Designing with Natives

Transcription

1 Designing with Natives by, Scott M. Drucker, Dream Gardens Landscape Design & Installation

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3 Why Natives? The Positives! Preaching to the Choir Best Adapted to their location drought tolerant Low Maintenance less pruning, mowing Host Plants and Food for Wildlife Birds, Bees, Butterflies, etc Many are very attractive to purists and non-purists alike Sustainable / Green don t need chemicals-fertilizers

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5 Designing is like Painting You have a palette of Trees, Shrubs and plants to work with Natives Use a more Limited Palette Evergreens in a Temperate Garden provide the structure Natives.Very few native evergreens for our area Paintings need lots of color Natives sometimes have short lived seasons of color Bottom Line. Designing with natives is more challenging!

6 The Negatives Can be Messy Looking Blooms are frequently short lived Some are Ephemeral Eaten - up by Insects and Animals Very Specific Cultural Requirements Very Few are Evergreen Varying Philosophies as to what is truly Native

7 Short Lived Color! Too Busy!

8 Too Barren!

9 Design by numbers / no plan or design

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11 Haphazard Planting SW Natives

12 Better Design SW Natives Scale Massing Heirarchy - Textures

13 The 6 S s Design Guideline Structure mostly with conifers / broad leaf evergreens Selection natives for every use (Specimens, Screens, Foundations) Simple One of everything bodes badly for design and wildlife Sequencing Planting to maximize bloom time, texture and shape Shrink plant to eventually shrink down the lawn size Sweeps and Swaths drifts / masses give continuity and abundance

14 Great Native Design is Difficult to Achieve but Do-able 1) Less Plants Overall than traditional design to Choose From 2) Much Less Structural Evergreen Trees and Shrubs for Structure 3) Very little historic precedent available as a guide 4) Drastic differences in plants and style from one region to the next

15 Hot/ Warm Color (Contracts) Color Theory Cold/Cool (Expands) Complementary Borrowed Monochromatic

16 Spider Wart and Coreopsis / Blue Yellow Combo - Summer

17 Celedine Poppy and Virginia Bluebell Blue Yellow Combo / Spring

18 Borrowed Color

19 Native Color Color Great in Early Spring and in the Fall Not so much in between Color in Blooms Color in Stems Color in Berries / Fruit Color in Leaves

20 Cool Colors

21 Nice Borrowed View of Evergreens Warm Colors

22 Colorful Twigs / Branches

23 Colorful Berries

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25 Colorful Foliage

26 Fall Color

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28 Native Textures Fine Medium Coarse

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32 Informal Design (Most Popular with Natives!) Planting in a naturalistic manner mimic nature Preference for grouping or drifts rather than repetition Preference for curved or windy shaped areas rather than geometrically defined spaces or straight lines Mixture of all manners of plants from evergreen to deciduous

33 Seaside

34 Seaside

35 Pond or Bog

36 Understory

37 Woodland

38 Sunny Seating

39 Urban Rain Garden

40 Urban Allee

41 Formal - Semi Formal Design with Natives ( Less common but worth trying!) Intentional Use of Symmetry Repetition of elements including plants/shrubs/trees Rigid geometry created by defines edges Intentional creation of a Sense of Enclosure Use of Topiary, Espalier and other pruning techniques to create desired shapes or specimens Creation of Vistas ending in Focal Points Intentional Framing of a View with plants or manmade materials

42 Non- Native Formality Redo Substitute Leyands with Hemlocks Substitute Limelights with Annebelles Substitute Boxwoods with Inkberry Holly

43 Boxwoods Inkberry Holly

44 Hydrangea arborescens Hydrangea arborescens Annebelle

45 Substitute Astilbe with Christmas Fern

46 Foundation Plantings Boxwoods

47 Replace Lawn with Native Groundcovers or a Meadow

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49 Regionalism important Native Palms in TN?

50 Soothing All-Green

51 Massing of Color. New American Garden. Oehme van Sweden

52 Environment around a Focal Point

53 Native Stone with Native Plants

54 Spring Blooming Borders edged with Natives

55 Summer Blooming Border with Rudbekia

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57 Native Grass Oriented Landscape Design

58 3 Elements ( Trees, Native Grass & Alliums)

59 2 Elements (Native Grass & Yucca)

60 2 Elements (Native Switch Grass & Sod)

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62 4 Elements (Native Switch Grass, Sod, River Birches & Iron Retaining Walls)

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64 Substitute Mums with Asters, Miscanthus with Native Grasses

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67 New Urban & Modern Style With Natives

68 Boston Area New Urban Meadow Medians

69 Roof Gardens Using Low Growing Native Groundcovers

70 Xeriscaping South Western Natives Low Growing Cacti and Grasses

71 Urban Courtyards Using Sweetbay Magnolia and Virginia Creeper

72 New York City The High Line utilizing many native plants!

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74 Soften Concrete and Brick Very Heat Tolerant

75 Compliments the Modern Architectural Aesthetic

76 Mums - Asters Foster Holley - Simple Substitutes Ilex opaca (American Holly) or Ilex vomitoria (Youpon) Leyland Cypress Eastern Hemlock, or Cherry Laurel Limelight Hydrangeas - Annebelle or Oakleaf Hydrangeas Tall Sedums - Joe Pye Weeds Miscanthus Grass Pink Muhly or Switch Grass Kousa Dogwoods American Dogwood or Redbuds Astilbe Foam Flowers, Black Cohosh Asian Wisteria Am. Wisteria, Scarlet Honeysuckle, Cross-Trumpet vine Boxwood Inkberry Holly

77 Some Drought Tolerant Natives

78 Long Leaf Pine Pinus palustris

79 Pink Muhly Grass Mhlenbergia capillaris

80 American Beautyberry Callicarpa americana

81 Trumpet Honeysuckle- Lonicera sempervirens

82 Spider Wart Tradescantia virginiana

83 Black Eye Susan Rudbekia hirta

84 Threadleaf Coreopsis Coreopsis verticillata

85 Indian Blanket Gaillardia pulchella

86 Some Great Natives for Wildlife

87 Serviceberry Amelancier laevis or hybrids / Food for birds

88 American Elderberry Sambucus canadensis

89 Mountain Ash / Rowan Sorbus americana

90 Butterfly Weed Milkweed Asclepias tuberosa Common Milkweed Asclepias syriaca

91 Echinacea purpurea or hybrids Purple Coneflower Rudbekia hybrids

92 The End!