Garden Design

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Garden Design
Designing Gardens as Part of a Sustainable
Landscape

• Diana Alfuth, Horticulture Educator
• UW-Extension, Pierce County
• Landscape Design Instructor, UW-River Falls

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Functional
• Maintainable
• Environmentally Friendly
• Cost Effective
• Visually Pleasing

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Consider the function of each portion of the
  landscape
• Note problems/attributes in the existing
  landscape
• Evaluate the site characteristics, including soil
  type, pH, light, wind, etc.
• Decide on your goal and landscape style

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What is the goal of your garden?

• Fragrance
• Butterfly/bird
• Color impact
• Strolling
• Edible
• Kids
• Color/looks

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Garden Design
Garden Design

• Formal straight lines, plants in rows,
  symmetrical, globes and columns
• Informal curvilinear patterns, plants in
  intertwined masses, asymmetrical, natural plant
  forms
• Semi-formal somewhere in between! Use caution
  when combining both styles.

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Formal
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Formal
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Formal Planting, Informal Bedline
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Informal
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Informal
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Semi-Formal/Mixed
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Semi-Formal/Mixed
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Locate gardens as part of your overall landscape
  design
• Create a good turf area, with functional spaces
  and gardens behind the concept lines that form
  the turf shape

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Island beds should help define turf area, or
outdoor room, and the shape is usually not
important.
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Garden Design

• Bed edges should complement the plantings, not
  overpower them.

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Garden Design

• Consider each individual viewpoint when designing
  the gardens and planting beds.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• The most beautiful
• landscapes are
• designed, not
• decorated. They
• create unity by
• incorporating
• Principles of
• Design, including

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BALANCE
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Balance left/right, front/back
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SCALE
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Scale Bigger yards and houses require bigger
beds and plants.
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Scale
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REPETITION

• Repeat
• plants,
• form,
• colors,
• textures,
• hardscapes

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SEQUENCE

• How you transition between elements determines
  the effect.
• Strong contrast draws attention.

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Sequence ( scale)
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SIMPLICITY
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Simplicity

• Repetition
• helps with
• simplicity

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VARIETY
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Unity created by consistency in style, lines,
and all the Principles of Design
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Lack of Unity
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• What makes it look good?
• Human eyes need a place to start
• FOCAL POINT
• A focal point is the first thing we see when we
  look at a landscape.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Examples of things that create focal points are
  
• Artwork
• A plant that is different than those around it
• Structures
• Birdbaths, birdhouses, birdfeeders
• Boulders
• Bare spots
• Diseased/dying plants
• Debris
• FOCAL POINTS CAN CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE SEASONS!

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Focal Point
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Focal Points

• Plants become focal points in gardens, especially
  from close-up viewpoints.
• Contrast from whats around it makes it a focal
  point.
• Single plants of a species are focal points.

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Ordinary things,such as this window,can be used
tocreate a focalpoint.
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Plant form or color can form focal points. Since
plants change throughout the year, be sure to
plan ahead so you dont have lots of focal points
competing with each other at one time.
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Focal
• point

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Focal
• point

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Locating Focal Points
• Any given view of the landscape should have one
  major focal point, and maybe one or two secondary
  focal points. Too many focal points creates a
  busy landscape.
• Locate focal points 1/3 of the way from one side
  .

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• After our eyes find a focal point, they need to
  go somewhere, and look for lines to follow.
• Lines can be formed by edging, paths, structures,
  plant masses, plant form, shadows, etc.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Lines

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Lines

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Lines
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Lines

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Lines withinthe bed
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Lines
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Where does your eye go?
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Lines

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Too many lines, or no lines, create a confusing,
  busy landscape.
• Lines should take the eye where you want it to
  goand keep it in the landscape.
• Avoid lines that take the eye into the sky, or
  into the neighbors yard!

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Key plants soften a hard feature in the
  landscape
• On vertical corners or structures, they break the
  visual vertical line and keeps the eye in the
  landscape
• They soften large areas of hard surface, such as
  retaining walls or fences
• They tie structures into the garden

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Sustainable Landscape Design
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Accent plants are a focal pointthey draw
  attention to themselves
• Could be all year, or only certain times, such as
  when in bloom
• Accent plants can be a single plant, a group, or
  a mass

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Plant groups are 3 or more of a species, where
  each individual plant is discernable
• Often serve as accent plants at some point during
  the year

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Sustainable Landscape Design
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Mass plants when many plants of a particular
  species are planted close enough together so that
  you cant see the individual plants
• Masses serve to move the eye between more
  important components and to tie a landscape
  together

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Sustainable Landscape Design
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Start with a backdrop! Everything looks better
  with a backdrop! Create one if one doesnt exist
  yet.
• Then, locate any non-plant focal points.
• Then, start with your biggest plant or your focal
  point plants. Using your available space as a
  guideline, your tallest plant should be 1/3 or
  2/3 the height of the backdrop (unless the
  backdrop is more than 18-20 feet tall).

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Sustainable Landscape Design
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Flower Garden Design

• How big should your garden be?
• The width of a border planting should be 1/3 the
  width of the total area.
• Each height should have an equal amount of
  space within the bed.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• In small areas where other rules dont apply, a
  4-8 foot wide border allows for an attractive
  variety of plants.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• For island beds, be sure they fit into the
  overall concept plan. Any mounding or berming
  must look NATURAL!
• The tallest plant should be as tall as ½ the
  width of the bed.

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Garden Design

• For beds viewed from a distance, hold your hands
  out in front of you at shoulder width.
• Where your hands meet the backdrop is a good
  length for your flower bed.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Before you start thinking about specific plant
  species, to get a good design, you must first
  plan for each plants characteristics, or
  Elements of Design

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Plan your Plant Combinations
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Elements of Design
• Primary (visual)
• Plant type
• Plant form
• Plant height/width
• Plant Texture
• Plant Season of Interest
• (including color)

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Elements of Design
• Secondary Soil/fertility preferences
• (non-visual) Moisture requirements
• Light requirements
• Hardiness
• Disease Insect resistance

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Sustainable Landscape Design
Consider both foliage form and flower form

• Plant Form
• Arching
• Upright
• Creeping/spreading
• Drooping/weeping
• Mounded
• Horizontal branching
• Columnar

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Consider Foliage and Blooms
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Plant Size (height and width)
• Consider the plants
• MATURE, NATURAL
• size!

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Plant texture
• Visual coarseness/fineness of foliage,
  branching, flowers.
• A plants texture is relative to whats around
  it, and it may change throughout the season.
• Plant texture is EXTREMELY important in design,
  and can make or break a landscape

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Texture

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Color and Texture Work Together
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Texture

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• Consider
• Plants
• and
• Hardscapes

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Texture

• Coarse texture
• and blooms
• create an
• accent, or
• focal point

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• The finer the texture, the more of it you need.
  Lawn grass is our finest textured plant.
• Consider textural changes to create a focal
  point, repetition, and variety.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Season of Interest
• This is how you get a landscape that is
  interesting all yearby planning it out on paper!
• For each plant, group or mass, think about when
  it will have significant interest, and make that
  work with whats around it, creating focal
  points, repetition, unity.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Season of Interest

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• COLOR!
• Whats the easiest way to choose a color scheme?
• STEAL AND COPY ONE!!!!

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Sustainable Landscape Design
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Color
• Warm colors appear closer, so are good for
  viewing from a distance.
• Cool colors recede, so are better up close.

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Color

• If combining cool and warm colors, use 2/3 cool,
  1/3 warm to balance
• White is neutral, and can be used to add contrast
  or to transition between warm and cool

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Color

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Find color schemes you like
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Combine with other plants in the landscape
• Remember repetition

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Some plants are best viewed up close use those
next to paths, patios, etc.
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Others work great in masses use those when
viewed from a distance, such as across the back
yard from the patio.
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Know what plants look like all year
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Intertwine plant groups to avoid lines that act
as inadvertent focal points
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Masses and Drifts
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Groups and masses flow better than individual
plants
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Collections are Special Cases
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Masses and Drifts
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Sustainable Landscape Design

• On a scale drawing, locate plants in slightly
  intertwined groups and masses, using single
  plants only when a focal point is desired.
• These groups and
• masses will help
• move the eye
• through the
• landscape.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Next, keeping in mind the Principles of Design
  (Balance, Scale, Variety, Emphasis, Simplicity,
  Sequence, Repetition), assign Elements of Design
  characteristics to each plant, plant group or
  plant mass.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• Finally, choose specific plant species that match
  the assigned characteristics for each plant,
  group or mass.

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• MATCHING PLANTS
• Emerald Elf Amur Maple
• Regent Serviceberry
• Glossy Black Chokecherry
• Spreading Cotoneaster
• Beach Plum
• Compact American Cranberrybush
• Emerald Triumph Viburnum
• Diablo Ninebark

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• MATCHING PLANTS
• Birdsnest Spruce
• Dwarf Norway Spruce
• Dwarf Balsam Fir
• Aglo Rhododendron
• Dwarf Yew

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• MATCHING PLANTS
• Rosy Glow Barberry
• Evita Weigela
• Snowmound Spirea
• Fritschiana Spirea
• Cutleaf Stephenandra

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• MATCHING PLANTS
• Big Bluestem
• Red Switchgrass
• Overdam Feather Reed Grass
• Red Flame Grass
• Tufted Hairgrass
• Fountain Grass
• Windspiel Purple Moorgrass
• Strawberries Cream Ribbon Grass

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Sustainable Landscape Design

• MATCHING PLANTS
• Paprika Yarrow
• Red Beauty Yarrow
• Fanal Astilbe
• Luxuriant Bleeding Heart
• Sweet William
• Daylillies
• Coral Bells

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Paths Let plants soften the edges

• Paths should lead somewhere
• Use focal points to draw you down the path
• What surface does your path need?

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Paths
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Sustainable Landscape Design
Enjoy your landscapes!
Thanks to Susan Mahr for some of the photos used
in this presentation!