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MY SUN DAY NEWS

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Dressing your landscaping for the seasons

By Kathleen Carr

Our family tends to use the same contractor for multiple generations. Although we do a lot ourselves (my husband stayed up until 12:30 installing a water softener last night), when we do ask someone to do something at our home, it tends to be a group mentality. The same person who washed the windows in my grandparent’s home washes windows for my mom and me. The same is true for the carpet cleaner. Our preparation methods vary dramatically though. Before my grandmother had the carpet cleaner come over, she would ask my husband and me to come over and move all the furniture into her kitchen and laundry room – and it fit! Before the carpet cleaner comes over to our home, I do my best to get as much picked up off the floor as possible, but after that he is on his own. While picking up in my closet earlier this week, I noticed how my clothes are grouped by season. Much like your closet, my closet contains a variety of clothes that are appropriate no matter if it is 95 degrees like it was 4 days ago or 65 degrees like it is this morning. While my color choices in clothes tend to lean towards peach and green. Every color under the rainbow is represented. Each article of clothing assists us in looking our best.

When landscaping the front of your home, consider your closet. A strange recommendation I know, but please hear me out. In essence plants are being used to clothe your home while making it looks its best. You may want to have a variety of plant options in the front of your home so that no matter the weather, the temperature or the season, there is always something that has some interest. You may find that you gravitate towards certain colors but may also want to include a variety of colors through the flowers, leaves and branches on the plants. A good landscape design will highlight the front door of your home and include something that looks good throughout all four seasons.

When you moved into your home, the landscaping was already completed. Over time you may have removed plants or added plants, and most likely both.

If you are considering doing either again you may want to start by thinking about your landscaping chronologically. One way to do this would be to write Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter on a piece of paper and go outside. Start with the area closest to your front sidewalk and simply make little hash marks in groups of fives for each plant according to the season that they look their best. For example if you have 3 evergreen shrubs, 1 burning bush and 1 crab tree you would have 3 marks in the winter category, 1 in the fall category and 1 in the spring category. The reason for each of those categories is that evergreen shrubs add interest to your landscaping in the winter, the leaves of burning bush get red in the fall and crab trees flower in the spring. There may be several plants for which you simply don’t know when they provide interest to the front of your home. In these instances you may want to do a little research or simply pay closer attention to them as the season progresses. After this evaluation process you may realize that the plants in the front of your home primarily has plants that look good in just 2 or 3 seasons. If you do not live in your home during all 4 seasons that may be okay, if you do though, for any future plant purchases consider adding plants that provide some interest during the underrepresented seasons.

The other consideration when landscaping the front of your home is highlighting the front door. This can be made more difficult if your door is recessed and/or if the front of your garage is considerably closer to the street than your front door. While highlighting your front door, make sure to give visitors the simplest, most direct route from your driveway to your front door. This would include keeping the sidewalk free of overgrown plants, obtrusive ornamentation and long meandering walkways. If your front door is not visible from the beginning of the sidewalk, you may want to plant something interesting for guests to admire before their attention turns towards your front door. For example if your sidewalk turns a corner, you could plant something colorful or interesting at the corner. Seasonal containers of plants near your front door act to welcome to guests and highlight the entire entryway. There is always a period of time after someone has rung your doorbell before you let them in. The flowers near the door give your guests something pretty to admire during that time.

Another consideration when choosing plants for the front of your home is mature height and width. While this is always important, I would put special emphasis on it in this context because you do not want plants growing over sidewalks or driveways. Depending on your particular preferences you may or may not want them growing higher than your windows.

Of course it is also important when landscaping the front of your home to figure out which way your home faces. Knowing the direction it faces will help you figure out the amount of sunlight the new plants would be receiving.

Usually the landscape design in the front of the home tends to be a bit more formal while a design in the back yard may include more personal touches. That being said, I always tell homeowners ‘It is your home. Put more credence into your own personal preferences than anyone else’s so called rules or advice.’

Kathleen Carr is the owner of The Growing Scene, Inc., a garden center and landscaping company. She can be reached by calling 815-923-7322 or Kathleen@thegrowingscene.com. Have a gardening question? Please contact her. She may address it in an upcoming column.





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