Archive for Low Maintenance Landscape Examples – Page 11

Montavilla Bungalow Landscape Design for Entry

Montavilla Neighborhood in Portland Oregon before Landscape Design in a Day

Montavilla Bungalow Landscape Design for Entry

This NE Portland bungalow landscape design project was a joy. My charming client had a new home that was beautifully updated on the inside but the landscape was a blank canvas and a bit rough. It needed a landscape design to address new walks, driveway and create strong presence. The large houses on either side dwarfed this sweet house. Look at the great lines of the porch!! I loved this house at first sight.

Client wish list

New driveway, low maintenance plantings, no lawn front yard, low water plantings and lots of colorful long season plants.

Landscape designer view

Everything, including front walk and driveway, needed to be carefully designed to enhance function and curb appeal. The proportions of the driveway and front walk required updating because life has changed a lot since 1940. Middle class homes in the Montavilla neighborhood had cramped narrow walkways and no pedestrian access to the front door from the driveway. People parked their one car in the driveway and entered their home through a side door. Usually the man of the house came in and hung his coat and hat on a peg on the basement wall and came in to the house via the kitchen. We are talking “Father Knows Best” era here.NE Portland Montavilla neighborhood after Landscape Design in a Day

Portland Residential Landscape Design in Montavilla Neighborhood

Erysimum – wallflower stands above rockery wall and flowers for 2 months

I felt the house needed to be integrated into its land, that it was cut off and floating. We needed multiple planting levels supported by an informal rockery style wall. The levels are softened by the plantings which keeps the whole landscape integrated and inviting. Here is a designers’ trick, planting the area in front of the wall is inviting and keeps the wall from feeling like a barrier.

Wall plantings

Erysinium – Wallflower ‘Wenlock Beauty’ on the right, Sedum ‘Purple Emperor‘ on the left and Thymus Praecox – Red Creeping Thyme in foreground.

Driveways

I’m very picky about driveways. They need the right proportions to be a functionally usable space but still fit into the landscape not dominate it. I want to make it comfortable to get in and out of the car with groceries, kids and pets without stepping into mulch or plantings. I hate having to negotiate through awkward uncomfortable spaces.

Client Comments

“I hired Carol to create a design for my front yard and driveway replacement and to check in and work with the contractors during the installation process. Carol recommended Donna Burdick’s company D & J Landscape Contracting to implement the plan and I’m glad I chose them as well. Donna and Carol have worked together for years and speak a common language which made for a seamless experience. Carol is very flexible and can work with wishes of any level of detail. I had mostly vague, general ideas and preferences.  She was able to take those and come up with something that I loved as soon as I saw the first rough layout.”  Denise L.

Plants for Montavilla Bungalow Landscape Design for Entry

Landscape designers favorite dwarf Berginia is called Baby DollDaphne transatlantica ‘Summer Ice’

Spring Heather – Erica carnea ‘Adrianne Duncan’

Calluna Vulgaris 'Mrs Ron Green'

Summer Heather with Daphne behind

Heather - Calluna Vulgaris 'Mrs Ron Green' at 4" high in N.E. Portland Entry Garden Design Summer Heather – Calluna vulgaris ‘Mrs Ron Green’

Erysimum ‘Wenlocks Beauty’ – Wallflower

Echinacea – Cone Flower

Bergenia ‘Baby Doll’

Hebe albicans ‘Sussex Carpet’-cannot rave enough about this evergreen plant!

Heuchera ‘Sugar Berry’

Sedum ‘Voo Doo’

Hen and Chicks in Portland landscape design

Hens and Chicks in winter

Sempervivum-Hens and Chicks ‘Royal Ruby’ and ‘Carmen’

Salvia officinalis ‘May Night’

Vaccinium ‘Sunshine Blue’ Blueberry

Carex morrowii – Sedge Grass ‘Ice Dance’

Designers favorite Hebe a. 'Sussex Carpet' for Portland landscape designs

Designers favorite Hebe for Portland landscape designs

The parking strip tree is Parrotia persica – Persian Ironwood and the Gingko trees are ‘Jade Butterfly’.  I selected a dwarf tree so the colorful sun loving plants under the trees will thrive.

 

Here is another no lawn entry landscape design for a N.E. Portland bungalow.

In need of a new and inviting look for your front yard that you can maintain on your own?  I’d love to create the perfect design for  you and your Portland Bungalow or new modern infill home.  Take a look at our contact page to learn more.

 

Landscape Design:  Carol Lindsay, Landscape Design in a Day

Landscape Installation:  D and J Landscape Contractors

Concrete Contractor:  Kerry Becker Concrete Company

 

 

 

 

Pruning Nandina easily for Portland residential landscapes

Pruning Nandina easily, the perfect low maintenance plant, for Portland residential landscapes

Low Maintenance Shrub (Nandina) for Portland Residential Landscape DesignI promised I would follow up from my last blog about Nandina domestica – Heavenly Bamboo and how seriously low maintenance they are.  I’ll give you my easy pruning trick for Nandina and you’ll be all set to use this shrub, a low maintenance year round beauty, in your Portland landscape.

What’s the problem with shearing Nandina?

If it’s so easy to prune why do we see so many sad looking Nandina out there? People try to prune them like a boxwood hedge.  Boxwoods have a typical shrubs’ woody structure and little tiny leaves.  They can be sheared and look pretty good.  Nandina are a multiple cane plant with a compound leaf composed of many oval shaped leaves.  The best way to ruin their appearance is to shear them into little round balls or squares.

Ugly Nandina in Portland Landscape Need Pruning TipRestore leggy sparse leafed Nandina plants

These photos illustrate embarrassing ugly examples of Nandina out there in commercial and residential landscapes.  These sad plants at my local bank have not been pruned at all.  If yours look this bad, hold off on tossing them.

Portland Landscape Designer's example of poor pruning techniqueWe could correct these ugly leggy Nandinas’ appearance in one year by applying the pruning technique I have illustrated here.  These Nandina domestica ‘Gulfstream’ could look amazing with regular irrigation and pruning once every year or two.

My drawing “Fix Leggy Nandina” illustrates restoring a Nandina that has developed leggy bare canes (or stems if you like).  It has no foliage at the base of the plant.

The Cool Trick to Pruning Nandina

The simplest pruning technique is to cut 1/3rd of the canes to the ground and call it done.  This technique will get you a much better plant once the new canes sprout. I control the height by selecting the tallest canes to remove.

You can take your easy pruning a step farther and select another 1/3rd of the canes and cut them at different heights.  If you only have 3 canes to work with it would look like my “Fix Leggy Nandinas” illustration and in one year it would have a new cane with leaves on it sprouting from the ground and the stem you cut back would have new stem and leaves above where you made the cut.

When to Prune Nandina

You can prune nandina any time of year here in the Pacific Northwest.  I like to remove canes to use for holiday table decoration in the winter but only from a robust plant with lots of canes.  I  prefer to do restorative pruning (such as in my illustration “Fix Leggy Nandina”) as early as March or as late as May.

How to Prune Dwarf Nandina

The technique is mostly the same, but dwarf varieties like ‘Firepower’ need almost no pruning to contain height and if they get enough sun, they rarely get leggy.  The plant can get too wide so I like to thin a few canes out at the bottom (or up to 1/3rd of my canes) every year to keep the plant from ever getting too wide. This allows the little plant to continue serving as a colorful year round foundation plant for the long term in your landscape.     Here is a good video to illustrate pruning the dwarf varieties.

 

 

Read my previous blog about Nandina “Colorful Four Season Plant”

Colorful Four Season Plant for Portland Residential Landscape Designs

North Portland residential landscape design for year round colorColorful Four Season Plant for Portland Residential Landscape Designs

I like to use Nandina as a colorful four season plant for my Portland landscape designs.

Advantages

The foliage is colorful year around.

Very low maintenance plants if you know the cool pruning tip.

They are easy to prune successfully so you can keep them for years.

Nandina varieties fit multiple diverse needs in the landscape because they can be small (18″ to 24” tall) or up to 8 feet tall.

They thrive in half or full day sun.  Deer don’t typically eat them.

Colorful Four Season Plant for Portland Residential Landscape DesignsDisadvantages

People prune it wrong and then it’s so ugly they remove them – this is so easy to avoid.

Many varieties require a lot of sun and will look leggy and sparse in the shade.  They will look so bad they will be removed. Some varieties will take more shade so you have to know which is which.  Best practice is to plant in at least 4 hours of strong sun.

People think Nandina is drought tolerant and they don’t water it in the summer……….this ends badly.

Nandina (from China) doesn’t feed our native insects; therefore, overusing it limits food for our native bird population.  I like to select at least a few native plants for companions.

Is this plant overused? Some garden designers snub the Nandina plant because it is used in commercial landscapes. Nandina is useful to my Portland residential landscape design clients who want low maintenance landscapes.  With the right plant partners Nandina can sparkle in a home landscape.

North Portland residential landscape design for year round colorHow I Use Nandina in Garden Designs

Nandina domestica – Heavenly Bamboo (not related to Bamboo)

There is a variety of Nandina to fit every landscape:

  • 6 to 8 foot tall  ‘Moyers Red’ or 4 to 6 foot tall ‘Plum Passion’ dress and soften an expanse of fence, hide the hot tub or garbage area nicely
  • 2 to 4 foot tall ‘Sienna Sunrise’, ‘Moon Bay’ or ‘Firepower’ work well in foundation plantings and entry areas.

Use a tape measure on planting day, assume the size info on the plant tag is being modest and give your plant more room to grow.  Some varieties of Nandina will grow 3 to 4 feet wide.   To keep your Nandina from getting too wide, I suggest pruning out entire canes at the base of the plant once a year.  For varieties that are listed as 3 to 4 feet wide, plant it at least 30 inches off your path.

A new variety called ‘Blush’ is typically 24 inches tall and 18 inches wide. The evergreen leaves turn an intense claret red and hold their color for months, longer and redder than other Nandina. ‘Blush’ was designed for the southern United States where it is fully drought tolerant. In Portland, all varieties of  Nandina including ‘Blush’, requires irrigation in summer. Multiple articles on the net enthusiastically state ‘Blush’ is drought tolerant but they do not mean here in the NW.  In the high humidity of an Alabama summer I too am probably drought tolerant…..Mint Julep anyone?

North Portland residential landscape design for year round colorPlant Partners

I love to combine Nandina with textured or needled plants that contrast with the narrow Nandina leaves.  Dwarf conifers, (Pinus mugo ‘Sherwoods Compact’), heather  Erica carnea ‘Adrienne Duncan’ or ornamental grasses like  Opiopogon (black mondo grass)  work well.  NW native plants, like salal, sword fern and huckleberry give  contrast and good looks.  They also provide food for native insects and for our birds who must eat native insects for food.  Pairing Nandina with typical cottage garden plants disappoints my aesthetic; there isn’t enough leaf contrast.

How to prune Nandina

The key to success with Nandina is learning how to prune it which is all about thinning the multiple canes (or stems) of the shrub.  Read more in my next blog or check out this u tube video I found to get you started.

 

 

 

Modern Landscape Design Plants for Portland

Japanese Mondo Grass great for your modern landscape.Modern Landscape Design Plants for Portland

As a Portland landscape designer I enjoy helping clients who want modern landscape design plants.

While well crafted hardscape is the key element to a successful modern style landscape, plant selection and how they are used is critical.

Here are a few things I keep in mind.  Balanced plant repetition, contrasting textures and overall shapes of plants, full season interest plantings, and low maintenance plants.  Keep in mind that the typical plants for modern style are not great for wildlife because they lack diversity.  My designs consider the clients many unique interests. A modern style design can have wildlife friendly plants included.

Here are 10 plants that work well for modern landscape design and are fairly easy to find.

Modern Landscape Design PortlandNarrow Vertical Plants

Japanese Holly ‘Sky Pencil’ – Ilex crenata (pictured)

Italian Cypress ‘Tiny Towers’ – Cupressus semptervirens

Italian Cypress ‘Swane’s Golden’ – Cupressus sempervirens

Portland Landscape Designer likes Black Mondo GrassLow Edger Plants

Black Mondo grass   –  Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’

Green Japanese Mondo grass  –  Ophiopogon japonicus

Cushion Bolax – Azorella trifurcata ‘Nana’ (Stepable Groundcover)

Hens and Chicks – Sempervivum

Other Grasses and Shrubs

Grama Grass ‘ Blonde Ambition‘ – Boutelous gracilis

American Switch Grass ‘ Shenendoah’ – Panicum virgatum

Nandina D. ‘Firepower’ – Nandina domestica (dwarf form)

Hebe (prostrate form) – Hebe Albicans ‘Sussex Carpet’  

If you are looking to update your design for a modern landscape, contact Carol and start your perfect outdoor space.

 

Outdoor Pee Pad for Dogs – A Landscape Designer’s Solution

Portland dog friendly landscape design pee proof lawnMaking Your Small Landscaping Space Dog Friendly

I live on a floating home and when my dog has to go pee or poop, the parking lot is a long ways away.  My perfect solution to living on the river with a dog, is synthetic lawn on my small garden balcony.  I have the advantage over most people with a deck or balcony because we designed the house to have a small roof garden with real soil.  It was easy to add the synthetic lawn over the existing soil.  Not only was it easy, when my dog pees on her synthetic lawn, the rain rinses it into the soil so it doesn’t smell.  In the summer when there is no rain I rinse the grass using a garden hose.  As you can see Daizzie likes to lay on her grass so it is used for more than an outdoor pee pad.  I enjoy sitting out there with her or drinking coffee from my outdoor sofa.

When she poops on her synthetic lawn it is easy to pick up unless she has diarrhea and then I do need to rinse with my garden hose.  The dog poop always goes in the garbage because I don’t want to add nitrogen to the river, I mean come on, just because it’s dog poop doesn’t mean it isn’t raw sewage.

Portland Landscape Design dog pee lawnAnother solution is a raised bed for grass.  My client Sherry has small dogs and no lawn except for this tiny patch.  She just replaces the grass in her raised bed occasionally.

Portland is a city that is very dog friendly.  As a Portland landscape designer I have lots of wonderful opportunities to create dog friendly landscape designs.  I consider it one of my best job benefits.

If you are interested in dog friendly landscaping, contact us for more information.