Guide to Installation
In this section, you’ll find detailed instructions and illustrations covering all the techniques you’ll need to install any design from start to finish. Here we explain how to think your way through a landscaping project and anticipate the various steps. Then you’ll learn how to do each part of the job: readying the site; laying out the design; choosing materials; building paths, trellises, or other structures; preparing the soil for planting; buying the recommended plants and putting them in place; and caring for the plants to keep them healthy and attractive year after year.
We’ve taken care to make installation of built elements simple and straightforward. The paths, trellises, fences, and arbors (elements that landscape designers call “hardscape”) all use basic materials available from local suppliers, and they can be assembled by people who have no special skills or tools beyond those commonly used for home maintenance. The designs can easily be adapted to meet specific needs or to fit in with the style of your house or other landscaping features.
Installing different designs requires different techniques. You can find what you need by following the cross-references in the Portfolio pages in the Guide to Installation, or by skimming the Guide. If you continue to improve your landscape by adding more than one design, you’ll find that many basic techniques are reused from one project to the next. You might want to start with one of the smaller, simpler designs. Gradually, you’ll develop the skills and confidence to do any project you choose.
Most of the designs in this book can be installed in a weekend or two; some will take a little longer. Digging planting beds, building retaining walls, and erecting fences and arbors can be strenuous work. If you lack the time or energy for the more arduous installation tasks, consider hiring a teenager to help out. Local landscaping services can provide any of the services you need help with.
MIDWEST HARDINESS ZONES
The map here, based on one developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, divides the region according to minimum winter temperatures and assigns “zone” numbers to those temperature bands. All but a handful of plants in this book will survive the lowest temperatures in Zones 4, 5, and 6. (Alternatives for those that don’t are usually provided in the Plant Profiles.) If you live in Zone 3, however, you should ask at a local nursery for advice about suitable substitutes for those plants not reliably hardy in your zone.
Seasons in Your Landscape
One of the rewards of landscaping is watching how plants change through the seasons. During the dark winter months, you look forward to the bright, fresh flowers of spring. Then the lush green foliage of summer is transformed into the blazing colors of fall. Perennials that rest underground in winter can grow head-high by midsummer, and hence a flower bed that looks flat and bare in December becomes a jungle in July.
To illustrate typical seasonal changes, we’ve chosen one of the designs from this book (see page) and shown here how it would look in spring, summer, fall, and winter. As you can see, this planting looks quite different from one season to the next, but it always remains interesting. Try to remember this example of transformation as you look at the other designs in this book. There we show how the planting will appear in one season and call attention to any plants that will stand out at other times of the year.
The task of tending a landscape also changes with the seasons. Below we’ve noted the most important seasonal jobs in the annual work cycle.
Spring
Crocuses, daffodils, and other spring bulbs start blooming in April in the Midwest region, a welcome sign of the end of a long winter. Soon it’s time to start mowing the lawn, and by the end of May all the trees have fresh new leaves. Many shrubs and perennials, such as the yellow azalea, blue false indigo, and purple Siberian iris shown here, bloom in spring. Others that will bloom in summer or fall are just low mounds of foliage now.
Do a thorough garden cleanup about the time the bulbs bloom. Remove last year’s perennial flower stalks and tattered foliage, cut ornamental grasses to the ground, prune shrubs and trees as needed, renew the mulch, and neaten the edges between lawn and beds.
Summer
In summer, flowering perennials, such as the white and purple coneflowers, lilies, and coreopsis shown here, add spots of color to the otherwise green landscape. To coax as many flowers as possible from these plants and to keep the garden tidy, cut or shear off older blossoms as they fade. Summer weather is typically hot and humid throughout this region, but droughts are not uncommon. Water new plantings at least once a week during dry spells, and water older plants, too, if the soil gets so dry that they wilt. Pull any weeds that sprout up through the mulch; this is easiest when the soil is moist from rain or watering.
Fall
Fall foliage season lasts for a month or so in the Midwest region, starting in mid- to late September. Trees and shrubs such as the serviceberry, burning bush, and azalea shown here paint the landscape in shades of red, orange, pink, purple, gold, and yellow. Meanwhile, fall-blooming perennials such as asters and chrysanthemums, or the Japanese anemones and October plants shown here, produce colorful flowers that stay fresh-looking for weeks in the cool, crisp autumn weather.
Sometime in October, the first hard frost will kill tender plants to the ground, signaling the time for fall cleanup. Toss frosted annuals on the compost pile. You can cut perennials and grasses down now or wait until spring. Rake fallen leaves into a pile or bin and save them to use as mulch in spring.
Winter
In winter, when plants are dormant and snow covers the ground, you appreciate the evergreen foliage of conifers, such as the juniper shown here, and the twigs and bark of deciduous trees and shrubs. Clumps of rustling grass or shrubs and trees with bright berries are welcome in winter, too.
Spray broad-leaved evergreens with anti-desiccant before the weather gets too cold, and build burlap shelters around any young or exposed evergreens that need extra protection. Once the ground freezes, spread some pine boughs or coarse mulch over newly planted perennials to keep them from frost-heaving. During the winter, if a heavy snow or an ice storm snaps or crushes some shrubs, you can trim away the broken parts as soon as convenient, but if plants get frozen during a severe cold spell, wait until spring to assess the damage before deciding how far to cut them back.
As Your Landscape Grows
Landscapes change over the years. As plants grow, the overall look evolves from sparse