Re: garden planning

"Form follows function" and "Right Plant, Right Place" are two mantras I teach my landscape design students.
 
Before anyone gets to the "aesthetic effects" of "form, colour and leaf shape" and other design elements, one must consider the environment.
 
You don't say what your "environmental conditions" are so I certainly won't elaborate on that other then to say you need to face the music (those "environmental conditions").  Start with a definition of your properties environmental elements: the soil type, the light exposures, the wind, etc.  Find the plants that fit those defining elements. Then narrow that list down to those plants that provide the aesthetic qualities you want.  Not the other way around.
 
At the same time, create a design that has function -- practicality.  Solve problems, provide traffic patterns, frame views, etc..  Fit plants into those "functions" to get to your forms.
A good designer/gardener has no "forces over which they have no control".  Only forces that must be dealt with in the planning stage.  And it usually doesn't mean fighting them.  It often means respecting them, working with them and even using them as opportunities.
 
Realistically, we all have our share of failures.  But 70% failure seems a bit on the side of not planning for function and not respecting the environment.  On the other hand, you and I might be surprised at how many people may chime in here with "that's about what I lose".
 
Joe
 

Joe Seals
Horticultural Consultant
Pismo Beach, California
Home/Office: 805-295-6039

--- On Thu, 6/11/09, Margaret A Healey <Margaret.A.Healey@bigpond.com> wrote:

From: Margaret A Healey <Margaret.A.Healey@bigpond.com>
Subject: garden planning
To: medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 4:12 AM

My environmental conditions are such that I have a plant survival rate of about 30%. Over the years I have carefully planned plantings not merely for survival but for aesthetic effects as well.. BUT with my low survival rate these careful plans NEVER come to fruition - mass plantings look like a few random specimens, a hedge looks as if it has been bull dozed in places and groups of plants carefully chosen for form, colour and leaf shape, look as though we have planted what ever was on special at the nursery. Aesthetically it is a mess.
 
What do professionals do when their best laid plans go awry from forces over which they have no control? Do they replant or replan? Do I pull out plants that are at least above the height of the grass around them because they were not in the initial idea? Or do I just accept that, like it or not, I have a 'cottage garden' effect of randomness?
 
Margaret Healey
Australia

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