Landscape Design: How to Start Landscaping Your Yard

Landscape Design

One of the most exciting things about moving into a new place is getting to experiment with a new yard! Even when reinvigorating your current yard, there are always new things to try and to improve. The best case scenario is to start from scratch, so that you can lay everything out correctly. If not, then you work with what you have and improve it as best as you can. So, then all sorts of landscape design questions arise, with the main one being how to start landscaping your yard?

No matter the scenario, you want to make sure that your plants fit into the landscape and will not cause problems down the line as your plants mature. For example, some major problems include:

• Planting large trees beneath power lines
• Overplanting in the landscape
• Trees that were not shaped correctly when they were young
• Excess staking
• Overgrowth of vines
• Not considering how far tree roots will grow out (especially when planted near a sidewalk)

When my husband and I moved into our new place, we had all of the problems listed above and more! For most of those problems, there are ways to save the landscape, but there are also circumstances where some of the trees and plants had to be removed.

How to Start Landscaping Your Yard

If you are starting from scratch, some things to consider include:

• Planting a fire-resistant landscape
• Tree location and distance between plants
• Staking and pruning young trees
• Planting in hydrozones

Planting a Fire-Resistant Landscape

The most important part of your yard is your house, so it is important for that to be your main consideration when planting, especially if you live in a fire-prone area. Some preventative measures you can take against fires when planting your landscape is to:

• Plant fire-resistant plants near your house. A great resource for finding the right fire-resistant plants that work for you can be found here.
• Keep your landscape plants watered, to the point where there is no water stress since water stressed plants are more likely to burn. This also includes any bark mulch that you use in the landscape.
• Be careful with native plants and how closely they are planted to one another because when native plants become water stressed, they can become highly flammable.
• Maintain a clean landscape, with no excess brush, weeds, dead wood, etc.

Tree Location and Distance Between Plants

A common misconception with trees is that their roots only expand as far out as their canopies, but they really expand farther out than this, so it is important to plan for this. In order to prevent overplanting and competition between nearby plants, it is important to consider the following:

• Do not overplant, especially near trees. When placing plants, you need to consider how large they will get once they have fully matured.
• Keep at least 12” between a planted tree and the lawn. By doing this, especially with young trees, you are keeping the lawn and trees from competing for water and nutrients, as well as any mower injuries, etc. Another thing to consider is that trees and lawn do not usually have the same water requirements. It is best not to plant a tree in the middle of a lawn, but if you do, make sure to keep a minimum distance of 12” between the tree and the lawn.
• Select trees that are suited for the landscape. For example, if you have power lines in front of your house, you do not want to plant a tree that will grow to the height of the power lines. You also do not want to grow large trees close to your house that will require large amounts of pruning once the tree is older.

Some really great resources to reference when selecting your trees include SelecTree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which tells you which trees are fire-resistant, which trees will not reach the height of power lines, etc. and Southern Tree from the University of Florida.

Staking and Pruning Young Trees

When selecting and planting a young tree, you want to take the time to make sure it starts out correctly. This includes:

• Select a good tree from the nursery. If the tree is staked, check to make sure that it will stand up on its own. You also need to check the root ball. If you are buying a bare root tree, this step is easy, but if you are buying a potted tree, you will need to remove the root ball from the container and inspect it as best as possible to make sure the roots are off-white (and not dark, which is a sign of disease), and to make sure that the root ball has not outgrown the container and that the plant has not become root bound.
• Only stake the tree if it is necessary. If a stake is needed to hold the tree up, you only want to use one and you want to monitor the stake to make sure and remove it once it is no longer needed. You really only want to stake a young tree to help it develop a trunk taper (the stronger trunk at the base). When staking, you also need to consider the staking material (you want a loose tie so that there are no issues with rubbing or girdling), the height of your tie (you want it at the height where the tree returns to when the top is bent), and the distance between the tree trunk and the stake (you want the stake to be approximately 6-8” away).
• Select a leader and the scaffold (major) branches when the tree is young. If you spend the time to properly shape the tree when it is young, you will limit the amount of pruning that needs to be done when the tree is mature. You want to avoid pruning mature trees as much as possible because the tree has already been shaped and the branches are larger and when they are pruned, there is a greater opening for diseases to enter the tree.

Planting in Hydrozones

Different plants have different watering requirements. Thus, the plants should be planted based on their individual watering requirements. When plants with similar watering requirements are grouped and planted together, that is called a hydrozone. When you are planning your landscape, you want to do your best to plant hydrozones to make sure that you can water all plants in certain areas the same. This way, you are not overwatering or underwatering any of your plants, and it makes it easier on you.

All of the examples provided above are for how to start landscaping your yard if you are starting from scratch. However, you can take these same principles and make the appropriate adjustments to your existing landscape.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

• How to Protect Plants from Frost
• Fruit Trees in Bloom
• Modern Day Scarecrows: Scarecrows for Your Garden

Resources:

Hartin, J., Faber, B. “Water Management.” Retail Garden Center Manual, Publication 3492. Richmond, CA: University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2012. 107-116. Print.

Hodel, D.R., Pittenger, D.R. “Woody Landscape Plants.” Retail Garden Center Manual, Publication 3492. Richmond, CA: University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2012. 21-38. Print.