Southeast Home Landscaping, 3rd Edition

Roger Holmes, Rita Buchanan

• Publisher: Creative Homeowner
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781607659099
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

Southeast Home Landscaping, third edition, is a larger-formatedition of Creative Homeowner's award-winning best seller on landscaping southeast-style. Readers will find inspiring ideas for making the home landscape more attractive and functional. The 54 featured designs are created by landscape professionals from the region and use more than 200 plants that thrive in the southeast. Detailed instructions for projects such as paths, patios, ponds, and arbors are also included. Over 450 full-color photos and paintings are complemented by easy, step-by-step instructions. The southeast will be in full bloom with Southeast Home Landscaping, third edition.
States: AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN

Portfolio of Designs

This section presents designs for nearly two dozen situations common in home landscapes. You’ll find designs to enhance entrances, decks, and patios. There are gardens of colorful perennials and shrubs, as well as structures and plantings to create shady hideaways, dress up nondescript walls, and even make a centerpiece of a lowly mailbox. Large color illustrations show what the designs will look like, and site plans delineate the layout and planting scheme. Texts explain the designs and describe the plants and projects appearing in them. Installed as shown or adapted to meet your site and personal preferences, these designs can make your property more attractive, more useful, and—most important—more enjoyable for you, your family, and your friends.

An Elegant Entry

MIX CLASSIC SYMMETRY AND COMFORTABLE PLANTS

A formal garden has a special appeal. Its simple geometry is soothing in a sometimes confusing world, and it never goes out of style. Traditional homes with symmetrical facades are especially suited to the elegant lines and balanced features of this design. The look is formal, but it is an easy formality featuring gentle curves, as well as straight lines, and plants whose tidy forms are produced by nature, not shears.

Unlike many formal gardens whose essentials can be taken in at a glance, this one imparts an air of mystery for visitors approaching from the street. A matching pair of crape myrtles at the corners of the property obscure that view, so that it’s only when you approach the gate that the entire garden reveals itself.

A wide brick walkway creates a small courtyard with an eye-catching column of roses at its center. Neat rectangles of lawn are defined by beds of colorful annuals and perennials backed by the graceful curve of a low informal evergreen hedge. Distinctive evergreen shrubs and trees mark the corners of the design and stand guard near the front door. A picket fence reinforces the geometry of the overall design and adds a homey touch. A ground cover of low evergreen shrubs between sidewalk and fence looks good and makes this often awkward area easy to maintain.

Plants & Projects

As formal gardens go, this one is very easy to maintain. The shrubs are chosen for compact forms that need little pruning, and the perennials require little care.

A ‘Natchez’ crape myrtle (use 2 plants)
These showy, multitrunked, small deciduous trees frame the garden with large clusters of crepe-papery white flowers blooming all summer, colorful leaves in fall, and handsome bark in winter. See Lagerstroemia indica, page.

B ‘Yoshino’ Japanese cedar (use 2)
A pair of these naturally cone-shaped, fine-textured evergreen trees mark the corners of the house. Foliage is rich green in summer, bronze in winter. See Cryptomeria japonica, page.

C Hollywood juniper (use 2)
An uneven branching pattern gives this small evergreen tree an informal, sculptural look. It’s narrow enough to fit on each side of the door. See Juniperus chinensis ‘Torulosa’, page.

D Dwarf pittosporum (use 12)
This evergreen shrub makes a lush, dressy but informal hedge with shiny green leaves. Its creamy white flowers scent the air in early summer. See Pittosporum tobira ‘Wheeleri’, page.

E Indian hawthorn (use 2)
Flowers cover the dark foliage of this low, spreading evergreen shrub in spring, followed by blue berries. Select any compact cultivar. See Rhaphiolepis indica, page.

F Parson’s juniper (use 22)
Rugged, gray-green evergreen shrubs edge the sidewalk, their horizontal branches held slightly above the ground. See Juniperus davurica ‘Expansa’, page.

G ‘Blaze’ climbing rose (use 1)
This cultivar will cover the central post with glossy green leaves and deep red flowers all summer. Buy a “rose post” at a nursery, or use an old column or other post. Plant salvias around the base. See Rosa, page.

H Daylily (use 12)
Mix early- and late-blooming cultivars of this useful perennial. For this design, use orange- and yellow-flowered ones. See Hemerocallis, page.

I ‘Stella d’Oro’ daylily (use 10)
From early summer until frost, this hardy perennial’s extended show of golden yellow flowers can’t be beat. The grassy foliage is attractive, too. See Hemerocallis, page.

J Purple verbena (use 24)
This perennial’s clusters of purple flowers...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About This Book
• Seasons in Your Landscape
• As Your Landscape Grows
• Portfolio of Designs
• Plant Profiles
• Guide to Installation
• Glossary
• Credits