<p>We are a big do-it-yourself couple but never dealt with landscaping before.
It looks like we will have to in a very near future, but have no idea how to even begin.
The area we will be working on is at the back of the house and it is not even, it is slopped. Thus the challenge…
Can someone recommend any books, magazines, web sites?</p>
<p>I love gardening- but planning garden design is a challenge.
this could be a place to start
[design</a> dilemmas](<a href=“http://www.gardenaesthetics.com/dilemmas.html]design”>http://www.gardenaesthetics.com/dilemmas.html)</p>
<p>I was just thinking this morning while I had the dogs in the back yard that we really have to do something. I also would be interested for ideas.</p>
<p>H and I landscaped two properties, all from scratch. Pictures in books, magazines, etc. can be photoshopped and most of the time do not look like a real thing (ditto garden show displays). When we were planning our back/front yard landscaping, we toured public gardens, golf courses, etc. and took notes and pictures of the features and designs we found useful and interesting. Books were very helpful in gettting ito details of particular “how tos” (how to build a fence, how to waterproof a pond, etc.).</p>
<p>At the university nearby they had a night course on landscape design taught by a truly talented local landscapre architect. Wife and I took the course, talked after class with him a lot and ultimately used him on a predetermined fixed fee basis to give us a plan using the plants and type plants we were interested in. We did the work ourselves. VERY happy with the results.</p>
<p>Similar idea to 07DAD …I walked around our botanical gardens to get ideas and met one of their horticulturalists. He gave me some great ideas plus he lined me up with our local community college. They have a landscape program and the students did all my planting. I made a small donation to their landscape club. I now have a beautiful yard at the fraction of nursery prices.</p>
<p>Walk around your neighborhood. Whose garden do you like? Dislike? What plants are doing well? Poorly? Do you have great trees you want to keep? Trees you want to get rid of? Dogs who need a potty area? Do you want to screen bad parts of your view? Which windows do you sit and look out of? What would you enjoy seeing out there?</p>
<p>A garden planner is NOT expensive and they will ask you all these questions and more. If you work with a planner, you can plan a landscape you can do yourself–but it will work well the first time.</p>
<p>We have a local nursery that will come and make a landscape design for you for less than $100. I did not do this–which is evidenced by my yard. They can save you a lot of effort.</p>
<p>Mistakes I made that you can avoid:</p>
<p>–In my impatience for things to look finished, I planted too much, too close together, and now half of it needs to be dug up and moved. It doesn’t take as long as it might seem for that shrub to fill in nicely, and before you know it, it will be growing over the damn window every five minutes. :)</p>
<p>–Beware things that need to be divided–or things that bloom for a little while and then look crummy the rest of the season. I loathe, yes loathe my Spirea bushes. They grow like something out of a science fiction movie, and they bloom very nicely and then either need to be trimmed or they look brown and gross. The roots are very deep now or I would happily rip them out. I also planted tons of Happy Returns daylilies. Very pretty bright yellow, but every couple of years they need to be dug up and divided. The plus side of this is you can get a lot of daylilies from a few plants, but how many times are you going to be happy to do that? </p>
<p>I will say that now is a good time to be buying. Shrubs and trees do well when planted in the fall, and they usually go on sale.</p>
<p>I am of the belief that you walk around the neighborhood and look at whats growing. Similar soil conditions and no PhD’s on staff to care for the things. There is landscaping software that enable you to take a picture of your home and then plant your selections, and see how it grows etc.
I found local garden centers to be very helpful around mid september to october. Lots of things can be planted now that dont look saleable. But they blossom in the spring. I remember spotting some bleeding hearts under a garden center back porch stoop, asked about them, and the staff gladly knocked the price down to $4 bucks in October. By April that type of plant was in bloom at the garden center and going for $24 </p>
<p>Your buying the roots in fall not the blossoms.</p>
<p>Website suggestion: Gardenweb</p>
<p>Here’s their forum that includes landscaping: </p>
<p>[Landscape</a> Design Forum - GardenWeb](<a href=“Landscape Design Forum | Houzz”>Landscape Design Forum | Houzz)</p>
<p>If you don’t have a camera on your phone, start carrying your camera with you in your purse, etc. Whenever you see something you like (might not even be in your neighborhood… might be at a place of business, etc.), take a picture. Collect these as you go along to help inspire you toward a final project.</p>
<p>Load up on string, stakes, neon spray paint, and long garden hoses. All of these come in handy when you need to map out future landscaping features in your yard. Be prepared to move loads of dirt. Check you local codes to make sure you don’t need a permit to do a specific project (e.g., a retaining wall lower than 3 ft can be built without one, but a higher one will require applying for a permit). Water features are beautiful, but ponds require maintenance and can be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Kois are pretty, but will not eat mosquito larvae and are a pain in the butt to protect from predators. Pondless fountain is a much, much better water feature when it comes to maintenance. Be prepare to uproot and move plants around. Plant something for each season. Even in the winter months some dogwoods and maples look stunning because of the brightly colored bark…</p>
<p>If your plant and design interests are not the local neighborhood norm, don’t dispair. Realize that the uniformity of landscape plant choices comes from (1) many homeowners wanting their house to have the same look as all the others and (2) the landscape being done by a builder or a “landscape company” and they wanted to use the “tried and true” standards that are readily available locally and affordable TO THEM.</p>
<p>Depending on where you live, the need to select plants and designs to minimize water use may also come into play.</p>
<p>07DAD and I are on the same track. I didn’t want a dogwood, like all my neighbors. My yard is filled with unique plantings, incuding a Japanese Stewartia, a Seven Sons tree (heptacodium), and Fothergilla.</p>
<p>I would say you have to come to terms with the slope in the yard first. This is probably not a good job for a beginner unless the degree of slope is really mild. Think about your hardscape needs first - retaining walls, patio, walkways? That is the first thing to get in place; trees and plants can wait.</p>
<p>Do use the botanic garden and neighbors’ yards for hardscape ideas. Cement pavers, for instance, which were hot 10-15 years ago are now aging badly in our area. Natural stone (expensive) or the look of it (less so) and poured cement finishes (cheaper and much improved in variety) are becoming more popular. </p>
<p>If you are anxious to get something planted on your own, do a spot in the yard that is unlikely to need change. There are some great deals to be found, but, especially in the midwest, you need to choose carefully. Sometimes, having a pro do it and paying 2 to 3 times the retail cost of a plant is worth it. If you kill a $500 tree because of soil issues, you’ll understand what I mean.</p>
<p>Don’t shy away from plants sold at Costco and HD or other “big box stores”. HD guarantees their plants for a year; yeah, I’ve taken a dead tree back to them and got a full refund. Japanese maples from Costco were as good as the ones I got from Molbaks.</p>
<p>I totally agree with midwesterner that the global stuff/hardscape has to be put in first, but you still have to consider future plantings (e.g., is this bed going to be big enough to accomodate the weeping spruce that I want in this corner?). Don’t try to completely blend in with the neighbors, because every lot has its differences. Soil quality, sun exposure will dictate what can be planted and where. Our front yard really stands out of the crowd of drab neighborhood lawns. I chose not to have any grass in the front yard because of the southern exposure - just the thought of how much watering it would take to keep the grass looking pretty made me shiver. Instead, my front yard has stone-walled beds of conifers, maples and flowering plants with stone walkways meandering in between. People ask me all the time who designed our landscape, and when I answer that it was a collaborative project done by my H and me, they don’t believe me at first. Our backyard is mostly landscaped with “edible” species (berries, fruiting trees, alpine strawberry groundcovers, etc.).</p>
<p>I agree that you need to consider the actual microclimate all around your yard since there can be huge differences in what will thrive in different areas of your yard.</p>
<p>Absolutely start with the overall plan and resulting hardscape plan first. </p>
<p>We are in the middle of what will be probably a 5 year plan with our sloped year - each year adding on another area. Knowing what the overall plan has allowed us to avoid redoing the expensive stuff - walkways, concrete, irrigation, raised beds etc.</p>
<p>We divided the yard into zones or segments - each with a basic theme. We have a rose garden area, an iris bed, a cutting garden, a couple just sit and relax places, the oak grove, the veggie garden etc. </p>
<p>Given the slope, you will most likely want some kind of stairs to get you up the slope. We figured out the path of the stairs using two garden hoses - snaked them along the ground and then stepped back to see if the start of the stairs was in the right place (it wasn’t).</p>
<p>We also built a plan for irrigation - both drip and sprinklers. When we ran pipes, I always ran two extras - just in case I needed to change something later - which has come in very useful. Pipe is cheap compared to digging the trench over again (my aching back). </p>
<p>Totally agree with not jamming stuff together. Leave room for stuff to spread. Something I wish I had done more of was thinking ahead on things that take a long time to take hold - e.g. fruit trees. In retrospect, I should have planted them first, even if out of logical order in order to get them started.</p>
<p>Mulch heavily - it saves you a ton in water bills and also really cuts down on the weeding.</p>
<p>Thank you all for wonderful suggestions. I am going to hold on to those old hoses that were slated for garbage :)</p>
<p>I don’t know if this would interest you, but if you are going to be completely remodeling your garden, consider native plants.</p>
<p>Research the plant species that are indigenous to your geographic area, there are bound to be many that are attractive or have decorative cultivars. I’m suggesting this because it will vastly cut down on maintenance, as the plants are naturally suited to the growing conditions of your area. This will probably mean less dividing, pruning, watering (at least after the first year) and worrying about hardiness. Most plants in big box store nurseries are nonnative, which is okay (unless it is an invasive species!) but they can be so much more work intensive! You want to enjoy your garden, not slave over it.</p>
<p>Also, it would have a wonderful effect for the wildlife where you live. They can use your plants as food sources (many nursery plants have blooms just for show, and are of no use as food for animals), for habitat, etc. I think this is even more worthwhile if you live in a place that has little habitat for animals. It’s nice to give back what was once there. I certified my yard as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation (for a horticulture class project), and while I’m at college now, I looved seeing all the animals enjoy my garden. Cater your garden to attract the species you want to see!</p>
<p>I’m someone who loves gardening, and love to talk to others about plants (although there weren’t many my age in high school who could keep up or who wanted to) and I would often go to gardening events in which I was the youngest there, besides little kids. I am so thankful to go to a school with some great public gardens.</p>
<p>It is so exciting to start a new project, I wish you luck with your landscaping!</p>