Planning for spring landscape design

The ground is pliable. The temperature is comfortable and the outside is beckoning. The urge to plant is getting hard to resist. Yet resist we must, for this is winter after all.

I know the 15-day forecast is unreliable, but I can’t help but check it out, if, for no other reason than to instill a smidgin of common sense into my “I want to plant” brain. There may be snow at the end of the month! As always with Northern Nevada weather, it’s a wait and see game.

So, instead of planting, let’s do planning instead. Are you putting in a new landscape or possibly refurbishing an older one? My first suggestion is to keep things simple because it is far too easy to overplant.

My second suggestion is to know the growth patterns of the plants you want to put in. Know their height and spread at maturity or you will end up with a landscape like mine where all the trees are too close together and some have to be removed every year.

The vacant spaces between and around plants are like the rests in music. They define the melody and harmonies. Without the visual resting spaces, your landscape becomes a noisy cacophony.

For a new landscape, I suggest planting shade trees first. They are the backbone of the landscape and they take years to establish. Pick trees that are drought-tolerant and hardy for our harsh environment. Don’t make the mistake I made and plant evergreen trees where they shade a major walkway leaving it icy and dangerous in the winter.

If you are remodeling or refurbishing a landscape, ask “What works?” “What doesn’t?” and “What could work better?” Use the answers to direct the changes you want to make.

Perhaps it’s less lawn or more lawn. It might be to eliminate flowers or shrubs that aren’t thriving and replace them with hardier, more pleasing versions. Maybe you want to add more color or plants for the birds.

The purpose of planning a new landscape is to get it right the first time (although this rarely happens!) so that it meets your expectations. During a landscape remodel the goal is to improve your landscape, whether that means aesthetically, reducing maintenance or tweaking the layout so it better meets your needs.

Planning in advance may reduce work in the long run. Besides, putting our “get me outside!” energy into planning hopefully will keep us from planting too early.