Low Maintenance Design

What can you to do create a low maintenance landscape design?

A landscape with a design for low maintenance can easily be yours. And it doesn’t have to come at the cost of a bland, boring yard. All it takes is some knowledge about the right plants and techniques. The goals are basically the same as for any other landscape design, except we focus on using materials that reduce the Big Four of ongoing maintenance: watering, trimming, weeding and mulching,” says Jeff Halper, landscape design specialist with Exterior Worlds.

Choices are at the center piece of the process
• Choose drought-resistant plants, like pampas grass, Plumbago, and Lantan. You might even choose older rose varieties, which are hardier than modern large-flowered hybrids.
• Stay away from plants, such as azaleas, that are susceptible to diseases or insect problems.
• Maximize your seasonal color by installing flowers in planters, urns or bowls to lower the costly replacements season to season.
• Avoid plants that need continuous pruning, like boxwood and dwarf yaupons (often used in hedges).
• Mulching can be eliminated by using gravel, which rarely needs to be replaced.
• The use of gravel instead of mulch also cuts down on weeds and helps retains soil.
• Use ground covers that don’t need regular pruning and will cover the ground so that weeds are controlled. This type of ground cover is another choice that eliminates or reduces mulching.

A common problem:
A common mistake is to choose plants that look perfect the day you plant them, but then they take over the space. Thus you create an ongoing maintenance task. A professional Houston landscape designer will help you with this issue.

Even drought resistant plants require some irrigation, water is still essential. An irrigation system on a timer eliminates the need to move sprinklers around and rush around to water at just the right time. Since a little water for a long time is healthiest for plants, you might consider investing in a drip irrigation system. The latest studies show that in the U.S. there are more than 30 million acres of lawn, making grass our #1 irrigated crop. In these days when conservation—of natural resources and your personal resources—is all the rage, now is a good time to consider some alternatives that will save time, money and energy.
High-end residences in Houston and the surrounding areas, such as Bellaire, West University and the Memorial Villages of Piney Point Village, Bunker Hill Village and Hunter Creek Village, have been turning to Exterior Worlds for landscaping ideas and design services, including our design for low maintenance, since 1987. Call us at 713-827-2255 for customized solutions to your landscape design needs.

Lawn Aeration

Why should I aerate my lawn?

There are many other benefits from aeration; increases the activity of microorganisms that promote detaching, increases water infiltration improving drainage and reducing harmful fungi, increase the earth worm population all of these things work together in a synergic relationship to give you a better lawn. Core aeration also reduces fertilizer and pesticide run off which helps the environment and ensures your are getting the most from you applications.

Compacted soil can be even worse in areas that have standing water from existing drainage problems. Compaction greatly reduces the pore space within the soil that would normally hold air. The roots of any grass require oxygen to grow and absorb nutrients and water from the soil. If your soil is compacted the pore spaces are reduced and the amount of air, water and nutrients is reduced. This reduction can greatly impact the quality of turf by impacting the nutrient uptake rate and water infiltration rate.

How do I aerate my lawn?
Core lawn aeration involves the removal of small soil plugs or cores out of the lawn. You can do this manually or by hand, but it is normally accomplished by a machine that has hollow tines or spoons mounted on a disk or drum. This is where the “core” aspect comes in: it extracts 1/2 to 3/4 inch diameter cores of soil and deposits them on the lawn. The holes are typically 1-3 inches deep and 2-6 inches apart. Spike type machines pushes solid spikes or tines into the soil without removing a plug. This process is not as effective because it can contribute to compaction. The coring process is the best way to reduce compaction of heavily used turf and to control thatch buildup.

In Houston, the best time to aerate St. Augustine is early spring and late summer. Bermuda grasses and Zoysia grass are best aerated during June and July. During these periods is when the lawn is in a period of vigorous growth and will recover quickly from aeration. If you are planning to over seed your lawn be sure to aerate at least 6 weeks before seeding. If not, your irrigation system or rain water could potentially wash a higher concentration of seeds into the cored holes and creating a spotted lawn.

Japanese Garden Design

What are the basics of Japanese garden designs?
The first decision to be made in designing a Japanese Garden is to decide what “themes” will run throughout the garden. There may be combinations of paths that create a journey through a winding path were there are seating areas for quite contemplation, meditation or entertainment. Artistic focal points of rock may be used to enlighten and excite the spirit of the observer. Paths, bridges, and walkways create diverse experiences. As an overall design intention, remember you are miniaturizing the cosmos in a naturalistic way.

A Japanese Garden is full of mystery, nature and serenity. Just as landscape gardens of the West followed historic points of reference such as Classical Garden Design, Traditional Garden Design, English Garden Design on up threw Modern Garden Design, the Japanese garden tradition has a history that followed the trends and lifestyles of their location and times. It would be very pretentious to copy directly a Japanese Garden for Houston, although there was actually a style of Japanese Garden Design that did just that. We will highlight how you could build and apply the Japanese or Zen Garden style to your own home in Houston Texas.

Japanese Garden Features Deep philosophical and spiritual interpretations and nuances were intertwined with Japanese Garden design but we can view overall meanings and structures to understand, interpret and bring Japanese Garden design into the modern day context for our own beauty, enjoyment and renewal. Japanese gardens create themes and are extensions of the architecture of the home. They are designed with very specific view points so that subconsciously universal, spiritual, or passive themes could be experienced.

Japanese Garden Design and Materials Stone-use to represent water such as a dry creek beds, ponds or a beach entry. Here various round river rocks could be used from plain brown rock special to Mexican beach pebble black or white specialty rocks. Boulders can be used in upright positions to represent mountains or be submerged to create more natural stone ledges or flat plateaus. Be careful with being to literal-stones and boulders still need to be positioned in a natural way so when viewed the composition looks natural.

Structures- such as an entertainment pavilion for private or public use. This could be a deck or platform made of wood, metal or stone. Ordinary outdoor furniture for entertainment or a meditative experience could be achieved using low benches or stone benches and simple outdoor sculptures or stones for viewing. Although borrowing from the tea ceremony experience this could be a place to enjoy wine and foods while creating a contemplative or renewing experience for the eye.

Fences - Rather than a typical fence of cedar pickets, wood, or brick and wood which simply serve to provide security a fence could vary in materials, detailing and heights. For example, pickets could be installed as panels between posts with a detail strip and cap pieces could be pyramidal or circular reflecting garden scenes. A solid brick fence could create interest and repetition by adding equally spaced metal lattice panels.

Plants - In the Japanese garden, plants are used not only for recreating nature, echoing larger themes or nature but can also serve as focal points. Japanese Maples and Bamboo are great focal point plants that work well in the Houston climate include.

Contemporary Landscape Design

What is contemporary landscape design?
Not quite Modern landscape design and not quite classic landscape design but a melding of the two for sure. Contemporary Landscape design uses modern materials in its application but still has a warmer feel and usually more detail than the pure modern design. For example a modern concrete patio may have a completely slick finish with no details in its finish or just smooth were a contemporary concrete patio might have some scoring texture and depth of color but have the same design layout pattern. A contemporary landscape may have a more traditional approach to plantings with curves and groupings of natural planting patterns but much more simplified than the English landscape garden and in contrast to the modern landscape having a pure approach with only two or three blocks of planting.

What are the design principles involved in Contemporary Landscape Design?
Contemporary landscape design encompasses design principles of axial relationships with modern principles of form-follows-function so it is really classic modernism! This same approach applies to materials as well; there is a much more conservative more traditional approach to Contemporary selection of materials.

How do we create a Contemporary Landscape Design if it’s a cross between Modern Landscape Designs and the more classic?
As in Modern Landscape Design, it is still important that form follows function. The best way to think of Contemporary Landscape design is creating places that respond to today’s lifestyle with the beauty, simplicity and refinement of natural and modern materials and technologies currently available. We are bringing the functionality of modern space together with the warmth of traditional materials.If it’s not Modern, what is important about today’s Technologies in Contemporary Landscape Design? For example concrete no longer has to look stark or plain which may be desirable in the purely modern approach. We can now add multiple colors, textures, troweling and finishes creating a warm inviting effect. In contrast, there are many stone Vanier’s available on mesh that allow us to create a more modern finish than we would have been able to create in the past with sections of larger cut stone. One of the stylistic trend shifts that has taken place is brushed stainless steel is no longer considered modern, so now we see brushed metals making there way into more classic design applications.What would you consider appropriate for materials

Contemporary Landscape Design materials?
I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules here except to consider simplicity and ease of maintenance. The difference as explained above in the way we layout plants could be explained as using more “natural” bands than the purely more geometric approach usually incorporated into Modern Landscape Design. In Contemporary Landscape Design don’t shy away from using planters for color and accent plants since we want to create a sense of more scale and detail than the purely modern approach.

Final tips on Contemporary Landscape Design:
• Outdoor patios and decks for living. The California mantra applies here, “create outdoor spaces for living.” This idea originated with Modern Landscape Design and now is the norm. Extend the inside out; create plenty of different seating opportunities, and interesting focal features such as urns with color plants or small ornamental trees that can be accented with night lighting.
• Outdoor kitchens. As centers for outdoor entertainment as well as a focal feature. Outdoor kitchens can extend the indoor living space outside as well as create the second kitchen of the southern home to be used regularly.
• Luxury swimming pools. When it comes to integrating new technologies and the application of natural materials, luxury swimming pools give us the ability to really push the boundaries. With new concrete deck finishes available, various coping materials such as composite stone or cultured stones there is ample opportunity for warm finishes. Contemporary swimming pools can have built in water features creating an outdoor water fountain that eliminates building a separate water feature while adding functional, usable art as part of the overall pools function.

Don’t be afraid, go Contemporary
Remember-you are creating modern space for today’s busy lifestyles with classic and simplistic finishes available through new technologies now go for it!