Long Distance LandscapingCountry Living Gardener Spring 2006 By Elizabeth Pope It's always a challenge to landscape a second home -- a woodland cabin, beach-front getaway or country cottage. Weekend gardeners just aren't available 24/ Take Your Time With a new property, don't rush it. Spend as long as a year observing your climate, wind, drainage and hours of sun and shade. Get a soil analysis from the county agricultural extension service and amend the soil. Enlist the help of local nurseries in choosing handsome plant varieties that will thrive, not just survive, on your site. Some have designers and maintenance crews (or will make referrals) to help with planting and watering, particularly in the crucial first season before the landscape is established. Besides a site analysis, consider when you are in residence and how much maintenance you can provide. There's no sense planting a sweep of spring-blooming azaleas and rhodos if you're only around in July and August. And even the most committed gardener needs time to kayak, golf or hike with family and friends. So, do you really want a high-maintenance English cottage garden on a windswept mountaintop? Go Native Take a tip from Mother Nature and use non-invasive native plants in areas furthest from the house. Save the "exotics" that need more TLC for closer quarters. At her waterfront home in Oriental, NC, landscape architect Madeline Ann Sutter planted swamp azaleas, yaupon hollies, marsh grasses, and native American hollies (ilex opaca) in the transition zone between the house and the coastline. "Those plants already thrived there, so I just added more," she says. "Now there's no visual break between the landscape and the natural surroundings." Some state forestry departments offer an "environmental pack" of as many as 30 to 40 or more assorted tree seedlings for a nominal charge, she adds. "Planting a little copse of trees, rather than a single specimen, is a natural way to fill in bare spots on your property." (Editors: E-mail Elizabeth to read the rest of the story.) Country Living Gardener Spring 2006 |
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