Here is Part 2 to the weekender plant purchasing guide for your yard. Part 1 talked about Victorian, cottage, alpine, farmhouse/countryside and modern garden styles and what kind of plants to purchase in order to achieve the look you want. This post highlights formal, butterfly and bird, family-oriented, and high desert garden styles as we well as a little more general yard planning advice and tips.
The formal garden can be thought of as a well ordered paradise. It's usually symmetric with simple geometric designs. There are clean lines and everything is in it's place. It has a plan. A formal garden is not thrown together. Formal gardens feature repetitive plantings which create lines. Green leafy plants with foliage that can be trimmed and shaped, and the shrubs create the backbone for the garden. In many formal gardens, white flowers are the choice for floral color.
The most common way to get the formal garden look, is to start with a focal point then plant beds with rows of foliage plants that mirror image itself. This focal point can be a water feature, a gazebo, a topiary, a simple archway, a bench, an incredible tree, an urn, a sundial, anything really. Hedges are very common in formal gardens. They act as borders. Then the actual color is inside the hedge borders. You can fill in the the walkways with gravel or even brick to finish it off.
Plants that you can train into hedges for the formal garden are currants, privets (Ligustrum), boxwoods, yew, holly, arbor vitea, junipers, even dwarf arctic willows. Just anything that you can easily trim and that can handle pruning. Sages, rosemary, and other herbs are popular in formal gardens.
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| Formal herb garden in Ireland at a culinary school. |
When it comes to filling in the space inside your hedges, you can use any kind of perennial or annual you like. Usually the plants are neat and tidy varieties that are kept looking nice and full. Do this by planting close together and use a limited color palette of just two or three colors. Astilbe, hosta, hydrangea and begonias are commonly used for the shady areas. Lavender, roses, coneflowers, marigolds, asters, lambs ear and salvias are great varieties for the sun.
A great advantage to formal gardens is if you have a small space, you can make it grand by making it formal. You can even have a formal vegetable garden. You just need to make it symmetrical or a mirror image of itself.
There are a few things that you need to include in your garden if you want to lure all kinds of birds and butterflies and make them want to stick around. You need pollen and nectar rich flowers. Wildflower and old fashioned varieties are the best. You also need flowers that are in bloom throughout the season so there is always something for them to come to your garden to visit. It may seem daunting to always have something blooming but with a little planning it really isn't difficult.
Providing supplementary feeders as well as blooms full of pollen and nectar will ensure frequent visitors but if you want them to stay you need to provide water. Birds and butterflies require a water source. You can install a water garden, a bird bath, a catch basin, or even drippers for the birds and butterflies. Muddy water puddles even attract butterflies as they are looking for salt and nutrients as well as water.
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| Buddleia, commonly known as Butterfly Bush, looks similar to lilac. |
Some great plants that attract birds and butterflies are milkweed and butterfly weed (aeschlepia), alyssum, butterfly bush (buddleia), daylilies, bee balm (monarda), coral bells, lilac, Joe-Pye weed, zinnias, hollyhock, delphinium, scabiosa, verbena, and many others.
If you have a family with kids at home then having a family-oriented backyard and garden is pretty important. The key is balance - everyone needs a space. Adults need a space to relax without Dora and Diego sand toys in their way, younger kids need a safe place to play, and older kids need a space where they can enjoy being outside but supervision isn't needed. A family-oriented yard and garden doesn't have to be a space with a beat up lawn and a trampoline. It can be beautiful and mature as well.
One suggestion to meet everyone's needs is by thinking in concentric rings radiating out from the house. That first ring closest to the house is the ring for the little ones. They can be supervised and safe. Providing some kind of outdoor entertainment for them close to the house is needed. The next ring out from the house is for older kids. They can play within earshot and even within your line of vision if you are on the deck or even in the house looking out the window. The outermost ring is for the teen and preteens that want to enjoy the outdoors but want some privacy as well. Providing a space for them to relax and unwind outside will instill a love of being outside and enjoying nature.
There are all kinds of great kid friendly ideas on Pinterest and all over the web if you search for them. You can find ideas for huts, teepees, forts, playhouses, swing sets, little pools, sand boxes, tic tac toe boards, chalk painted fences, hopscotch pads, outdoor water kitchens, fire pits, backyard games, race car tracks, sensory and fairy garden ideas, marble runs, climbing walls, and thousands of projects the kids can make as well.
As far as plants go for a family-oriented yard, anything goes. Whatever look you want, you can have on that whole give and take deal. Try to be patient however when soccer practice ends up in your flower beds once in awhile. Lamium is a ground cover that is really tough you might want to try. Butterfly bush (buddleia) is also pretty tough and attracts butterflies. Lambs ear is great filler plant and is a pretty fun plant to touch, even adults like to give lambs ear a little rub as they walk by. Snapdragons are kinda fun. Kids can make little monster faces out of them by squeezing the sides together and make them 'talk.' There are chocolate smelling cosmo varieties, and what kid doesn't like sucking out the nectar of a columbine bloom? But honestly, don't be afraid to put a strategically placed barberry bush where you don't want kids to go. They will stay out of an area if there are a few pokeys.
A high desert garden is considered to be above 4000 feet in elevation and receives less than 10 inches of rain per year. According to www.usclimatedata.com, Heber City receives 16 inches of rain and Midway get 20 inches per year. So a high desert isn't exactly perfect for the Heber Valley, but there are many places in Utah that fit this classification. And, if you love the look, you can make a lush, beautiful, full high desert garden here in the Heber Valley.
Large fluctuations between the daytime and nighttime, as well as between the winter and the summer temperatures are a characteristic of high desert climates. That means bulbs like tulips and daffodils that require a cooler dormant period do great in high deserts. High winds and late spring frosts are also common in the high desert.
Don't think that high desert means you must xeriscape and don't think that xeriscape (water conserving landscaping) really means ZEROscape. High desert and even xeriscaped gardens can be very lush, full and beautiful when the right plants are chosen. A few tricks to high desert gardening is to water deeply every few days rather than shallowly every day and to use mulch as much as possible. Mulch keeps the soil cool, it insulates plant roots and also prevents water from evaporating too quickly.
The best way to achieve a bountiful high desert garden is to create small pockets of plants with a BIG BANG for the best visual effect as well as ease of maintaining. These pockets are investment zones that can be just miniature gardens throughout your yard. One pocket by the front door, maybe one closer to the street by the mailbox or driveway. Possibly plant another one in the corner between your garage and house. Seasonal color in these pockets have a lush and full look when they are blooming.
Grouping plants according to their water needs and how much maintenance they require will save you work as well as save water. Planting investments zones full of plants that work well together is the best way to maximize your high desert garden.
So here are a handful of plants that work hard for you all season long, look great, and thrive in high desert climates. Potentilla, coreopsis, daylilies, oregon grape, lavender, penstemon, daisies, knifofia (red hot poker), irises, sages (salvias), California poppy, snow in summer, spirea, currants, Russian sage, catmint, and Johnson's Blue geranium.
So, now that you have some other garden and yard styles to think about, remember that you can ultimately do whatever you want. You don't have to stick with just one certain style. You can mix and match. Have a cottage style front yard with a Victorian back yard and a formal deck and patio area. You can design a rock/alpine garden on a steep side slope of your yard and let the remainder of the yard have a countryside/farmhouse feel. Throw in a formal veggie garden in a family-oriented backyard. Whatever you want, whatever makes you happy, whatever fulfills your yard and family's needs.
Here are a few design concepts to think about. They come naturally to people that love gardening but may not be quite so obvious to those that are new to playing in the yard all year.
- The summer sun pounds the south side of your home and yard.
- Because we live in the northern hemisphere, the north side of your home doesn't get the intense summer sun.
- Morning sun shines on the east side of your house and therefore the east side is shaded in the late afternoon and evening.
- The west side of your property gets intense sun all afternoon and evening.
- With that knowledge you can plan where patios, decks, shade trees, benches, flower beds, swing sets, and other landscaping items work the best.
- If you want to plant an evergreen tree like a spruce or a pine, you probably want to avoid planting it close to your home on the south side. It may seem great that it blocks the hot summer sun coming in the windows, but that means it also blocks the warm winter sun that really helps keep your home warm during the cold winter months. If you want to plant them on the perimeter on the south side, that is great. Or evergreens are great on the north side of the home. You don't have to worry about blocking the sun and can add privacy if you need it. However, planting a deciduous tree on the south side of your home to shade those south windows is a great idea. It looses its leaves in the winter to allow the sun to shine in.
- If you want to plant trees for shade, they should be planted along the perimeter of the south and west side of your property for them to actually provide shade for you when it gets hot.
- If you want to provide a shady spot for the kids to play and just sit outside during the day when its July, the north side of the house is a good place to start or the east side of the house because it is cooler in the afternoons on that side.
- The plants that require part sun, not full sun, do amazing on the north and east sides of your house.
- When you are thinking of a place to dine outside or entertain, think of how your house is situated on the lot and plan so that the western evening sun doesn't bake you and your visitors on those fabulous August afternoons. Provide some kind of shade structure, tree, or even move your dining area to another cooler part of the yard.
- You know those little tiny swimming pools for kids? Placing it on the east side of the house in the morning and filling it up, and then letting it warm up all morning long in the morning and early afternoon sun is great. By 3:00 pm the water is so warm from the sun but the house is beginning to shade the pool as the sun moves west so then the kids can play in warm water but not the blazing sun so they don't get sunburned.
- When a plant's tag says FULL SUN, that means plant them on the south and west sides where they will receive the best rays for most of the day.
- It is sad to see fun yards or playgrounds for kids that are not very well thought out when it comes to the sun. There is a playground on Midway's main that has awesome shade trees planted on the east side of the property. That's all good but the south and west sides of the playground are completely plant-free. So, when the sun comes out and the kids are out playing, there is shade available in the morning. That's great but not really super necessary because the mornings here aren't too hot. But in the middle of the day and in the afternoon when it gets toasty on the playground, there isn't one lick of shade from any trees or shrubs.
- If we can be more aware of where the sun is, where to plant what, and make our yard dreams come true, then everyone enjoys being outside so much more.
Happy landscaping, dreaming, planning, weeding, planting, creating, and enjoying this spring and summer!
PS, if you want to learn how to add value to your home by doing one of your favorite hobbies, gardening, click here for another one of my blog posts.
Brought to you by Heath Harvey @ HeathsHomes.com
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