In a previous video, I shared a
few landscape design and gardening mistakes that people tend to make
that lead to more maintenance. Later on in this video, I want to expand
on this list a little bit, but I also wanna include some general mistakes
that people make that decrease the overall quality of the landscape design. So if you're starting a landscaping or a
gardening project, I hope this helps you. The first common mistake, which affects
the quality of the landscape design or the garden overall, is to not consider
winter interest carefully enough. It's very easy to end up with a
landscape that is dense and diverse and beautiful in the summer or spring
or fall, but then in the winter goes completely flat barr and dormant. And this is because many popular
gardening or landscaping plants are either deciduous, which means they
drop their leaves in the winter or. Herbaceous perennials,
they go completely dormant. They die back down to the roots. Then they come back from the
roots again in the spring. This means, uh, if you focus on these
plants too much, you end up with a very open, very bare landscape in the winter. One design strategy to avoid an
empty winter garden is to start your design with exclusively evergreen
plants or plants that are otherwise interesting in the winter, and
create a spacious design that looks balanced and beautiful in the winter. Then you move on to the deciduous
plants, the aous perennials. Add them as you desire until you,
you reach the desired density or you otherwise run out of room
for, for more plants in the space. The next mistake to avoid is
not designing with use in mind. First. This is very common. You start out with a blank canvas. And you want to create something
beautiful, but the best way to start is by considering how the space will be used
by you, by other people, by wildlife. Whatever your goals are, the future
activities are for the space. That should be the first thing
on your mind when you approach a landscape design project. This is especially overlooked and
important in front yards where folks tend to reach out to me just wanting something
beautiful, something low maintenance. But there are a lot of uses, even for a
front yard you barely spend any time in. You could consider how you or guests
walk through the space, where deliveries are left, how utilities are maintained,
maybe how you get your garbage, your recycling bins to the curb. You could consider privacy, security,
and unused spaces like front yards are incredible opportunities as well. Consider how you could change your design. So you could spend more
time in your front yard. Maybe you need more shade, maybe
you'll need a little bit more privacy. Or perhaps if you added a short decorative
fence around part or all of your front yard, you'd feel safer sitting on
the porch as your grandkids played. For example, sometimes just a few medium
sized plants to block the view of a seating area can be all you need to feel
comfortable spending more time in that. You could also start with an
activity, a goal of value, and design your landscape around that. Per perhaps you like cooking. How could you include some culinary
herbs, for example, in your front yard or grow food in your front yard, or
support wildlife in your front yard? Every landscape design is a unique
opportunity and you can achieve many goals even in a front yard where you have picky
neighbors or perhaps rigid rules in your neighborhood about what can be out front. Now's a really good time to
mention if you would like help with all of this and more check out,
design your own landscape layout. My brand new online course for the
do-it-yourselfer who wants to create their own landscape design plan. This course guides you through the
design process from brainstorming your ideas, prioritizing them,
playing to the strengths of your site, researching plants, drawing
out the design plan, guides you through the entire design process. I'm so excited to announce that this
course is now open for enrollment. It's been in the works for months,
so if you wanna learn more, sign up, check out that link in the description. The next really common mistake is for
getting to plan enough space for the inevitable maintenance activities. You could consider the space
just for performing the activity, just access in general. You can also consider
material and tool storage. It can be helpful to start with an
inventory of the maintenance activities that you are performing already
or will inevitably need to do, and then think of ways that you can make
these activities easier by providing yourself with a little more room. An example, if you have
a hedge that you need to. Prune trim pretty routinely When those
clippings fall, it can be a lot easier if you have a pathway designed right
along that hedge, and then you can just sweep up the trimmings as opposed
to having them fall into a garden bed where you're trying to pick 'em
up, clean 'em up around other plants. You're trying not to hurt the plants. That's just one example. Making sure you have enough
room for the maintenance. Then you can consider convenient
tool storage whenever. If, if you can safely store the tools
that you need for the maintenance activity, right where you will be
performing that routine activity, that helps a lot in examples of pitchfork,
right by your compost pile, find a place to hang it up where it'll be
out of the elements just a little bit. Create a little box for it on the fence. Just one example. Additionally material storage. I highly recommend when possible, setting
aside a corner of your landscape to store any extra materials temporarily. So if you get mulch delivered
gravel, for example, you have some bags of potting soil, you have a
place where you can sit these things where they won't be in the way. It decreases the stress of, you know,
having a pile of mulch delivered and then it's in your driveway. It's in the way. You have to spread it right away. If you have a place where
it can go, you can move it. So it sits out of the way it, it
makes those maintenance activities. And it can be nice to have some
of these materials just on. The next really common mistake
is not selecting plants that are adapted to your climate and to your
soil, so they are less maintenance. And this sounds a little bit
obvious, but it's so common. Folks have an idea of what they
want to grow in their head. They select these plants and then
they work to change their soil. They set up these irrigation systems
so they can grow these plants. It's kind of a perspective,
I think that that rolls over in from vegetable gardening. When you have a vegetable garden,
there are these common vegetables that require a certain pH, a
certain amount of organic matter. But landscaping's a little bit different. If you do a little bit of research,
you can select plants that will do well in your soil that will do well
in your climate without irrigation. Uh, granted, most plants need some
level of irrigation until they get established because plants,
Aren't used to being transplanted. They're not used to moving
from one place to another. Once they're established, they might
need very little or no irrigation. It's all about doing a little extra
research and selecting the plants that'll do well with what you have. Instead of trying to change what you
have, you'll need to start by learning about your space, learn about your
climate, learn about your soil, and then look for resources that focus
specifically on climate adaptive plants. There are nurseries that specialize
in this books and an odd. Look for plants that no
one is taken care of. Plants that you like the look of, that
you think are beautiful things that are growing, you know, in the abandoned corner
of a parking lot that are in full bloom. I guarantee that you, if you start
looking for plants that are not being cared for, you will find some beautiful
things and you can use these bits and pieces as inspiration and, and use those
as the backbone of your landscape design. There are more options out
there than you're imagining. I'm, I'm. If you would like more help with this,
I've created the free mini course, how to Choose The Perfect Plant
to help you do this plant research and make sure you're selecting a
plant that will do well in your. The next mistake is not planning
yard debris or yard waste management into your design plan. And it sounds so boring. It's actually one of my favorite landscape
design topics because there are so many interesting methods, and even though
you're not thinking about it now, when you're picking materials and colors
and plants, how big will your patio be? Last thing on your mind is yard debris. But when you're maintain. Landscape. It's going to be a constant consideration. If you're taking debris offsite, you
should think about how they will be taken off offsite if you're gonna store
them until you can drive them somewhere. If you're going to use one of the curbside
pickup services or you know, a green bin, where will that bin be stored? How will you wheel it to
the curb if it's heavy? These are all things you should
consider early in the design process. Make sure you have space for this,
and there are a ton of options for processing materials on site. Composting is way easier, way, way
more fun than most people consider. It takes a corner of your landscape. You can set it aside. You can do just yard debris. You can also include food scraps. There are compost in place methods
or smothering methods that you can plan into your installation phases. You can use yard debris to smother
out patches of weeds or lawns. For example, you could start a compost
in place method in the fall, and then by spring you can plant into
that, and then as you're planting into that bed, you can then start
creating a new bed in a new area. Put all of your yard. In this new spot, these methods are a
little bit nuanced, so I have a couple of the most boring videos on these subjects. A link to the playlist in the top
right corner of this video right now, as well as in the description below. If you wanna learn more,
you wanna check those out. It's worth learning these methods, a
little bit of planning what you are going to do with what yard debris can
save you so much time in the future. Speaking of installation phase
planning, it's way too easy to forget to break your landscaping project
down into these bite size steps. You can design your landscape
so you can take breaks. You can have a landscape that looks
relatively complete in the interim before you take on the next project. When it comes to planting, you
could start with these islands. Start with the privacy plants, focal
point plants, food producing plants, the largest plants, work largest,
uh, from largest to smallest. Whatever these plants are that you
want to prioritize, you could start with these little islands and then
expand the beds as you want to add more plants and a, as the plants grow,
and then you can connect the beds. That's a great method for,
for the gardening area. And then regarding o, other
aspects of your landscape. Where you want to spend the most time. For example, perhaps install the patio
that's closest to your house first. Or you could start with
the compost area first. Regardless of what you choose,
the only thing that matters is that you have a plan. You have things broken down into steps. I recommend planning invasive or
aggressive weed species removal into this phase plan as well because these,
this should be done in advance of. Similarly, soil prep, and I mentioned
that you can do these compost in place methods, but they do take a little bit
of time, so you could be working on one in the fall while you're planting
another area or removing weeds. Over here, the only thing that
matters is that you have the phases. More or less planned out. So you have these breaks in between
and you have these garden beds prepared well in advance of planting. And again, for help with all of this
and more, check out, design your own landscape layout, my new online course
for the do-it-yourselfer, who wants to create their own landscape design plan. I'll guide you through the design process. In this course to learn more
and to sign up, check out that link in the description below. And if you're new here,
hello, my name is Eve. I'm a landscape designer and a
horticulturist, and this is Garden Project Academy where I offer online
courses and resources to help you with your next garden project. Let me know if you have
any additional questions. Post 'em in the comments below,
and thank you so much for watching. I, I hope this helps
you with your project.
