapes and how many are needed for each circle as you work out from the center.

Complete details in future posts.

Colors of Autumn

2009-10-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

In the Chicago area we are enjoying spectacular fall colors. Here are two photos of some plantings that illustrate some nice groupings. While I had no hand in the design or planting of this driveway entry for this home in Naperville I believe these deserve to be pointed out. Many of my own clients are unaware of the autumn splashes that many plant species make for us.

Near the back of the first photo we find a service berry (amelanchier) with its red-orange hues. This same plant appears in the second photo. Note the cluster of ornamental grasses in the foreground. This entry has been further embellished with cornstalks, pumpkins, and chrysanthemums set on bales of hay.

The second photo shows a burning bush (euonymus alatus) in prime fall color. To its left is a grouping of Montgomery spruce. Behind are viburnums and a service berry (amelanchier).

Quick Start Guide Introduction

2009-10-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

This is a brief summary of the 'Quick Start Guide.' In the weeks ahead each point will be explained and expanded with examples and photos from actual gardens I have designed and created.

Here are the secrets to a wonderful gardens and landscaping. By following them you’ll create beautiful, natural gardens. You’ll save time and effort during installation, have much less maintenance, spend far less money, and be in harmony with nature.

1) Have a plan…on paper (helps when estimating). A good plan will maximize natural beauty and minimize turf, maintenance, and the need for chemicals. Create ‘outdoor rooms’ in front and back. Make it inviting to enter! Soften hard corners, have wide free-form beds, taking into account sight lines off-property. Minimize turf – no more than 50%: saves maintenance, watering, chemicals, and expense. Have no turf along walls or fences, or around tree trunks. Examples of outdoor rooms: entry ‘greeting pad,’ patios and decks (especially when partially enclosed by plantings), gazebos, pergolas, utility areas for pets, play sets, pool equipment. Try giving your garden a ‘theme.’

2) Planted beds…are what gardening is all about. Use ‘set & forget’ plants in the background. Mass plantings in broad brushstrokes. Leave smaller, manageable areas for visible, high interest, higher maintenance plantings. Improve soil for perennials and annuals with ‘garden mix’ (not peat moss tilled in). Finish with hardwood bark mulch directly on the soil (no plastic or weed barrier fabric) for water conservation and weed suppression. When established (3 to 5 years) these beds require little maintenance or water.

3) Never use…plastic lawn edging. It, and most forms of edging, are unsightly, expensive, and serve no purpose. Never use concrete block retaining walls. Never use gaudy colored stone like white marble, pink granite, or volcanic rock. These materials are severely overused, overpowering visually, expensive, and difficult to install and maintain.

4) Hardscapes will make or break your garden…Defined as almost anything that isn’t plants: stones, boulders, patios, decks, statuary. Do not use ‘Holland’ and other overused pavers. Lots of other styles of concrete pavers exist. Explore the many kinds of natural stone available for paving and walls. Hardscapes are expensive if created by a contractor: very labor intensive. However, the steps to install hardscapes are not technically challenging but they are very physically challenging if done by hand. Rent power tools or a small tractor. Created grouping of natural 500 lb. to 1,000 lb. boulders placed with a small tractor. Be wary of water gardens – they require lots of maintenance.

5) Finishing touches…container gardens, professional low voltage lighting, unique objets d’art, or objets trouvé. Create a sense of ‘romance.’ Simplify the watering of container gardens, and all gardens, with an easy to install automatic drip system.

Chicago area rainfall totals 20% ahead of normal.

2009-10-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

In June of 2009 the Chicago area was about 50% in total precipitation compared to 2008. And 2008 was the wettest year on record. Through August 2009 remained ahead of 2008. But the extremely wet weather in September 2008 put last year ahead for good. So far, 2009 is running about 20% ahead of normal. That's mostly good news for your plants. A few good soakings in during the autumn like we are now receiving help the plants get through the cold and sometimes dry winter.

If the rain ends and dry weather returns be sure to water your plants with a deep soaking about every two weeks until late November. Don't put your garden hose away until Thanksgiving.

And if you haven't done it yet...put a fall fertilizer on your lawn (but not shrubs or trees). Your turf will benefit a lot with an application of a high potassium fertilizer now. Potassium is the "K" in the N-P-K percentages shown on the bag (in that order) and it builds the overall health of the grass plants. This aids in helping your lawn survive severe winter conditions.You will usually see these products labeled as a fall fertilizer.

I recently found a great deal on a fall lawn fertilizer at a major home improvement chain. A bag to cover 15,000 sq. ft. regularly sold for about $25.00. The store's display had a sign saying it was on clearance for $15.00 but when I got to the checkout it was only $10.00. A great buy! Maybe you can find one yourself.

Don't worry too much if you have some weeds in your lawn. They will not grow much more this year. If you use a lawn weed killer you should probably wait until late April or May of next year. You will have better results because weeds that are growing more quickly, like during the spring, will die more quickly. And always try to minimize the use of any weed killer or pesticide. Follow the directions carefully. My motto: "When in doubt...don't!"

Garden Design...Five Key Concepts

2009-10-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

Here are five key concepts I have learned, and preached, after 20 years in the creative business of garden design, landscape contracting, and lawn and garden products:

1) Have a plan...have a theme. Create 'outdoor rooms.'

2) Planted beds are everything. Large beds are good. Large lawns are not so good!

3) Three things to never use: plastic lawn edging, gaudy colored stone, and forced concrete block retaining walls.

4) Hardscapes will make or break your garden.

5) The finishing touches...objet d'art, objet trouve.

In the weeks ahead be sure to click back in for the full story on each of the above 5 Key Concepts. You will clearly see how your gardens will benefit. You can quite easily create lush and colorful gardens that are easy to maintain, will save you lots of money, and be environmentally sound. And hopefully, be the envy of your neighborhood!