Landscape Designs Need Expert Care and Maintenance to Succeed
Nothing takes your breath away like the sight of a beautifully designed landscape. Landscape design is an art. But there is another art form quietly at work in this splendid scene before you: the art of landscape maintenance.
What is the connection between landscape maintenance and landscape design? Landscapes and gardens are not static. They are dynamic living systems in a continuous state of change.
Once a design is installed, it may require fine workmanship and intricate detailing to achieve the original design intent and reach its fullest expression.
This is why it is important to work with garden care professionals who understand design as well as horticulture. The ideal would be to have the landscape architecture firm that designs and builds your landscape be the one to watch over and care for it once the project is complete.
Finessing the Design: The Art of Garden Care & Landscape Maintenance
Landscape Architect Chad Talton says it is important to have landscape maintenance specialists who are sensitive to design because a newly installed landscape will take up to three years to fill out properly.
When a landscape is first installed, plants are spaced in a way that anticipates growth because they are going to fill out and cover a particular area over time.
During that “fill-in” period, the landscape maintenance team supports the design by tending plants and guiding their growth patterns to complement hardscaping and open-air structures.
It is important to note that, most landscapes require two skill sets to fully care for and maintain them:
- Garden Care. The focus is on the living systems-–keeping perennial beds, shrubs, trees, and lawns healthy and thriving.
- Landscape Maintenance. The focus is on structural or mechanical elements such as water features, stonework, irrigation systems, and lighting systems–-all of which need periodic maintenance.
Many companies provide basic lawn and garden maintenance, but few take a holistic approach that encompasses the horticultural, structural, and mechanical systems in a landscape.
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What’s the difference between a conventional landscape company and one whose staff understands design, horticulture, and landscape systems? To find out, click the button below.
Bringing Out the Greatness
The landscape architect guides the client through the design process. Once landscape construction is complete and everything is planted, landscape maintenance begins.
The landscape design style determines the style of landscape maintenance. The types of plants, how they are grouped, and the geometry of the site plan set the course for the maintenance to follow.
The garden care technicians fine-tune the landscape by adding color displays or perennial groupings. They may implement small adjustments by artfully pruning, cutting back, growing out, relocating, or replacing plant material.
The goal is to keep a property pristine but at the same time looking natural. That’s where the art comes into play—keeping plants at the desired size and shape but retaining their natural form and beauty.
Purchasing the right plant material from a form perspective and then pruning it correctly makes a big impact.
Chad Talton, Registered Landscape Architect
This is what brings the greatness out. Aside from the aesthetic benefit, skillful pruning stimulates growth and longevity by allowing air and light into the interior of shrubs.
The Art of What You Don’t See
The art of truly great landscape maintenance and garden care is that you don’t see it. You don’t see the intricate workmanship that brings out the details of the designer’s vision. But you feel the effect of it. And you experience the thrill of viewing a landscape that looks terrific.
A landscape is a work of art made of natural materials and living organisms that are constantly changing. The landscape design is not “finished” when our construction and landscape installation crews pull off the site. That is the beginning. A garden needs constant care to reach its full potential.
We take great pride and pleasure in maintaining the landscapes we’ve designed. We enjoy seeing them develop as much as our clients do. And, our garden management team can apply that same design-savvy approach to maintaining landscapes designed by other companies.
So, please feel free to schedule a consultation with one of our garden managers to find out how we can give your landscape the kind of care and attention it deserves.
Have you been wondering how to bring out the fullest expression in your landscape and gardens? Our eBook: Choosing the Right Kind of Landscape Maintenance Firm, is full of valuable information to help you understand the fundamental differences between landscape maintenance companies.