Dave81NJ
Full Member
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:56 pm

Help with Landscape Design Idea for this House

Hi all,

We bought this house exactly a year ago and I am struggling with ideas for the landscaping design of the house I show pictures of below. Left side of it is OK (in my opinion, but if you have better ideas, please share), but the right side needs help. Those 3 trees are a mess. Any ideas? I kind of like having tall trees on that side, some evergreens.

This side of the house gets the morning sun until about 12 noon. I believe we are Zone 6 (Wayne, NJ 07470)

Thank you and your input is appreciated.
20180608_080600.jpg
20180608_080646.jpg

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

For me, I like designing my own landscaping, so it is uniquely personal and mine.

Re yours so far: It is quite unbalanced with almost all of the tall trees/shrubs on one side, and on that side the lower level windows (which I assume the house has) are completely hidden. Everything is in one straight row and is trimmed geometrically. Looks very stiff and unnatural. Houses are by nature boxes. It really improves their looks to do your landscaping in big curves. So you want a curving edge, wide enough to have some groupings of plants, not just a straight line, and a nice mixture. To have some evergreens is nice, but you don't need everything evergreen, especially not conifers. There's lots of nice broadleaf evergreens like mountain laurel, azalea, rhododendron, daphne, inkberry, Oregon holly grape (mahonia), bearberry, etc. But it's nice to have some fall color and some flowers. Here's a post I did on planning a four season garden https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/ ... hp?t=35084 This was written for someone in zone 7, but I think pretty much all the plants mentioned in it would be fine in zone 6 also.

It really helps to use native shrubs and plants. They will be much hardier and lower maintenance for you as well as providing habitat for birds, butterflies, etc. One of my favorite native shrubs is viburnum, with beautiful and very fragrant flowers in spring and good fall color. Other possibilities are serviceberry/ June berry , New Jersey tea, snow berry, coral berry ....

Look around your neighborhood at what other people have planted. Look for inspiration pictures:

Image

Image

Image

Dave81NJ
Full Member
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:56 pm

Thank you so much for your thoughts. Very nice examples of landscape designs, especially 1st and 3rd one. Does it make sense to hire someone over internet for them (or you) to create a design and I would plant?


rainbowgardener wrote:For me, I like designing my own landscaping, so it is uniquely personal and mine.

Re yours so far: It is quite unbalanced with almost all of the tall trees/shrubs on one side, and on that side the lower level windows (which I assume the house has) are completely hidden. Everything is in one straight row and is trimmed geometrically. Looks very stiff and unnatural. Houses are by nature boxes. It really improves their looks to do your landscaping in big curves. So you want a curving edge, wide enough to have some groupings of plants, not just a straight line, and a nice mixture. To have some evergreens is nice, but you don't need everything evergreen, especially not conifers. There's lots of nice broadleaf evergreens like mountain laurel, azalea, rhododendron, daphne, inkberry, Oregon holly grape (mahonia), bearberry, etc. But it's nice to have some fall color and some flowers. Here's a post I did on planning a four season garden https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/ ... hp?t=35084 This was written for someone in zone 7, but I think pretty much all the plants mentioned in it would be fine in zone 6 also.

It really helps to use native shrubs and plants. They will be much hardier and lower maintenance for you as well as providing habitat for birds, butterflies, etc. One of my favorite native shrubs is viburnum, with beautiful and very fragrant flowers in spring and good fall color. Other possibilities are serviceberry/ June berry , New Jersey tea, snow berry, coral berry ....

Look around your neighborhood at what other people have planted. Look for inspiration pictures:

Image

Image

Image



Return to “Landscaping”