Shade Garden Design

By definition, a shade garden is a garden planted beneath the tree(s) in the shade. Such a garden has to be designed with careful planning and great care- particularly when it comes to preparing the soil. Many do-it-yourselfers make the mistake of tilling the soil too much. They assume that digging deep into the earth will give plants as much room as possible to grow. What they do not consider is the danger this presents to nearby trees. Digging too next to a tree will probably result cutting one or more essential roots. To avoid this, do yourself a favor and hire a landscape architect with expertise in both shade garden design and professional tree preservation.

We recommend you do this based on the nature of trees. As some of the largest organisms on the planet, they are much more than what you see above the ground. No matter how tall they are, much of what you see is nothing compared to the vast, extensive network that fans out underground beneath the trunk. In most cases, it is actually longer and wider than the tree is tall. Any shade garden you design that requires digging around a tree hast to be installed with the utmost care.

It is unfortunate when an individual installs his or her own shade garden yourself and inadvertently cuts one or more tree roots in the process. If the root is a vital artery to the tree, it can easily weaken the tree to the point it becomes vulnerable to disease and eventually dies. This may take several years, so many times people do not even remember what they did to harm the tree, and call us asking why the trees around their shade garden are suddenly turning yellow from fungus and slowly dying right before their eyes. There is little we can do at this point because a tree takes a long time to die, and it does not look pretty as it dies. The damage to your property value this sad sight can cause is far more expensive than the investment you can make now, before this happens, in professional shade garden design.

A shade gardens that is installed by a landscape architect will both ensure the life of your trees and actually look better from an aesthetic standpoint. A far greater plant selection is available to you through landscapers with advanced training in botany and access to plants from all over the world. These professionals know which shade resistant species grow best in the Houston climate. These species will have little or no competition from other plants when they are planted in the right places with the right professional methods. Other plants, and even grasses, will often only grow in direct sunlight, so your shade garden will remain healthy and vibrant provided it is designed and installed professionally from the beginning.

One thing is needed; though, which you will find nowhere else but a company with advanced landscaping know-how, and that is irrigation and drainage control. You do not want to rely upon a garden center who claims to know irrigation and drainage for your shade garden design. This is again due to the complexities involved in doing what needs to be done without harming surrounding trees. Our professionals are experts in tree preservation and even go so far as to use special equipment and proprietary engineering methods to tunnel under tree roots and dig radically around the tree so as to build an irrigation and drainage system that is 100 percent tree-friendly

It is therefore well worth the extra time and money it takes to have your shade garden designed by professionals correctly from the get go.