Summary: Foundation planting questions are always a apart of home landscape jobs. In old garden landscapes the problem can be very evident – a typical foundation forest.
As we continue our discussion of a landscaping rehab so far we have looked at:
- Landscape Design – Remodeling and Old Garden
- Landscaping Rehab – The Plan
- Landscape ReHab – Study and Review Existing Landscaping
Now we turn our attention to foundation planting.
The foundation planting poses questions that are almost constants in home landscape work. In an old garden, the problem can be acute, and it is best to settle it firmly and finally at the outset. We will talk about foundation plantings in another article, for now we are concerned with a specific situation, of a typical foundation forest.
There are three columnar arborvitae and a well-grown moss chamaecyparis against the front of the house. Four hemlocks, no doubt innocent-looking feathery little shrubs when they were planted, are beginning to get out of hand beside the windows. In the fore-planting, there are four nicely shaped, rather spreading Japanese yews, a stiff little blue spruce about two feet high, and a small pointed juniper. The spruce and the juniper were probably put in as replacements, or to add a final touch of chic.
The images to the right (click for larger views) show how these plants are used in the new garden. The three columnar arborvitae provide a screen on the south side of the patio, both for the laundry yard and for the neighboring house. In addition to giving privacy, they make a handsome evergreen mass to be viewed from the living room and the kitchen window in winter.
Examining the Old Plantings
One yew is planted at the corner of the house near the garage, and one next to the street by the drive. The other two are planted behind the sugar maple, opposite the northeast corner of the house. The yew is placed behind the maple rather than at the corner of the property next to the street because it is a mistake to conceal the trunk of a fine tree. The old sugar maple, standing just where it is as a sort of solitary guardian, should not be cluttered by a heavy fore-planting; on the other hand, the dark mass of yew behind it, as it increases in size, will help to set off the trunk. If yew were not available from the foundation planting, a mass of mountain laurel would be handsome here.
The hemlocks are moved to the space between the house and the property line, where they screen the living room and study windows from the adjoining property. Hemlocks like shade; the space on the north side of the house is too narrow for general garden use; and most people like to screen the windows of rooms in constant use. Trees grown as a hedge are planted closer together than trees grown as specimens. If the hemlocks were planted on the boundaries of the play area, they would in time crowd it, since there are not enough for a hedge here and, with plenty of room, they would make wide growth.
The moss chamaecyparis (Chamaecyparis pisifera squarrosa) is planted at the far end of the hemlocks, opposite the northwest corner of the house. It is an individual and beautiful plant, and by putting it here it can be seen from the terrace.
The blue spruce and the juniper are rejected. Juniper would not thrive on the north side of the house, and there is no place for the little pointed specimen in the main garden scheme. Nor is there any spot for the two-foot blue spruce; it could conceivably go near the west property line, but apart from the fact that it is not a good aesthetic companion for the Norway spruce, it would be utterly out of scale with it for so long that altogether this is an occasion when the most fanatical conservationist should harden his heart, or search his mind for the friend who is longing for a little blue spruce.
