Tag Archives: landscape

Resilient Landscapes in Built Environments

How do you design a resilient landscape when our shared environment is under increasingly mounting stress? Here’s some of what I learned from landscape architect Lisa N. Cowan, PLA, SITES AP, at a Coastal Maine Botanic Garden class today.

Landscape Design for the Long Run

Resilient landscapes are designed from a holistic point of view, taking into account not just your property, but your neighborhood, community and region. The ingredients—including diverse plantings, efficient use and infiltration of water, habitat for people and wildlife, connection to the adjacent areas, small scale moments of nature, and climate change—combine to make a meaningful statement about resilience and shared values.

Because so much land has been disturbed for so many generations, every yard and every landscape matters, starting with yours. Your landscape can contribute to resilience and your lifestyle while supporting ecosystem structures and processes that provide us ecosystem services such as:

  • Air quality
  • Water quality and security
  • Wetland integrity
  • Biodiversity conservation
  • Forest resilience
  • Carbon sequestration
  • Economic diversity
  • Social and cultural well-being

From this big picture view, we work together to articulate your land use and resilience goals, evaluate the property, sketch out simple bubble diagrams and conceptual design sketches, fine tuning through discussion and further discovery until we have a plan that satisfies you.

Because a landscape is a living system, many variables come into play. We’ll need to be patient to see how the plan and implementation evolve over time, and adapt as necessary. Some level of maintenance will likely be required—depending on your goals—at least during the plant establishment period.

So, how do you want you make your landscape more resilient today? If you think we might be a good match, please get in touch and let’s talk it over!

Please follow and like us:

ROCKPORT’S HALIBUT POINT—INSPIRATION FOR NATIVE PLANT DESIGN

Where to start when figuring out what native plants to add to your landscape? How about a visit to Halibut Point State Park in Rockport, MA to visit one of many plant communities there?

Please follow and like us:

Turn Your Lawn in Pollinator Gardens and Wildlife Habitat

Check out our progress on the turf-to-habitat project in Seekonk, MA, like it if you like it and subscribe it you want to know more about native plant design and consulting in SE MA.

Please follow and like us:

FULFILL THE DREAM OF CREATING A POLLINATOR GARDEN

WHY NOT TURN YOU LAWN INTO A CERTIFIED HABITAT GARDEN FOR BUTTERFLIES, BEES, BIRDS?

Turning a lawn into certified pollinator habitat gardenWe’re helping a homeowner in Seekonk, MA fulfill her dream of turning most of her lawn into pollinator habitat. Collaborating through the iterative design, installation, and maintenance phases, the client herself has gotten earth under her fingernails and dirtied the knees of her jeans every step of the way.

In the 2020 season we designed and installed two crescent-shaped ornamental landscape beds for MA native trees, shrubs and perennials. In the spring of 2021 we’re expanding upon last year’s work by tying in a larger portion of the back yard lawn. Because we have time on our side before the arrival of native plant meadow kits from the Native Plant Trust, we’re using the sheet composting aka lasagna method of turning lawn into garden beds.

Using flags and garden hoses, we laid out the shape of the new planting area, tweaked it, then committed to it by laying down two layers of heavy cardboard that came from local bicycle and appliance stores. The cardboard keeps sunlight from the grass to keep it from growing.

On top of the cardboard we’ll be laying down high quality drip irrigation hoses, aka pipes, that will tie into the existing lawn irrigation system. The pop-up sprinkler heads of the zone where this section of pollinator bed is going were removed and capped to preserve water, water pressure, and associated financial costs. Continue reading

Please follow and like us:

SUSTAINABLE LAWNS, HEALTHY LANDSCAPES, WETLANDS AND WATER RESOURCES

 What’s so great about a great lawn?

  • Do you want a lawn that looks like a lush golf course? It’s going to cost you…and your neighbors, your town’s water quality and other natural resources. The typical best-in-the-neighborhood MA lawns are a mix of bluegrass, rye and fescue turf grasses. These are all cool season, non-native grasses that do not naturally do well here in our summer heat and droughts; these lawns need lots of time, energy and money to look as good as they do for as long as they do.
  • The conventional practice is to follow the conventional high-input “advice” of landscape chemical companies’ and landscape vendors’ marketing efforts, including expensive fertilizer, insect and weed killers, bacteria and fungus killers, plus frequent mowing and watering.
  • Your resulting “chem” lawn may look good, but it has negative and potentially hazardous impacts on your health and that of others; your wallet and that of others; and the wetland and ecosystems that filter pollutants from your water and mitigates flood damage, pollinates your food (everything we eat was once a plant), and provides natural settings for recreation and relaxation for you and others—among many other free but essential life services.
  • Add it all up and you may realize what many others already know: that a “chem” lawn is actually more expensive and damaging than you ever thought. So ask yourself, “Is it really worth working and paying for a perfect lawn?” “Why should I care?” and, “What are healthier alternatives that save me money and time?”

What’s a sustainable lawn and why would it benefit you?

    • SOIL AND WATER: Turf grasses naturally want to send their roots down about 6-12 inches into loamy topsoil that contains about 10% organic matter, such as compost. Established lawns want to be watered deeply (one inch of water) once a week, or one inch twice during hot weather. That way, their roots never dry out for extended periods and thus they don’t go into summer brownout/dormancy. Most irrigation systems are not programmed to water lawns on this kind of schedule. Instead, most water lightly several times a week, never delivering enough water to penetrate fully to the whole root system, so the water is largely wasted. What if you don’t have appropriate soil to support a robust lawn? See three bullet points below.
    • TEST YOUR WATERING SYSTEM: You want one inch of water per week for established laws, so how do you find out how much water is actually being delivered? Before you turn on your sprinkler or your irrigation system comes on, put out a bunch of clean cat food or tuna fish cans to collect water. (Ask your friends and neighbors if you don’t have your own supply). After the system runs, use a ruler to measure how much water is in each can. If it’s not a little over an inch—the ruler will displace some water and increase the reading on the ruler—increase the run time and test again. Repeat adjustments until you get about an inch.
    • SOIL TESTING: Get your soil tested to find out what kind of soil you have, your pH, your organic matter, and what amendments you can add to make your soil more ideal for your turf grasses. The most crucial part of soil testing is getting a truly representative sample. UMass has easy to follow recommendations for soil sampling, and they test soil for a reasonable fee. Learn more at https://ag.umass.edu/services/soil-plant-nutrient-testing-laboratory
    • IF YOU DON’T HAVE IDEAL SOIL:
      1. Follow the recommendations from your soil test.
      2. Adjust your expectations and know that any lawn is a living work in progress.
      3. Good or poor soil, add ¼ to ½ inch of compost to your lawn every year late in the fall, after your last mowing. Over the winter it will improve your soil quality and improve lawn health. Do this every year, along with allowing your mowed grass clippings to fall and decompose in place, and you will not need to spend time and money fertilizing.
      4. Lime in the fall only if your soil test results call for it.
      5. If you feel you must fertilize, NEVER FERTILIZE WITHIN 100 FEET OF A WETLAND, VERNAL POOL OR POTENTIAL VERNAL POOL (or according to your local bylaw specifications). Beyond 100 feet (or according to your local bylaw specifications) of a wetland, vernal pool or potential vernal pool, apply an organic, slow release fertilizer just one time—and never just before or during a heavy rain—to your lawn between April 15th and October 15th. Limit that application to a maximum of 1 pound of nitrogen per 1000 square feet.
        Organic fertilizers have non-water soluble nitrogen that releases to the soil at a steady rate over time. They help to build a healthy soil food web, as compared with conventional chemical fertilizers which are water soluble and result in nutrients (and your money) washing away as pollution into our waterways before they’re needed by your plants. A couple of readily available organic fertilizers are Espoma Garden-tone and Espoma Plant-tone. These are typically made of ground up feathers and bones rather than conventional petrochemicals.
      6. Consider lawn alternatives
        1. Instead of turf grasses, use native, low-input sedges. Pennsylvania sedge, for instance, needs mowing only once a year and is drought tolerant after getting established.
        2. Add white clover to your lawn seed mix. Clover moves nitrogen from the soil to the ground and makes it available to green up your lawn
        3. Turn part of your lawn into an ornamental planting bed. Include native plants that are well adapted to our native soils. If well planned and designed, you’ll be saving time and money, supporting pollinators, improving water quality and the environment.
      7. SUN: Pay close attention to how many hours of mid-day sun each area of your lawn gets. Get a high quality grass seed mix to match the sun exposure. You can do many things to improve your soil—but changing the amount of sun your lawn gets is usually a bigger undertaking.
      8. MOWING: Set your mower to cut no lower than three inches. Use a mulching blade and let the clippings fall onto the lawn, where their nutrients will recycle right back into your soil, increasing your soil’s organic matter for free. Also, save time and money by not raking your leaves in the fall. Just mow them with a mulching blade and without a grass catcher, and leave them to in place to decompose. Again, free organic matter. Note: If mowing leaves a thick layer of leaves, though, spread them out with a rake so the grasses can still get some sun.
      9. WEEDS: Weeds don’t stand a chance if your turf grasses are robust, aka appropriate for where they’re growing and therefore nice and dense; grown in good deep soil with proper nutrients, organic matter, soil chemistry, water and sun.
      10. INSECTS: Most insects, approximately 99% by number of species, are native insects that play a crucial role in the food web that supports our environment, that in turn supports people. Properly identifying and learning the life cycle of pests is the most important step in managing them. Many are beneficial. If you don’t want to learn about it, get help from a natural or organic horticulturist to learn if you have a normal amount of bugs or an infestation that needs management.
      11. BACTERIAL AND FUNGAL CONDITIONS: Most bacterial and fungal conditions in lawns occur because the lawn’s cultural conditions—including soil nutrients, pH and organic matter; sun exposure and water—do not favor a robust lawn planted with non-native, cool season grass species. You can spend lots of hazardous chemical resources and still not get the results you want.
      12. AERATING YOUR LAWN: Most lawns do not need to be aerated annually. Lawn areas that have high traffic have compacted soils that make it very difficult for grasses to thrive. Most of us are familiar with the fact that plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, but this is only what the plant does above ground. Plants’ roots do the opposite, taking oxygen from the tiny spaces between tiny soil particles. If the lawn soil is compacted or constantly wet, your turf grasses’ roots cannot get the oxygen they need to thrive, and the above-ground portion of the grasses will not do well. If you choose to aerate, do not use any device with a solid spike shape, as these will only compact your soil further. Instead, use a tool or machine that has cylindrical-shaped fittings that will remove plugs of soil. These greatly reduce compaction and bring oxygen into the soil for the roots.
      13. WHEN TO TOP DRESS OR INSTALL A NEW LAWN: The single best time by far is September, for a long list of reasons.

     

  • ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Please follow and like us:

TWO CHICKADEES WALK INTO A BAR…IN A SHARON FOREST

Carol Lundeen and Brenda Minihan as black-capped chickadees in the Sharon Garden Club's January 2019 presentation about the ecological harm of exotic invasive plants

Sharon Garden Club January 2019 program “Wanted Dead: Not Alive!” presenters Carol Lundeen, left, and Brenda Minihan take the role of a pair of black-capped chickadees in a skit that tells the tale of how the introduction of beautiful exotic invasive plants by early American landscape designers has had terribly destructive results for native wildlife and our local, regional, and national natural resources. Ellen Schoenfeld-Beeks, not pictured, played the role of landscape designer “Fredericka” Law Olmstead in introducing the exotic plants to our country. Photo courtesy Marcia Podlisny.
.

Please follow and like us:

GRADUATION DAY from the NEW ENGLAND WILDFLOWER SOCIETY!

Garden-911 Boston owner Carol Lundeen graduates with Advanced Certificate in Native Plant Horticulture and Design

Carol Lundeen graduates from the New England Wildflower Society with an Advanced Certificate in Native Plant Horticulture an Design on November 3, 2018. Executive Director Debbi Edelstein presents Carol with her certificate.

One of my passions is lifelong learning, and another is to help people — and plants — who appreciate sustainable garden design and maintenance. I’m proud to have continued my studies at the New England Wildflower Society and earned an Advanced Certificate in Native Plant Horticulture an Design.

Each graduate had the opportunity to make a presentation about the required community service aspect of their certificate. I was proud to share my story of one of the two eyesore sites that I re-designed (and helped to install) at the Easton Town Offices that had been long overdue for a landscape makeover.

Easton MA Town Offices landscape makeover of traffic circle

Easton MA Town Offices traffic circle landscape makeover by the Easton Garden Club. Several civic sites in Easton had become eyesores, and the Easton Garden Club collaborated with the community to sponsor a Design Challenge to spur interest in giving the sites a landscape makeover. Blueview Nurseries of Norton donated prizes. Garden club member and Garden-911 Boston owner Carol Lundeen re-designed this site, and it was installed with the town’s robust support.

I’m excited to continue to be a valuable resource in my community. While I currently serve as Horticulture Co-Chair with both the Sharon and Easton, MA garden clubs, I look forward to future opportunities to collaborate, create and educate people about smart, sustainable landscapes.

Please follow and like us:

What is the Value of Saving Established Perennials and Shrubs during a Home Renovation?

Wygelia and hydrangea macrophylla shrubs to be saved

Is it worth saving shrubs before your renovation begins? Wygelia and Hydrangea macrophylla shrubs will be saved at this Sharon, MA home, but how would you decide?

Imagine that when you were a child your parents loved gardening, and over time you helped your family create secret gardens and woodland paths that changed daily with new sprouts pushing up from the earth, turning into a bounty of ever-changing blooms, and you loved every petal and leaf of it all.

Now, imagine that you’re middle aged and still living in that same beloved 1950’s ranch, but you’re ready to tear it down to build your dream home, and save as many of your family’s horticulture heirlooms as possible. You’ve come to appreciate that many of the plants your family selected and nurtured are quite unique.

Sharon, MA homeowners in this situation called in Carol Lundeen, owner of Garden-911 Boston, for landscape renovation consulting and horticulture services to help them make their decisions. The excavation crew was expected to start in a couple of days, and we needed to establish priorities, make a plan, and get a move on.

How do you decide which heirloom plants to keep and which to abandon to the dumpster? Here’s how we worked together:

First, we contrasted the emotional and financial value of various plantings. The client had many childhood memories in specific areas of the property, especially around the patio, past the boxwoods (Buxus sp.) and up the path into the woodland, past the doll’s eyes plants (Actaea pachypoda). There was also the giant Wygelia whose branches arched over the front door entryway, and if it could talk it would tell more than half a century of stories.

I reminded the client that financially it costs money to remove existing plantings (and manage their debris); to lift and temporarily relocate and care for existing plantings, then replant and reestablish them; and to purchase (plant selection and delivery) and install and establish new ones (site preparation and irrigating). Existing shrubs on the property were mostly well established beauties that would be costly to replace with same-size specimens, and perennials seemed to be everywhere. This client kept her sense of humor and broad perspective of the past and future, she asked lots of questions and we figured everything out together.

While he was already on the property, we had the excavator dig a trench in well-protected areas in the front and rear of the property, and with machines he lifted and placed many of the larger shrubs into the trench. Garden-911 Boston carefully backfilled by hand, irrigated, and mulched these specimens for the best possible outcome. Perennials were dug together by hand by the client and Garden-911 Boston owner Carol Lundeen, and we placed them into a long-overgrown garden area that we first had to clear of all manner of wild invasives vines and weeds, fallen-down raised beds and tangled chicken wire as the mini-excavator went to work nearby.

Eventually, as in all renovations, comes a period of being okay with not knowing when enough is enough. But most all very important plantings are safely stashed for the fall and winter, and spring will bring a new house and new possibilities for the client’s heirloom plants to re-establish in their new places. We’ll be working on the design together over the winter.

Please follow and like us:

LANDSCAPE DESIGN MAKEOVER IN SHARON

When a Sharon homeowner wanted to meet about redesigning her front yard gardens, Garden-911’s Carol Lundeen suggested expanding the vision to include improved circulation from the driveway to the front door, adding ease of use and curb appeal at the same time.

View from the front door of a Garden-911 Boston landscape design.

View from the front door of a redesigned front entry in Sharon, MA. What was a once a bare concrete landing and stairs is now adorned under a portico, with slabs of elegant granite on the landing and treads. At ground level, where you see a path of white river stones was once an asphalt walk from the driveway to the base of the stairs. The planted area was once lawn, and there was no brick path lined with cobblestones.
All these design changes improved the circulation around the home, as well as the curb appeal.
Plantings include a MA native redbud tree, Cercis canadensis, and a ground cover of variegated solomans seal.
For more informatoin about giving the front of your home a face lift, visit https://www.garden-911.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Please follow and like us:

LANDSCAPE DESIGN TIP: Use foliage for contrast

Plant foliage employed as a contrast element in landscape designHere’s an example of using contrast as a visual principle of landscape design. In the foreground of this scene in Cambridge, MA, leaves of a variegated dogwood tree contrast along a diagonal with the pink flowers of a blooming azalea shrub in the middle ground, while in the background the curly-edged rumpled leaves of perennial geraniums anchor as a groundcover.

In addition to contrast, other principles of landscape design include unity and harmony, balance, hierarchy, scale and proportion, dominance and emphasis, and similarity and contrast. Design elements such as color, line, shape and volume, texture and pattern, space the illusion of space, motion and the illusion of motion and value can be combined as ingredients in a recipe that creates the various design principles that make a design a visual success.Other elements of a successful landscape design are functional, such as circulation around a home and its grounds, and water management.

Garden-911 Boston offers landscape design services. Visit https://www.garden-911.com/ or call 617-327-9254 for more information.

Please follow and like us: