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The Importance of Design
by Bee Mohn
Got deer? And a ruined yard?
The destruction of deer-eaten bushes and flowers is just about everywhere. Many factors contribute to the numbers of local deer and their ultimate destruction of home landscapes. Depending on the severity of the problem, it may be futile to plant most ornamentals.
But designing just around deer is not the answer, according to Howard Roberts, VP of Cross River Design, a landscape design/build firm in Annandale, New Jersey. "Men and women approach the process of design from different viewpoints. Men tend to consider the prestige of the final result and the bottom line - its value. Women look at the romance of the space.
“The answer to designing a deer-tolerant landscape is being in the game long enough to know what works," says Roberts. “It's having the ability to work within the confines of that palette of texture, contrast, succession of color, proper proportion and scale. You can have a landscape with deer-tolerant plants, but the design is horrible."
For someone with a serious threat, Roberts says the emphasis may be more on hardscapes - a wall, a walk, terrace, pool, pergola - things that create interest in the landscape. You can warm up the space with greenery: boxwood, vines, ground cover, lawn, grasses. You can also add more structure with a vertical wall or free-standing trees.
“You can still have scale, proportion and texture and have more of an infrastructure. The landscape is to embellish the lines of the house and hide its imperfections," says Roberts.
Roberts was able to practice his multi-faceted approach on a $ million spec house, a pre-designed house and garden with no client input. “It got the typical $10,000 landscape package - no shape to the walk, bad plantings, no deer-tolerant species, and bad grades. But there was one plant that proved to be deer-resistant - the Delaware White azalea," he says.
Cross River responded with correct grading, an appropriate walk with nice stone and tones that meet the house, very little mulch, and plants that are deer-tolerant and accent the house with a succession of color. Plants are also drought tolerant and low maintenance.
The serpentine walk creates anticipation as a person walks through the experience. The grass, boxwood, liriope, ferns, Little Princess spirea, iris, inkberry, lavender are all deer tolerant in a moderate deer problem, but around back of the house, the deer have grazed “Blue Mist"¯ in planters on the terrace.
“Deer tolerance is a matter of paying attention to what's not being eaten and what is,"¯ Roberts says. “We make sure deer aren't eating the plants and that the integrity of the design is holding. It's the only way we learn and know if our product is working well."¯ He says the biggest mistake a landscaper makes is not monitoring their product.
Simplicity is another component of Roberts' design palette. At another home, the garden out front is one year old with astilbe, Cornus kousa, barberry and spirea. Otto Luken cherry laurel grows near a bluestone landing. A retaining wall holds up the terraced plateau. “The stone that they chose for the wall mimics the stone in the house. The simpler the garden, the better. Keep a theme going. The house is symmetrical, so is the garden. It's reading the architecture, reading the line of the house. Good design is very easy on the eye."
The bluestone theme is carried into the bluestone wall around back, where Mazus grows around the stone walk.
Roberts loves creating layers with structure. On his 3-acre property he has a thousand views, he says. At circulation points, such as gates and entries into another layer of landscaping, he integrates the flow of people, smoothly, easily.
“Deer are perhaps 20% of the design agenda. It helps create our planting palette along with living spaces, views and, of course, horticulture. It's a lot of combinations of texture, properties of plants, bloom season.
“The public needs to demand more from people in the green industry and ask more questions. To me the quickest way to determine competence is to look at a designer's product. The best testament is the end result. It should get better with time, not worse."
Questions to ask: 1) the company's qualifications; 2) permission to see 3 to 5 year-old work (If a contractor gives names of customers from 3 to 5 years ago, they must be happy, proud of the property and happy with the contractor.); 3) how long have they been in business; 4) look at the job and ask: are the grades handled properly? Are the hardscapes heaving? Are the plants eaten by deer? Is the landscape overgrown or disproportionate?
“A third of our business is ripping out landscapes that are poorly designed and executed. It all starts with design. The most important investment in landscaping is the design. The design can succeed or fail. The best way to avoid this is to look at a contractor's work. Think beyond the minimum."
Roberts, trained as a visual artist, has been in business 25 years, a long enough time to know that it takes a team of professionals to make an entire plan work.
His own property is located on a busy main road in Hunterdon County. The Williamsburg reproduction house sits among a horse pasture, fields and a stream. The three acres are flat farmland where Roberts is creating layers of views. The surrounding countryside's pretty views are marred by a neighbor's ugly yard. “I tell clients every property and every home comes with strengths and weaknesses." He says not to hide the good views, just hide the bad. For instance, he'll block his neighbor's yard by planting a shade garden under the trees.
Cross River Design, Inc.
http://www.crossriverdesign.com
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published February 09, 2004
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