Mapping Your News

The large group of cultivated honeysuckles could easily supply this column with interesting subjects for discussion for a year or more. While the genus Lonicera to which they belong includes almost 200 different species, less than half of these have found their way into cultivation and only a dozen or so are commonly seen.

Most kinds, as the bush honeysuckles, when rightly placed, are desirable landscape material because of their vigorous growth, abundant flowers and attractive fruits. They are generally seen as specimen plants, in shrub borders or in mass plantings. Then there arc the half-climbers, as woodbine and the ubiquitous Hall’s honeysuckle, that can often be used with surprisingly good effects on fences and pergolas or rambling over stone walls and ledges.

Of all the true bush forms, privet honeysuckle (Lonicera pileata) is probably the lowest in stature. Its brunches, with their persistent or semi-evergreen leaves, tend to spread horizontally, sometimes being almost prostrate, and the plants are seldom more than a foot or two high.  Read more...

The more modern a building is in design, the fewer plants are likely to be required for the front foundation planting. Most buildings of this type are attractive in themselves so the only real reason for using any plants at all is to soften the vertical lines. By keeping this in mind you will considerably reduce the cost of your landscaping.

Ground Cover

It is advisable to use plenty of ground cover material under the foundation planting for three reasons: first, it prevents mud from splashing up onto your home; second, it ties one plant to another which may be quite a distance away by providing a green carpet between them; and, third, it adds another long horizontal line to the picture.

A ground cover also makes it unnecessary to cultivate and weed the shrub beds. And when mowing adjacent grass, if you run the mower along the edge of the ground cover, you will not have to trim the grass by hand. This is an age when anything that cuts down the maintenance of a property is in order. And, if you do employ a gardener, he will have to devote much less time to the maintenance work if your garden is designed properly.  Read more...

If you have ample property on one or both sides of your house, extend the corner plantings so as to improve appearances even more. You might call this “adding living architecture” to the house in order to make it look lower and wider. With geometric figures and illusions created by horizontal lines breaking vertical lines. We want our homes to look low and wide because that gives a feeling of stability. Hence, as a general rule, the more we avoid sharply pointed plants the more attractive our planting will be. Tall, columnar plants and those of sharply conical form are properly used in foundation plantings only when the house has tall narrow windows and doors and sharp pointed gables. It is also desirable that if you use them, some of the plants native to the area be of the same character. Plants can become rather incongruous in different surroundings.

Concealed Front Door

Many modern homes are so designed or placed that the front door does not face the street but is tucked in around a break at one end. Here we try to make the entire house a pleasant picture as seen from sidewalk or street, but at the same time attempt to frame the front door as seen from some other point.  Read more...

The landscaper must decide whether deciduous plants (those that drop their leaves) or evergreens should be used in the foundation planting. Your taste and your climate will be the key factors. But remember that a mixture of the two is rarely, if ever, desirable – although an evergreen ground cover can well be used with whichever type of plant you decide on. Indeed, such a ground cover might be even more useful and effective around deciduous material than around evergreens. It will keep the planting from looking sparse and bare after the shrubs go dormant and drop their leaves.

Seasonal Changes

Deciduous plants grow much faster and larger than most evergreens so you need to know more about plant habits generally to use them properly. As to which type offers the greater interest throughout the year, it may surprise you to learn that the deciduous plants lead. In many parts of the country such plants go through four seasonal phases in each of which they take on different characteristics.  Read more...

In drawing a landscape plan, always make the circles that indicate plants of such size that they represent the ultimate spread of the specimens. In fact, to play safe you might add an extra 6 to 12 inches of diameter.

Generally speaking, the spread of a plant is almost equal to its height, the exceptions being those plants that have a definite upright habit. Thus, to indicate a forsythia at an outer corner of your house where it would be best if allowed to grow at least 6 feet tall, you should show a circle 6 feet across your plan.

This means, of course, that the bush (at the center of the circle) will have to stand at least 3 feet from the building, porch, or walk. Although older forsythias grow much larger than that when location and space permit, as part of a foundation planting they can be pruned annually and be kept beautiful as 6 foot specimens.

Combination Plants  Read more...