What is a "Good" Landscape?
Since I have the audacity to call this blog “Good Landscapes” and to offer advice for creating such places, I think I’d better start out by defining what I mean by good.
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Clean-up Overkill
Keep that yard clean! This social imperative began in the 1800’s, when tidying the yard was considered an essential civic behavior, and continued through the 1900’s, when a vast swath of vibrant green...
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Canada Mayflower: A Tiny Treasure
When the sugar maples burst into their yellow-green froth, when spent white petals of shadblow flowers waft past on a breeze, and while the forest floor is still brown duff, this is a good time to see...
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Before you carry on with all the same old arrangements in the yard… or before you make a bunch of changes you’ve been dreaming about all winter long…this is a perfect time to slow down and consider how...
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The Real Job of a Landscape Designer
At a neighborhood party last week, I heard two comments that brought me up short, and reminded me again about a basic conundrum in my work. A landscape doesn't need plants, to be a landscape. First...
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Citrus Greening: What can we learn?
When we plant non-native species in our gardens and yards, these plants have tremendous potential to cause unexpected harm. Here's a story about a big one that affects us all. From the New York Times,...
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Want to garden with mostly natives? You can.
Mosses, bearberry, Canada mayflower and thyme.This landscape contains no lawn, and instead features a mosaic of ground-hugging plants, stepstones, and pea-stone paths of varying widths, meandering like...
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Fence Regrets
Pretty, but impractical in the long run.If you need to build a fence anywhere near a tree, please keep in mind one simple fact: trees grow. Not just taller. Not just fluffier with new leaves and...
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Deadly Beds
If you don’t want to doom a favorite tree, there’s one popular landscape feature you really should avoid: a raised bed built all around and partway up the trunk of that tree. It matters not what you...
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Decapitated Trees
When planting a shade tree, most of us imagine that it will grow up into a big majestic specimen, one that casts its friendly shadow across the yard and maybe even holds a swing for the kids. Nobody...
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