Top 10 Landscape Mistakes

Unfortunately, runaway landscapes are very common and started with poor (or no) design. Low maintenance landscaping starts with good design. Good landscapes get better and better over time and bad ones get worse. In 25 years of doing landscape “renovations,” we have had the opportunity to see many landscape mistakes up close, and here, for your consideration, are our “Top 10”:

1. Doing nothing at all: We are constantly surprised by how many homeowners put off even the smallest landscaping improvements, so that after years or even decades their homes are still bare. Not a single tree to relieve the heat of the sun. Nothing but weeds, wild grass and open grass. We like to say that the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago! The next best time is today.
2. Beds Too Small: Making garden beds is hard work, so most homeowners simply clear a narrow strip along the foundation and plant each plant in the middle of the strip. Since plants vary in size, some will grow quickly in narrow beds and hang over the lawn, become one-sided, or brush against the house. How about sizing the beds based on the mature size of the plant? In other words, cutting the beds to fit the plant instead of cutting the plant to fit the beds?
3. Microlandscapes: For many homeowners, landscaping projects are something that can be started and finished in a single Saturday afternoon, so their landscapes are a variety of small landscaping “islands” that have no overall style. We like to say “paint with the big brush first,” meaning that good landscapes have a “backbone” that ties everything together, and the small details are filled in later. That is, one “macrolandscape” instead of many “microlandscapes.”
4. Plant Collections: Many gardeners bring home plants they fall in love with, or plants given to them by friends and family, or discarded plants, with no idea where the new plant would fit into the overall landscape. The result is varieties of plants scattered on the lawn or crowded on the foundation without rhyme or reason, without style and not flattering for the home.
5. Falling in love with the “dwarf”: The word “dwarf” is very popular among plant sellers, prompting people to buy “miniature” plants, such as weeping cherry trees and “burning bushes,” which grow much larger than they usually are. no one expected. Planting weeping cherry trees just a few feet from the corner of the house is probably the most common landscaping mistake. “They said he was a DWARF!” is the sad chorus.
6. “Stupid grass”: Hand-cutting narrow strips and corners that the mower can’t reach takes time and effort. Mowing the grass is much easier if obstacles such as utility poles, guy wires, mailboxes, fire hydrants, fences, etc. are in the way. They are included within the gardens and are not scattered on the lawn.
7. Overgrown bushes and trees: Many plants grow much larger than the space where they are planted, blocking walkways, driveways and windows. Simply saying “I’ll cut it back” is doing things the hard way. Plants have a pedigree; You can predict how tall and wide they will be when they grow up. Why not simply choose a plant that fits the space when fully grown?
8. Starting too small: Many people don’t expect their plants to survive, so they resist the expense and hard work of planting larger trees and plant small saplings instead. We call this a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” because these little ones rarely reach adulthood, and if they do, they often have structural problems and must be removed. A related mistake is simply letting “voluntary” trees grow where they sprouted. It is best to invest in a professionally trained nursery tree that is already strong and well-formed (and too large to accidentally cut down).
9. Make a mismatch: Designs that rely on matching pairs or rows of plants are doomed to failure if growing conditions are different. Are the soil, sunlight, soil moisture and fertility exactly the same for each plant? If not, they will never match and it will be obvious.
10. The “toss” – scattering plants across the landscape as if they were tossed into the air and planted where they landed – is a common mistake. Create an obstacle course without style. No plant likes to compete with grass that smothers it to the trunk, but circles of mulch are rarely maintained around all those randomly scattered plants, so the plants struggle.