Holden Beach lawn maintenance
Savvy shoppers know that often the best time to buy something is after “the season” is over, or before it begins. According to Tom Altgelt, a Colorado landscape designer serving the Boulder/Denver area, this is very much the case with landscape designs. “I often encounter potential clients who think they may as well wait until spring before having a garden designed. I tell them that there are actually many advantages to starting the planning process in the fall.” Specifically, a homeowner can have a landscape much quicker, and end up with a result they are happier with, while saving money.
An important consideration is getting the best landscaping contractor, and negotiating a good deal. Since landscape construction work slows way down in the fall and winter, says Altgelt, “sometimes we can get a better price on construction, and very likely we can still get the best contractors, who are often booked solid by early spring.”
In addition, many people are surprised by how much of the actual landscaping can be done in the fall. In Tom’s words: “In the Boulder/Denver area, the weather is mild enough to do a lot of work in the fall, and even over the winter, especially on a southern exposure.” If a project is started in the autumn, the “hardscape” construction of moving the earth and creating rock features, paving, and retaining walls can often be finished by spring.
If Tom needs really immense (i.e. up to 20 ton) boulders for a project, he races against time to get the boulders tagged and moved before they are snowed in. “These boulders are often up in the mountains, deep in ranch property.”
Most shrubs and trees love to be planted in the fall, so they can put down their roots over the winter. “That way they are ready to burst onto the scene with flowers and foliage in the spring.” Even better, nurseries often discount their plant material at the end of the season, so it’s another chance to save some money. Some specialty plants will need to be ordered for spring, and it’s important to get the order placed in time to have the best selection and highest quality.
The other consideration is the incredible mess that is created during the months the landscaping is being done. “Since the actual work of landscaping isn’t pretty, why not get most of it done during the winter? That way you’re prepared for a beautiful spring and summer.”
And, of course, the most important consideration is the end result. Optimally, a garden will be pleasing all year round, but Altgelt says most are designed to impress us in the spring and summer. That’s because there is such a wide range of plant choices that exhibit their full splendor in the warm months. Designing a landscape in the fall makes it easier to conceptualize plantings that will provide beauty year-round. For example, “a beautiful fall combination of perennials is the Sedum of Autumn Joy, which is reddish or pinkish, next to Salvia, which turns deep purple. These colors resonate with each other. Next if you add the bright golden of the black-eyed Susan, you have a stunning collage of colors.”
After the fall blooms are over, the garden can still look beautiful in winter. Evergreens and ornamental grasses continue to be interesting throughout the cold months. “The deciduous red twig and yellow twig shrubs are not all that special in the summer, but they sure bring a landscape to life as soon as they drop their leaves. Designing in the late fall and winter tends to produce designs for stronger year-round interest.” Altgelt also looks at the form of the earth and rocks which are bare in winter, and plans for water runoff using dry stream beds, for example. “In this way we are literally beginning to work with the fundamental principles of Feng Shui; the subtle energetics of how the wind and water give form and shape to the landscape.”
Waxing philosophical, Altgelt continues: “In my experience, the most beautiful landscapes come out of our developing an engaged and heartfelt relationship with nature. To me, designing ‘green’ landscapes is only the beginning. Most people I’ve met who have property feel a certain bond with their land and are in some way deeply connected with it. While spring is a time that is bursting with new energy, the fall and winter is a more contemplative time, a time to listen to the land and let it speak to you.”
So designing a landscape in the fall can yield benefits, both the practical benefit of saving money, and a more soulful benefit of co-creating with nature. To Altgelt, this is a magical combination.
To learn more about what’s possible for your landscape design, contact Thomas Altgelt, award-winning Denver/Boulder landscape designer. Visit http://www.altgelt.com to view Denver, Colorado landscape designs, as well as landscape and garden designs throughout Colorado and internationally.
If we were to have a truly native landscape in Houston Texas it would look like an abandon field of various grasses, a thicket edge of tangled vines, shrubs and underbrush or a mature grove of oaks with leaf ground cover underneath. These landscapes are beautiful out in the countryside but in our suburban enclaves we seek some order and design. You say to yourself “it looks messy or it needs to be improved upon.” Let’s say that the first requirement is it should look beautiful to you. It is your interpretation of how you want natural to look. The natural landscape is really improving upon the existing natural conditions and making it even better into our own liking. On the most wooded of lots in Piney Point and Memorial the issue becomes “how to work with and plant under all this shade?” There is an aesthetic, a blend of the existing and the things we can improve upon based on the comforts, functions and the necessary uses of the site- a landscape design marriage. In the natural landscape interpretation we take the best of natural site elements and make it even better still based on the concept of form, function to house comfort and beauty. So now that we know the natural landscape is by no means native or natural what is it?
Nature as Inspiration
The natural landscape designer will first and foremost pay attention to the “sense of place” and “mood” of the site and its relationship with the house. Inspiration can come from the existing site or from vacations and travels throughout the natural world. Are there a grove of fantastic trees in the rear lawn, a view out the backyard to the Bayou that should be preserved or a large back lawn of beautiful old Pecan trees? On a new site you may borrow a nature inspired vision from a place in the wild that you want to recreate. For example a flagstone patio under a soaring oak tree that reminds you of a cliff or hillock in Ireland. Highlight the best features of the sight and down play those not so attractive. The natural landscape will be more sympathetic to working with the site rather than changing it. Work with the existing site features, trees, or existing woodland edges rather than imposing a specific “shape” or “design” as in classical landscape design or formal landscape design.
Interpreting Natures Hardscape
The landscape design for the natural landscape has the same overall approach to the form and functionality of outdoor rooms and spaces as all of the other landscape styles. The overall design can be formal or informal. One design concept for the natural is to create more formal hardscape spaces and surfaces near the home and to dissipate into more natural spaces and surfaces as you move away from the house. In this approach you are creating a hierarchy of spaces and pathways:
• Luxury Swimming Pools-materials might include slate and natural stone coping and surfaces to create a refined rustic overall feel.
• Walkways and pathways-materials including cut stone, wood, pavestone, gravel and cobble or small stones and boulders.
• Landscape Lighting-to light up existing large trees or path lighting and accent lighting for natural flagstone pathways and features
• Fencing and gates-made of split cedar for a rustic natural look
Interpreting Natures Landscape
The landscape design can reflect the patterns of natural plantings in nature. We have found that plantings in larger masses and groupings as opposed to natural associations are just easier to maintain over time. Natural patterns and plant masses can be utilized creating a natural look as follows:
Patterns of Nature. Nature groups compensating plantings in terms of drifts which can be interpreted as natural curves and arc of plant materials.
Plant Associations. Plant groupings that grow together such as grasses, roses and flowers in full sun, small ornamental trees at woodland edges such as red buds, dogwoods, and deep shade areas of longleaf pines, with ferns below. The design layout of planting is still based around the form and function of use areas and the layout of hardscape surfaces.
Conclusion
The goal of the natural landscape is truly an interpretation of nature and our attempt to represent our reality of beauty and bring about its very best features. In the traditional landscape design sense the home and landscape still function in relation to your wants and needs for form, function and your ideal of natures canvas.
