Landscapes, like houses, need periodic renovation

At top: The landscaping is crowded and hides the features of this Virginia house. At bottom: Junipers are replaced with compact boxwoods to compliment the home's classic architecture. (Newport News Daily Press photos)

Share on Facebook

Save

Your landscape is very much like your home’s interior decor.

It grows old, sometimes tattered and torn, and needs updating from time to time. Sometimes, plantings need to be completely torn out and totally replaced. Sometimes, old porches, patios and decks just don’t work any longer.

Landscape design classes typically teach that a landscape lasts for 10-15 years before it needs at least a partial redo. Sometimes, it’s best to just start over from scratch and get the look you’ve always wanted and never achieved because there was never enough advance planning and an overall plan.

Landscape designers agree.

“When I started my business 21 years ago, there was a housing boom in Williamsburg, Va., and the bulk of my business was landscapes for new construction,” says Peggy Krapf of Heart’s Ease Landscape & Garden Design, www.HeartsEaseLandscape.com , and a certified designer through the Virginia Society of Landscape Designers, www.vsld.org .

“As time passed it has now become primarily renovating old, existing landscapes.”

Most landscapes need renovation for one of the following reasons, according to Krapf:

u Poor initial design, which becomes more obvious as years progress (wrong plants in wrong places).

u Bad workmanship and poorly chosen hardscaping/materials that don’t stand the test of time.

u Old age of plants and bad or improper regular pruning through the years.

u New owners who have different landscape taste or style.

“Once a landscape reaches the 12-15 year point many plants have outgrown their spaces or reached the end of their lifespans,” she says. “Trees should live many years and should be in places where they have room to grow to their mature sizes.

“Nothing is sadder than beautiful trees, just reaching their maturity, that need to be removed because they were not planted in the right place to begin with.”

Sometimes it is necessary to remove all the plants and begin fresh, Krapf said. Other times some plants can be left in place and pruned or reshaped and mixed with new plants.

Some shrubs can be rejuvenated: cut back hard to remove old growth and stimulate new, younger growth. Many deciduous plants and evergreens such as Japanese hollies, boxwoods, and Chinese hollies can be cut back hard in early spring, and will grow back and be serviceable for many more years.

Overgrown evergreens can sometimes be “limbed up” into tree forms to give them new life. Valuable plants can be transplanted to other locations where they have more room to continue to grow.

At Smithfield Gardens in Smithfield, Va., horticulturists Ann Weber and Jeffrey Williamson encourage homeowners to pay attention to the information on plant tags before buying pieces that will outgrow their spaces, and cause crowding problems earlier than needed.

“Some maintenance pruning may be necessary but most gardeners can handle it,” says Williamson. “No landscape is ever maintenance free.”