Low Maintenance Landscape Design Ideas for reducing landscaping maintenance time and costs

Low Maintenance Landscape Design

Ideas for reducing landscaping maintenance time and costs

Low maintenance landscapes must be planned ahead of time. Many homeowners make the mistake of piecing their yard together here and there. This typically creates a landscape that requires more time and money to maintain than was anticipated. The best way to avoid this problem is to hire a professional landscape designer or architect to plan out your garden with reduced maintenance in mind.

Simplicity of DesignLandscaping experts agree that a simple design is the key to a low maintenance landscape. Christopher Starbuck, an Associate Professor for the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri Extension, says, "Simplicity is characteristic both of good design and low-maintenance landscapes. Eliminate frills such as statues and water features, or design them for easy care and maintenance." Let the landscaping professional that you choose to work with know up front that you would like a simple, low-maintenance landscape.

Low Maintenance PlantingAccording to Robert F. Brzuszek, an Assistant Extension Professor for The Department of Landscape Architecture at Mississippi State University, a low maintenance landscape must have the right size plant in the right place. If your designer keeps this in mind it will help you avoid constant pruning. Brzuszek also recommends planting in masses because plants are easier to care for and mow around when grouped. For the most success, mass plants with similar light, water and care needs.

MulchingSkip Richter, the director of the Travis County AgriLife Extension (Texas A&M), recommends mulching as a way to reduce landscape maintenance needs.

Benefits of mulching:

• Acts as a weed barrier
• Holds in moisture, which reduces watering
• Releases nutrients into the soil
• Improves the appearance of garden beds

What’s Out There to Include National ASLA Design Award Winners

The What’s Out There (WOT) database of the nation’s designed landscapes has grown considerably since its launch four years ago. State-specific initiatives have added more than 150 sites in Maine and similar efforts are underway for Texas and Virginia – there are currently more than 1,500 sites, 10,000 images and 750 designer profiles in the database.

More recently, Postmodernist was added as a landscape design style and WOT has been optimized for smartphones and similar mobile devices (it even includes GPS-enabled What’s Nearby function that locates all landscapes in the database within a 25-mile radius of a given location). Now, ASLA Design Award-winning projects will also be included, a move spurred in part by threats to more recent works of landscape architecture and architecture (think of the current controversy with MoMA’s building expansion plans).

(upper): Byxbee Park's shell path and teardrop shaped berms, both of

which have been altered; photo by Peter Richards, 1991. (lower):

Lakewood Garden Mausoleum at Minneapolis's Lakewood Cemetery,

designed by Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc. and recipient of the

2013 ASLA Award of Excellence in Design; photo courtesy Coldspring.

SinceWhat’s Out There was established in 2009, the criteria for inclusion has largely been limited to works designed and built prior to 1976 (the nation’s Bicentennial); places eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places or designated as a National Historic Landmark; or landscapes completed by someone whose career is complete. But unfortunately there are many sensitive, threatened landscapes that would benefit from the exposure that What’s Out There can provide but that don’t fit the criteria. For example, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, TX, designed by Peter Walker & Partners and recognized with a Design Award of Honor in 2004, is being bombarded by reflected light from its glass-clad neighbor, Museum Tower. And just last year, Byxbee Park in Palo Alto, designed by Hargreaves Associates with artists Peter Richards and Michael Oppenheimer and recipient of an Honor Award in 1993, was irrevocably altered when many of the park’s iconic teardrop-shaped hillocks were shaved down and a shell-paved path was removed for easier maintenance.

So after consultation with area experts, the CEO Roundtable (a group of firm leaders who meet regularly to share insights into the changing issues that affect the profession of landscape architecture), and TCLF Board members who are practicing landscape architects, TCLF decided to include all built, US-based national ASLA Design award-winning projects in the database. TCLF staff will begin with the most recent years and work backward through ASLA’s official list of recipients, which dates back to 1981.

“The future of our designed landscape legacy depends on informed stewards,” said TCLF Board Member and landscape architect Mario Nievera, a Palm Beach- and New York-based practitioner who served on the National ASLA Professional Awards Jury between 2011 and 2013. “Each addition to What’s Out There is yet another valuable resource for stewards.”

What’s Out There was conceived as a living, growing database, and further refinements and additions are often being explored. If there is something else you think we should consider, please contact What’s Out Thereprogram manager Courtney Spearman with your feedback, thoughts and ideas.