Landscape Design | Deborah Silver & Co.

Growing On

Picture this, from fifteen years ago. Nicole and Ross had a mass planting of yews original to their house right up against the foundation of the right side of the house, and enclosing the front porch. They had gotten large and leggy, as yews frequently do. The house has a distinctively low and wide profile that was overwhelmed by all those yews. The house could barely breathe. The only other landscape elements existing were trees-a large gleditsia, or honey locust, and a very large and imposing American elm.

I told them we could move the yews away from the front porch and foundation, and plant them in a spot that would provide a little privacy from to their front porch and door without looming over them. I couldn’t wait to dig them out and move them. We also removed the concrete sidewalk that came from the drive, and ran along the near foundation to the front porch. We closed off that side entrance to the front door by moving one of the iron panels from the center front of the porch to the side. I envisioned a new walkway that would lead visitors to the middle front of the porch, placing them face to face with the front door.

There would be some private space in front of the porch. The trunk of the big honey locust would provide a sculptural element.

The front yard was a large grassy area completely open to the street. Those yews were all different sizes and heights, but we hoped to groom and prune them to encourage them to grow better at the ground level in the future. In an effort to speed up the process, we installed parallel row of new and smaller yews on the inside, to hide the bare legs you see in the picture above. We planted boxwood next to the foundation of the house. This smaller growing evergreen would not overpower their low slung house or windows. Foundation plantings need to be respectful of the architecture that sits on that foundation. A landscape should feature the most prominent feature, not engulf it. The location of these yews had everything to do with a capped pipe sticking up out of the grass – flagged in the above picture. It could not be moved or removed, so we landscaped to disguise it.

At the end of this renovation, we installed a stone walkway with concrete tiles, running in front of an old cedar adjacent to the drive. I placed and planted a fern leaf beech in the lawn, and a tricolor beech to the right of the picture window. It did not seem like much at the time, but growing time would favor what had been done.

A month ago they called. Everything had grown a lot, and some things not so much-could I come and take a look. The boxwood had grown so much that the stone path to the front door looked and functioned more like bed edging. The big honey locust had gotten a lot bigger, meaning that moss had all but overtaken the grass and the stone landing in front of the porch. The tricolor beech had grown in handsomely.

The interior row of smaller yews had not fared so well. The shade from the locust, beech, and the old yews had about done them in. Even though the original yews were as leggy as ever, they now completely blocked the view of the front yard.

The American elm is now of enormous size. It must be better than 80 feet tall, and the canopy casts an enormous amount of shade in all directions. To the left in this picture, a white pine that had also grown out over the lawn. Behind the white pine, a huge branch of the honey locust hanging over the yews.

The south face of the yews was more than decent, as it had much better light. They had grown several feet taller, and they did a great job of screening the pipe.

But the house side view presented a much bleaker picture.Yews are amazingly shade tolerant, but there is a limit to what they can take. A number of the smaller ones had been pruned, or browsed to death by deer. The arborvitae at the end of the yews was in much the same shape-too much shade for too long had taken its toll. It was too big and in too poor a shape to make it worthwhile to move.

It did not take long to get those yews out. Nor did it appear that something was missing from the landscape. The shade has become a major element of the landscape. The trees and the shade-atmospheric.

The biggest surprise was the fern leaf beech. That 4 foot tall tree had grown incredibly tall and wide in 15 years. It seemed like the landscape needed little beyond what the beautiful trees were already doing there.

The trees are large enough now to provide some privacy from the road, and frame the view out to the treed lot across the street. There is a long view now from the house, out. We did add enough soil to level the ground, and we seeded the area with a sun-shade grass mix. However, I feel sure that the moss will reclaim the area from the grass in short order.

We enlarged the sidewalk by 18″ from the drive to the porch terrace. Once we got close to the locust, we quit digging for a base for the stone. I had no intentions of cutting into the surface roots of the tree. We had some flagstone stockpiled at the landscape yard that was a pretty good match. Once the surface of the stone ages, and the moss fills the gravel joints, it will be difficult to tell that the walk had ever been disturbed.

The view from the drive is inviting. The wider walkway makes it possible for two people to walk side by side.

The landscape lights were readily relocated, as were a trio of vintage concrete mushrooms. They have taken on the job of screening the pipe in the grass.The tricolor beech, and a pair of vintage stone ravens on pedestals are beautiful and distinctive.

The view from the street will be greatly improved once their arborist comes to cut the dead wood out of the locust, and the suckers from the base of that incredible elm. The lower trunk of that elm is spectacular, and will easily be seen from the walk and the street. I know my clients will continue to take great care of all of their trees. The healthy American elm is ample evidence of that.

Posted on: September 4, 2018 19 Comments

Filed Under: trees, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, Landscape Design Tagged With: honey locust, fern leaf beech, American elm, American arborvitae, tricolor beech

One View At A Time

The rear south side of this yard is the last leg of the landscape renovation that has been going on here for a number of years. It is a good way to work-tackling one view at a time. The time to let the landscape speak back is time well spent. It is very hard to visualize what a two dimensional design drawing will look like, fleshed out into the third dimension with plants. After 30 years, I am able to visualize what is to come fairly well, but I have been surprised plenty of times. The surprises that dismay me are equal to the surprises that delight me. No one who keeps a landscape bats 1000. Nature can and does throw a wicked fast curve ball. But in this case, the curve ball was a new 2 story garage on the neighboring property. The building is located very close to the property line. My client realized she would have to add screening, to make her view of it less prominent.

The only plant of any size on that side is a beautiful older tricolor beech. That tree is providing a lot of shelter from the neighboring view up high. Some of the lower branches have died, or been cut back out of the way of the grass path. In an effort to provided some screening at a lower level, we added a pair of 2 1/2 inch caliper tricolors. All three trees will eventually will grow together as one. The original tree had a decided lean to it, so the new trees will help to provide some ballast on the back side. Deciduous trees are a great choice for providing screening that needs to be tall. The trunk of a tree takes up next to no room at the ground level, and the branches, twigs and leaves filter out an unwelcome view up high.

We planted four columnar katsura trees on either side of the beech conglomerate. Planted as fairly small trees, they will grow skyward at a fairly fast rate. The upright heads will grow together, and make a handsome hedge high above the ground. Why the upright yews near the fence? This variety can easily grow to six feet tall. The color and texture of the yews is quite similar to that of the neighbor’s arborvitae. Once the yews reach the height of the wood fence, the two evergreens will take over some of the screening job in the winter. Why yews instead of the matching variety of arborvitae? The yews will be much more tolerant of the shade cast by the katsuras.

Emerald Green arborvitae do grow quite tall, but once they get to fourteen or fifteen feet, the growth slows down. They also become susceptible to damage from heavy snow loads. It is easy to compare the height and scale of the deciduous trees to the Emerald Green arborvitae in the above picture. Only a deciduous tree will completely screen that two story garage.

From the opposite side of the yard, it is easy to see how prominently the neighbor’s new garage figures in this landscape. The katsura trees will fill in the gap between the beech, and a maple in the neighbor’s yard. Small urban properties present a particular challenge to the landscape design. The ground space is limited, and the views to neighboring properties are many. Some years ago we addressed the screening on the east-west axis. The six foot tall hedge of Green Mountain boxwood pictured on the left of the photo above, was planted directly adjacent to the leading edge of the terrace. A screen that is planted near to the space to be screened does not have to be that tall. If my clients are on their terrace, that space is private. From inside and upstairs, a hedge of Venus dogwood screen the view into the rear neighbor’s yard.

Venus dogwoods top out at about 20 feet tall. Tall enough to blur the view of the power lines, and the next door neighbor’s yard. Note that the tree closest to the lot line in in the curve still sits proud of the power lines. There are few things more discouraging than having the power company trim a tree away from the lines. They are concerned with keeping the power corridor clear, not making artful or judicious pruning cuts.

The dogwood has a loose and graceful habit of growth. They do not provide a solid green wall. The property to the west was fairly well covered within 3 years of planting.

The boxwood provide a solid screen six feet off the ground plane. The high and low combination of the dogwood and the boxwood do a great job of providing a small yard with some privacy.

We did plant arborvitae at the end of the driveway. They extend into the rear yard the length of the garage wall opposite to them. This place is not a place to linger. It is a hallway connecting one place to another. The solid and lush evergreen wall makes for a simple and quiet transition from the driveway to the private part of the landscape.

One day, many years ago, an effort to provide for screening and privacy for another client via the landscape looked like this. The neighbors house sits quite a bit higher that this property. The row of large round yews behind the new trees were transplanted there from the front yard of the client’s house. A group of densiformis yews were planted on the slope above the stone wall.

Not so many years later, this side garden is entirely private, courtesy of a group of the columnar carpinus “Frans Fontaine”. The neighboring house has just about disappeared from view. Even in the winter, the densely twiggy structure of the trees provides good screening. Deciduous trees, especially of the columnar form, are a great choice for creating a walled garden.

Posted on: August 29, 2018 12 Comments

Filed Under: Woody Plants, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, Landscape Design Tagged With: columnar katsura, columnar carpinus, screening, screening trees, Landscape Design

Designing With Hydrangeas

Lots of gardeners in my zone has a love affair going on with hydrangeas. As well they should. They are rangy growing shrubs that deliver a heart stopping show of big luscious blooms from early to late summer, provided they get some regular water, and a decent amount of sun. It is that easy to have a spectacular show of flowers in the landscape in late summer. Even the fall color on the blooms is good.The Annabelles start blooming in June, and are followed up on into August with cultivars big and small – too numerous to list or review. Every season seems to bring a new collection of hydrangea cultivars to market. It is easy to understand why. They give a lot, and do not ask for much. The oak leaf hydrangeas are equally stunning both in leaf and in bloom, and are incredibly shade tolerant. Our hydrangea season is late this year. Think back to that April we had that was snowy and cold the entire month – you get the picture. My overgrown Limelight hydrangeas needed a strong pruning this spring. I could not tell now that they had been pruned down to 14″ above grade. They are blooming lavishly. They make me look like an expert gardener. In spite of what I do or do not do, they thrive.

Hydrangeas are easy to grow, but they can be difficult to site in the landscape. They are big growing show offs that don’t naturally play well with neighboring plants. A single Limelight hydrangea can grow easily to 7 feet tall, and 7 feet wide. Even the smaller growing cultivars have giant flowers. They can easily become the elephant in the room-impossible to ignore. It takes some thought to integrate them into a garden, or a landscape. I am not so much a fan of their woody legs, so I try to place them where that bottom third of the plant is not so much a part of the overall view. I also favor planting blocks of them, meaning I like lots of them as opposed to planting a single plant. They want to be the star of the summer garden, so why not let them show off? Masses of summer blooming hydrangeas speak to summer in the Michigan garden in a way that no other plant does.

My limelight hydrangeas at home have a long bank of planter boxes placed in front of them. Those boxes are planted with nicotiana alata lime, and nicotiana mutabilis. The boxes hide those long woody hydrangea stems coming out of the ground. The delicate airy mass of nicotiana flowers interact in a contrasting way with those giant hydrangea blooms. The hydrangea flower backdrop makes it easier to see the nicotiana from a distance.

The foliage of the nicotiana repeats the big leaves of the hydrangea. The large leaves are a good foil for the diminutive boxwood foliage. The simple mass of boxwood sets the stage for a late summer. Nothing can rival the excitement generated in the spring as the landscape roars back to life, but I look forward to this late summer display. On a 90 degree August day, this looks fresh and inviting. The hydrangeas are part of a story.

As a designer, I have a concern about about how spaces come together, and read. Shrubs, perennials,annual plants, and containers have their contribution to make. The design issue is making sure all the various voices work together in some way. The green leaves of the Persian Lime in the center of the pot helps to balance the green of the hydrangea foliage. The big growing hydrangeas need some equally strong minded company. I did face down my limelight hydrangeas with an outside row of Little Limes. Was that a good idea? It is too soon to tell, as the Limelights were very hard pruned this spring, so they have fewer and larger flowers this year. This is only the second season for the Little Limes, so they are not yet full sized. They are actually quite different in coloration than Limelight.

This landscape project from last year features a long sweeping curve of upright yews. All that is visible from the street of the Incrediball hydrangeas are the flowers. An annual planting at the base of the yews provides another layer of interest.

Inside the Incrediball hydrangea hedge is a mass of Bobo hydrangea, also faced down with flowers. All those woody stems and leaves are sandwiched in between plants that reveal the best part of these big growing plants, and obscures the least interesting. Hydrangea Bobo is the smallest growing of this series, which means it is the easiest of the three to place. It is perfectly scaled at 3′-5′ tall for smaller gardens. Small spaces can easily be overwhelmed by big growing hydrangeas.

We planted several large masses of these on either side of a pool. The creamy green color of the flowers contrasts dramatically with the color of the water. This hydrangea grows large enough to just obscure the fact that the bed was originally terraced into two levels with large informally placed slabs of stone.

Though the grade does drop considerably and quickly from the pool to the water, the mass of low growing hydrangeas helps to soften the descent. The transition from the pool level to the lake level happens fast. The hydrangeas provide a reason to slow down, and linger.

The view of these hydrangeas, filtered with tall later blooming perennials and annuals, is a soft and informal look. Hydrangeas are stiff and static growing, and benefit from some airy companionship. Phlox have that same stiff habit of growth. In this arrangement, the phlox looks so much more relaxed, given a static growing plant that is so much larger growing.

There are those places where a single hydrangea can make a statement. This tree hydrangea, one of a pair, spends the winter in my landscape building, in a big plastic pot. In the spring, it is pruned, both on the top, and the roots, and planted back into this large box. A second pruning a month or six weeks later helps to provide a network of strong branches which will help support the blooms. The box is large enough to permit an under planting of euphorbia, petunias and variegated licorice. Seeing it yesterday for the first time since it was potted up in May was a treat. Part formal and part exuberant, it is everything a well grown hydrangea can be.

Posted on: August 21, 2018 37 Comments

Filed Under: Deborah Silver and Co Inc, Woody Plants, Landscape Design Tagged With: Limelight hydrangea on standard, hydrangea Bobo, hydrangeas, Hydrangea Limelight

A New Landscape

A client who built a new house was not so enamored with the landscape that resulted. I understand that what it means to be in that spot, as I have watched it happen plenty of times. Building a new house calls for lots of decisions, and incredible focus. The decision making on the landscape for a new house comes at a time when the client is exhausted from the effort of getting the interior spaces built and liveable. It is hard to maintain that concentration and energy to the very end of any project, much less a project of this scale. It can make sense to stand pat with a landscape until you have lived there long enough to figure out what you want from it. Once her house was built, she was interested in revisiting the landscape. I think she was surprised by how keen an interest she had in the out of doors. She walked out to meet me with a set of plans a year ago March.

The landscape in place was simply not to her taste. She wanted a much more formal design, with plantings in multiple layers. She wanted some punctuation with less formal elements, like roses and hydrangeas. I was fortunate in that she had spent a good deal of time collecting pictures of landscapes she liked. I client who can articulate what they like in one way or another is a good client. To my mind, there were two issues that stood out. It is a very large house positioned very close to the driveway. And the grade dropped dramatically from the front door to the drive, and from the south end to the north. The house was uncomfortably perched on top of a hill. The driveway location was a given. I thought the landscape needed to provide an ample space for the house to sit, and create a sense of depth.

My plan called for a pair of long rectangular parterres on either side of the front walk. The right hand parterre would dead end into the angled garage wall. To my mind, this creates the illusion that the landscape came first, and the garage second. An additional landscape planting on the far side of the drive court would repeat that linear run of evergreens from the house side, and would include a large sweeping bed of Little Lime Hydrangea. But the most dramatic change would be in the installation of low brick retaining walls with limestone caps. These walls would enable a flat space in front of the house, upon which a formal landscape could be built.

It is tough to spot those walls in the drawing, but this construction picture explains it. I very rarely design projects that we do not build, but my schedule was already booked out for quite some time. Her landscape and maintenance contractor is a very well respected company that I was confident would build the project with the same care and precision that I would. I was also interested in her interest and commitment to a beautiful landscape. So I took on the design portion, and turned the plans over to her contractor. I actually was surprised to find how much I liked having a project that I could watch come to life, without having to participate except in an advisory way. Schecter Landscaping did a terrific job of the layout, construction and planting.

I did go by on occasion, and I did draw some of the smaller areas with greater detail that I would have were I doing the installation. But all in all, I was delighted having a design only role. I took my crews several times to see the progress on the installation. The retaining wall on the lower left in the above picture is almost 3 feet tall. The house no longer feels like it is sliding down a hill.

Once the block wall was up, the planting was able to proceed. I like the preponderance of evergreens in the front, as the landscape will read every month of the year. The house has a number of complex shapes and angles, so the locations of the vertical arborvitae were determined by the shape and size of the parterres. Those trees are far enough away from the house that they do not obstruct views from the inside out.

The steps were replaced with rock faced limestone slabs, and the existing paver bricks were taken up and reset.

The evergreens read just as well from the house side as they do from the driveway. The empty space on the right in this picture eventually got 48″ by 48″ brick landings for a pair of large pots. The rest of the space has a single row of roses.To the bottom left is the walkway and steps which bisect the right hand parterre, and lead to the side door entrance.

The walk to the side door culminates in a small radiused terrace, large enough for a bench and a pot. The trio of wood boxes sit in a bed, which now has been planted with a collection of small stature summer blooming perennials.

All of the planted elements of the landscape were in place last summer. She was very pleased with the outcome, and so was I. We did install a collection of pots, which we planted both for fall and winter. But it would take a year before she would see anything of the hydrangeas.

They came in to bloom just a short time ago. The parterres are planted with hydrangea “Incrediball” – one of her favorite varieties. The opposite side of the drive is planted with Little Lime hydrangeas. It is already possible to see that the landscape has multiple layers.

The car park is flanked by 2 rectangles of ground reserved for seasonal plants. Elements of the landscape from the house side are repeated here, so the overall volume of landscape exceeds the volume of paving.