Home > Video Channel > Landscape Design

Landscape Design

Bob talks with landscape architect Clara Bachelor about the condition of the yard and the final landscape design.
Get Adobe Flash Player to see this content.

Chapters from this episode

Now Playing

Planting a Shrub

Now Playing

Landscape Design

Clip Transcript For:

Landscape Design

  computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" This plan that you've drawn-up really underscores the importance of bringing a landscape architect into play when you've got this much of a renovation. Because your job is not just to pick the pretty bushes and flowers, but to really blend the architecture with the land, right?"

" I like to think of it as giving the land structure."

" Yes, and indeed we can see on the plan here that the structure is the drive-up and then the new walk which we just put in on a couple of weeks ago, and of course the new approach to the house, where once there was none."

" That's right."

" You never see the front door and this draws your eye to the front door. "

" Draws your eye and lets you know that's the place to go. Well, there was a lot of stuff to study on this site. Let's watch! A couple of weeks ago, Clara was here and she looked at the plant material that we had; figured out what to save and what to get rid off. Well, Clara, we have about a quarter acre lot here and the house really sits on the edge on that land. What's your assessment of what to do with the landscape?"

" Well, as you're walking out the door, you want to have an expanse in front of you. And right now----"

" You're blocked, yeah."

" your view is blocked by this dogwood and the Azaleas."

" Uh huh."

" And you really wanna open this up and provide a [unk] that you can enjoy from the house and give the house really something to sit on."

" Indeed, because practically the whole quarter acres is right in front of us here, but you don't see it from the house because of all these stuff that is in here."

" That's right. And this is wonderful plant material and we can use that and plant it around the edge and provide a shrub border."

" So you can transplant bushes that are this big and kind of scraggly?"

" Oh, sure! These will make great perimeter planting."

" Uh huh."

" It'll give you a nice shrub border. It'll give you a nice privacy around the perimeter of the property."

" Okay."

" And with the backhoe, they won't be very difficult to transfer if at all."

" So that if you have the equipment, you actually can transplant these things."

" That's right."

" I know that Paula, the home owner had the contractors move a lot of the foundation plantings. What is this?"

" This is an Andromeda."

" Uh huh. And, so he has saved them during the course of construction and just healed them in here. And you're saying, you can----"

" We can move these------"

" take the material like these and move it anywhere you want?"

" Right. We can move all the material that's been healed over, we can move it again. We can take the Andromeda. We can take the yews, the hemlock that we see here."

" This big one behind the oak tree?"

" That's right. That's a great screen. It really shields the neighbor's house."

" Yes."

" That's a good place to begin your screening, and then extend the shrubs all along in front of the neighbor's play area."

" So, the idea is to bring lots of this plant material to play along here, maybe even in a curve."

" That's right. A nice sweeping curve will make it very attractive, make it soft."

" So that you could----"

" Give a real definition to the land."

" What about lawn? You can't grow anything in this kind of shade, can you?"

" Oh sure you can! You've got clover growing here, so it must get enough sunlight for lawn."

" Yeah."

" And the land needs to be roto-tilled, aerated, lawn-fertilized. But then you could choose a shade tolerant seed."

" Okay."

" When having in fescue and see this land and you should get a nice lawn. You have to keep the kids off of it for a while."

" For a good month or so. What would you do up closer to the house? It's so bare now?"

" Well, it's, you know, it's a simple farmer's fortune, they wanna call it, but a nice bed of daylilies would really look lovely. They come up early in the spring,----"

" Uh huh."

" last late into the fall. We have some right here."

" We have a bunch of them right here."

" Where these daylilies are, these are so easy to transplant. You just stick them up and practically throw them over in front of the porch."

" In the fall?"

" In the fall. That's a great time to plant."

" So what you're saying is that you could create a bed with something as simple as daylilies----"

" Right. And you could add----"

" right around here? And so you take in some of those things that to begin what is known as a shrub border, right?"

" That's right. Most of these material, we've transplant it."

" What's this one here for example?"

" This is a mongolian azalea. "

" An azalea? "

" Yes."

" It gets rather big. What color does it blooming?"

" It's a light purple and it blooms very early in the spring."

" Early in this spring. Great!"

" That's right."

" And what about that huge one that was under the dogwood in back there?"

" This is one of my favorites. This is a [unk] azalea. It's deciduous. It will lose its leaves. But it's magnificent. It's slow growing, so this is----"

" Yeah."

" a wonderful specimen and has a beautiful shell pink flower."

" [unk]. [unk]."

" That's right."

" That's quite a handle. Then what are the new things that we're putting in?"

" This are Delaware valley white azaleas. They will stay low----"

" Uh huh."

" and they form part of the second layer of your shrub border and help it step down."

" So that the idea is to step down from the big, tall, older specimens down toward the lawn begins?"

" That's right. And these will also hide some of the legginess of the transplanted of plants."

 [-]


More Videos »Related Videos

Planting a Perennial Flower Garden
Planting a Perennial Flower Garden

Ruth Foster, a landscape consultant, oversees the planting of the perennial flower border in the yard. Smaller plants fill in the front, moving to the tallest flowering plants in back. Foster has chosen deer-resistant plants like summer asters for the front, with echinacea or cone flowers behind. Foster has also selected a vivid, neon autumn joy for the garden. She and Bob look at the early blooming magnolias that have been planted in the yard and the euonomous hedge that will grow to eight or ten feet and turn red in the fall.

Composting 101
Composting 101

Here's another great tip from BobVila.com. Compost is known by gardeners everywhere to be the best insurance you can have for a great garden. But making your own gardener s gold has acquired a stigma it doesn t really deserve. Successful composting requires four things: carbon, nitrogen, water and oxygen. A good way to remember how to keep a balance between carbon and nitrogen is to think of them as brown and green. Brown materials are things with lots of fiber like straw, fallen leaves or woody plant stalks. Green materials are things with lots of nutrients like kitchen scraps and lawn clippings. Try to keep a balance of three parts brown to one part green. Contrary to popular belief, composting is not the same as rotting, and it shouldn t be smelly. Keep it moist but not soggy and turn it every week or so to keep it processing evenly. Avoid attracting animals by keeping it tightly covered and don t compost meat or fatty kitchen scraps. Even in colder climates, you can compost year-round. Add kitchen scraps even if they freeze and leaves and lawn clippings when you ve got them. For composting to happen quickly, the pile needs to be about a cubic yard of material. Too small and it won t heat up. Plastic tumbler type composters provide the fastest compost, but you can also just use wire bins covered with a sheet of plastic or a tarp. If you don t have a good place for a compost bin, try sheet composting. You can spread shredded materials up to 6 inches thick over your garden beds in the fall, till them in and let it all process until you plant again in the spring. No commercial fertilizer, even organic, can provide the range of nutrients, enzymes and helpful microorganisms that compost provides. It s impossible to over fertilize with compost. And it puts worms and other insects to work for you as laborers in your soil improvement project. Find out more at BobVila.com: The ultimate home improvement web site! BobVila.com 2008

Planting Bulbs and Overseeding the Lawn
Planting Bulbs and Overseeding the Lawn

Bob watches as Kelly Brothers plants bulbs while Ruth Foster explains how to do it well. The small, blue scylla are planted in the front fo the garden, with taller alium behind. Foster shows the pointed end that should aim up and suggests that they be planted as a group, in bouquets, so they will blossom in groups of color. Bob uses a bulb planter to prepare holes for the bulbs. These bulbs, from DutchGardens.com can be purchased as good quality, double-nose, and bargain bulbs. Foster tells Bob that the deeper they are planted, the less likely they are to split. If they are planted too shallow, there will be no blooms in the second year. Once planted, the bulbs will be mulched and left to sleep for the fall and winter. The turf that was damaged during construction is ready to be reseeded. Foster suggests a relaxed approach to lawn planting, using perennial rye and fescue scattered over the surface and raked in. Foster stresses that a "freedom lawn" is mown high and overseeded in the fall and again with the melting snow. Foster uses fescue for shade, blue grass in sun, and perennial rye everywhere.

Landscaping Plans
Landscaping Plans

Bob talks with horticulturist Ruth Foster about landscaping for the barn. Ruth explains a few techniques used to assist in drainage and weed control. She outlines the plants she has selected that will thrive in the Cape Cod climate, including a few wild flowers already existing on site.

Related Products & Services Showrooms

Shop for Interior & Exterior Doors - Lowest Price Guaranteed
Shop for Interior & Exterior Doors - Lowest Price Guaranteed

…quality doors online with exceptional customer service at the lowest price possible! ETO Doors offers a great selection of front door systems, wood doors, exterior doors, entry doors, interior doors, and custom doors. Unlike some online door stores…

More Content »More Content

Moving a Shrub
Moving a Shrub

Moving a shrub can be a relatively quick and easy project…
…hand. Step 1: Dig the hole for the shrub's new location Dig the new hole for…
…least 30% larger than the root ball of the shrub that you are transplanting. Loosen the…

Tree and Shrub Planting Instructions
Tree and Shrub Planting Instructions

…alternative, a good planting mix can be created by combining one-half good topsoil with one-half of a formulated tree and shrub planting mix. If existing soil conditions are optimal for planting, reduce the recommended amount of soil amendments accordingly…

Shrub Trimming
Shrub Trimming

Shrubs and hedges can be trimmed monthly during the growing season. By trimming them back they'll grow more slowly. The slower a shrub grows the thicker and better it will look.

New Shrub Maintenance
New Shrub Maintenance

Water new shrubs once a week the first summer with 5 to 10 gallons of water for each depending on the size of the bush. Take care to get the water under any mulch, which absorbs a great deal of moisture and robs the soil below.

Browse Topics

Click on a letter to browse content by topic alphabetically.



About  | FAQ  | Contact  | Sitemap  | Privacy Policy  | Terms of Use  | Help

© BobVila.com 2009