Archive for Low Maintenance Landscape Examples – Page 16

Hardscape Design Transforms A Gardeners Landscape

Hardscapes Support Lake Oswego Garden Landscaping

Hardscape stone patio with synthetic lawn supports landscaping.

Delightful patio replaces stodgy deck – notice the beautiful synthetic lawn.

Garden Consultation – Margaret hired me as a garden coach.  We worked together for several years. Her property in Lake Oswego has typical problems; clay soil, greedy tree roots, soggy lawn with moss and drainage problems.  But in my mind, the biggest problem was a deck that had been built by the previous owners.  The shape was boxy and didn’t fit Margaret’s colorful NW natural garden.

For 6 years our garden coaching focused on her garden plantings.  My client is hands on and did her own maintenance for her large property.  In fact, one time, the contractor was late and we just couldn’t wait for him….and I might add we were a lot younger…..so Margaret and I decided to plant these 5′ tall Arborvitae up on the hill ourselves.  Things were going well until one rolled down the hill and took me out like a bowling pin.

Blake before deck close up 2

The old deck had to go!

At last she was ready to have the garden of her dreams. How delightful it would be to play with her plants instead of mowing.  She was tired of fighting with fir tree roots, shade and clay.  Her lawn was never dry until August, when it was  then parched and it never looked good. She wanted to spend her time gardening, not doing basic maintenance. There is nothing worse than spending your time cleaning up a landscape that you don’t like the looks of.  She didn’t want that deck any more.  She wanted a NW natural design that would include two sitting areas (one a new patio off the house to replace the deck, a flagstone patio in the woods) and synthetic lawn for her and her dogs.  We also re-worked her garden paths so they would be easier to clean up and look  so attractive they would integrate the landscape.

Garden path with stone stairs are great supporting hardscapes.

The new stairs are complemented by easy care synthetic lawn.

The new design also met the horticultural needs of the fir trees since synthetic lawn doesn’t need summer water and our native fir trees are healthier without summer watering.

Now Margaret can blow or even use a dry vac on her lawn to remove fir needles.  It looks good all the time and the dogs are very happy and clean.  It is also a lot easier to clean up dog poop!

Before stone steps

Old garden path was hard to navigate and had no drama.

We worked together to create the design.  Because of the scope of the job Margaret choose to hire a professional,  Autumn Leaf Landscaping.

It is an amazing transformation.  Margaret’s plants and garden look fabulous because the supporting structures are well shaped and attractive.

For more information on how hardscapes can support your garden landscaping, make an appointment.

Top 5 Stepable Path Plants For Portland Landscapes

North Portland Landscape Design parking strip

Becky Clark Design Thymus Praecox ‘Coccineus’ ablaze w flower in north Portland parking strip

Selecting Stepable Path Plants for Portland Landscapes

Maybe it’s not fair that most people don’t know the finer points of selecting stepable path plants.   The truth is planting between pavers successfully without insider knowledge rarely ever results in a thriving and attractive result let alone a planting that qualifies as low maintenance.   It’s a little like ‘Goldilocks and The Three Bears’, the plant has to be just right.  Remember?  The chair and the bed had to be the right size and the porridge had to be the right temperature.   If the plant you select is not right for the job,  your path or patio can have weed problems that will take a complete do over to solve.

Most people don’t want to trial and error plants. They want to know it will work before they put in their time and effort.  That is the advantage of hiring a Portland landscape designer.  We know what works here and what doesn’t.

Portland landscape designer walking on stepable plants

Step on these plants.  This keeps them growing low and dense.

Here’s how I think about selecting stepable path plants.

I want a plant that doesn’t grow higher than 1″  or 2″ tall maximum.

Many stepable plants tend to grow into a hump and must be walked on regularly to keep it from growing into a hump and being a trip hazard. Stepping on the plants frequently will cause them to grow dense and shorter.  My grandson Rain helped me plant my flagstone patio.  I  stepped away and his friend came running in and said “I keep telling him they’re stepables not stompables.”  I looked up to see my grandson stomping on the freshly planted ground covers.   Surprisingly, the plants survived just fine.

Portland Garden Design Groundcover

Leptinella = Black Brass Button stepable groundcover

I want a plant that doesn’t grow over the flagstone too quickly.

If you plant a type of stepable that grows too vigorously you will be constantly cutting the plant off of the flagstone.  Untended it will completely cover your flagstone.  A slower plant might need a trim every year or two.

What do Stepable Groundcovers Need?

Weeds are the enemy.  Prevent weeds.

Most stepable plants require good drainage in order to grow thickly and repel weeds.  If they don’t grow thickly, and have bare patches, weed seeds will be able to reach the soil, germinate and thrive.  I fertilize my patio plantings with half strength fish fertilizer several times a year to keep them growing thickly and I rake or sweep leaves and debris off the plants so they can get as much light as possible.  These actions help keep the plants growing vigorously which is another way to thwart weeds.

I’ve listed plants below for part sun and full sun.   I don’t have a stepable plant that thrives in strong shade, regardless of what the plant labels say.  I’ve tried several that manage to stay alive in dappled shade but don’t grow thick enough to repel weeds.

Another tip:  Don’t plant in an area that was infested with weeds.  You will need to tackle the weeds first before you plant your stepables.

Leptinella with star creeper

Here’s a close up of  ‘Platt’s Black’ Brass Buttons with Star Creeper.

Stepable Plants for Part Shade/Part Sun:

Leptinella squalida –  New Zealand Brass Buttons.   The variety I prefer is ‘Platt’s Black’.  The other variety of Brass Buttons I like, ‘Leptinella P. Verdigris’  is a a little fast for pavers but I have used it for paths.  I don’t grow either of these in full sun. They spread until they find an environment they don’t like.  In my patio they run into too much shade and the strong roots of sword fern and they stop there.  These are spreaders so think before planting.

Stepable Plants Portland Modern LandscapeMentha requienii –  Corsican Mint  This is a crowd pleaser because it smells good when you step on the plant.  This plant needs some sun, and needs good drainage, too much shade and soil that is too wet in the winter will kill this plant.  Full day sun is typically too much for this plant.  I’ve seen it in full sun but when I tried it, it failed.

Stepable Plants for Sun:

Elfin Pink Thyme fills in a path in Portland OregonThymus Serpyllum ‘Elfin’ or ‘Elfin Pink’  – I love this plant and it is truly a flat mat if you step on it regularly.  It does get weeds growing into the middle so it’s not maintenance free, but only garden magazines talk about maintenance free landscapes.  When it is successful you will have to cut it off of flagstones some but I find it quite manageable.

Stachys densiflora 'Alba' in full flowerStachys densiflora ‘Alba’ – Alba Lambs Ear   First of all this plant looks nothing like  the traditional cottage garden plant (silver furry leafed) Lambs Ear.  The tiny leaves are fully evergreen, dark green and leathery.

Stachys D, 'Alba' with attractive seed heads and Thymus P. 'Elfin Pink"

Seed head is a rust red and very attractive.

I love this plant because it doesn’t let weed seeds infiltrate the tight mound of leaves.  Plant it on the edges of your path or step on it every day, otherwise it will mound up.  It takes full sun easily and the long flowering period is fantastic! The seed heads that follow are interesting as well.

Stepable ground cover in Irvington neighborhood, Portland, Oregon

Cushion Bolax ‘Nana’ – Emerald Cushion is my favorite stepable for sun.

My Favorite Stepable Plant

Azorella Trifurcata ‘Nana’ – Cushion Bolax   I have this plant at my vacation house in full morning sun (so 4 hours) and it will take full day sun as well.  It occasionally has a dandelion sprout in the middle, but other pesky weeds don’t invade.  I find it to be very low maintenance and perfect for a place I only visit every month or two.   It will creep over your pavers so plan to trim once every year or two.  It’s my favorite filler plant for pavers, paths and as a foreground plant in a planting bed.

My dog Barley looking at freshly planted Cushion Bolax ground cover.

My dog Barley looking at freshly planted Cushion Bolax.

I love the texture.  It goes through a change where the little needles feel like a plastic carpet (which sounds bad but is fun) and then it softens into a ‘pettable’ surface.  The yellow flowers are tiny fat buttons and cute.

Let’s work together and get you off to a great start

Are you looking for a Portland landscape designer who knows what plants and materials will work in your landscape?  We know how to put it all together and get you on the path to your new attractive and manageable landscape.   Contact us and let’s create together.

Portland Rain Garden with Year Round Color

Portland Rain Garden Plants with Year Round Color

Downspout disconnect rain garden in Raliegh Hills. Designed by Carol Lindsay and D & J Landscape Contracting

Downspout disconnect rain garden in Raleigh Hills. Designed by Carol Lindsay and D & J Landscape Contracting

As a Portland landscape designer I like my rain garden designs to have year round color. Many Portlanders have  rain gardens in the front yard so it’s important to have year round color.   Without careful plant selection rain garden plantings can look forlorn in the winter months with no leaves or color present.  I love a good hit of color to offset our typically gray winter season.

To select plants for a rain garden I start by thinking about the areas of a rain garden that have different degrees of wetness. There are fewer evergreen plants that work well in the wettest areas and a wider range of plants for the sides and the top which are less wet. Knowing which plants will thrive in this situation ensures I select the right plant for the right place.

Rain Garden Planting Design in Raleigh Hills, Portland, Oregon

Southwest Hills Portland Rain GardenPlantings used: Miniature Golden Sweet Flag is a 4″ tall chartreuse evergreen blade. Use the Latin name,  Acorus gramineus ‘Minimus Pusillus Aurea’, to get the right plant. The evergreen narrow gold tufts form a somewhat flattened pinwheel which adds interesting texture. It will take standing water that drains away so it’s perfect for the wettest areas of a rain garden.  If the area is a lake for a week at a time, that is too wet. Miniature Sweet Flag is unique because it also thrives in dryer sunny areas.  I don’t use it in heavy shade designs.

Flowering Tree with Beesia, Fatsia, Hosta plantings underneath

Beesia can also be used as a ground cover in partial shade here in a NE Portland landscape design.

False Bugbane – Beesia deltophylla has glossy evergreen heart shaped leaves. It’s a perfect companion plant for the narrow blades of the Miniature Gold Sweet Flag; together they make a perfect year round color  combination. The Beesia would die planted in the lowest wettest area so I plant it above the Golden Sweet Flag in a rain garden.

Designers know Compact Inkberry Holly – Ilex Glabra ‘Compacta’,  will survive temporary standing water but there are few if any other choices for the Pacific Northwest.   I’ve used Compact Inkberry Holly,  on the sides of a rain garden.  It works as a house foundation planting too. Don’t be fooled by the word “compacta”.  It will happily grow to 4′ tall. Fortunately you can prune this shrub once or twice a year and keep it 2’ by 2’.

North Portland Rain Garden Landscape Design

Ilex Glabra (Inkberry) is a great plant for rain gardens because it is evergreen. Few wet tolerant plants are evergreen. Photo from Proven Winners

Not convinced about wet soil and evergreen shrubs? I will restrain myself to listing just 5 evergreen that die a sad little death in overly wet winter soil:  Azaleas, Escollonia, Pieris, Rhododendron, and a variety of conifers to include expensive little dwarf Hemlocks.  Ouch!

Portland courtyard entry rain garden with red twig dogwood, boulders and Acorus grass

New rain garden design gets rid of the winter lake in this entry courtyard. My client built it herself.

Portland Courtyard Rain Garden Planting Design

A winter lake flooded this small entry courtyard every year for weeks at a time.  My client installed her own rock and plantings from my design but had the pipe that carried away the water installed by professionals. After the rain garden was installed we added two vine maple on either side.  The vine maple trees on either side of the rain garden would be dead instead of showing their glorious fall color.  Vine maple hate poor drainage and prove it by promptly dying.

Dwarf 16″ tall red twig dogwood “shrublets” Cornus Sericea ‘Kelseyi’ and a 12″ tall Golden Sweet Flag called Acorus gramineus ‘Aurea’ adds interest and year round color.

Get the Right Plant for Your Rain Garden

Lots of people love red  twig dogwood.  It’s a great plant for year round color and its important to get the right plant!

Some varieties of dwarf red twig dogwood get 6′ tall.  Other red twig dogwood can get 15′ tall.  Cornus sericea ‘Kelseyi’  is 12″ to 18″ tall. This dwarf dogwood variety has short colorful red twigs in winter but can get unattractive fungal leaf spots in spring.  I don’t know of a dwarf variety of red twig dogwood that is free from spring fungal leaf spots.  It’s a very useful plant.  Life is too short for spraying plants with chemicals and really dear reader, who has time to intelligently apply fungicides?

Rain garden in Willamette Heights Portland Oregon with ferns, grasses, and boulders

Dry stream bed in Willamette Heights Portland Oregon with ferns and grasses

NW Portland Hillside Rain Garden Plantings

This hillside garden was designed to be seen from the master bedroom.  There is a lot of water that moves through this hillside so it has a dry stream bed to collect the water with a drain at the bottom.  It doesn’t have any plants inside the winter water area so I don’t consider it a true rain garden.  The plants were installed behind a low retaining wall which is hidden by the plants foliage which spills over the walls. These clients are gardeners so I use a wider variety of plantings for their design than I would for non gardeners.  Ferns carry the garden for 9 months of the year. Evergreens such as native Oregon Oxalis – Oxalis organa, Japanese Soloman’s Seal Polygonatum Falcatum  (evergreen Soloman’s Seal), Hardy Geranium – Geranium Macrorrhizum  and Carex grass provide year round color.  Toad Lilly – Tricyrtis hirta, provides exotic color in the fall.  Out of all these plantings only the Carex grass can handle excessively wet winter soil. See more about this NW Portland Natural style Landscape.

North Portland Rain Garden Landscape Design

Industrial/Modern rain garden design style for downspout disconnect. Designer Barb Hilty

Portland Industrial Modern Style Rain Garden

Landscape Designer Barb Hilty designed this rain garden using no plants at all.  The full season interest relies on the ornamental rain chain, the shape of the steel boxes and the black rock to carry the day year round and allow this home owner to disconnect the downspouts in style.

Contact us

We love to work with Portland rain gardens and naturalistic dry stream beds as part of an overall design for your property.  Contact us for a collaborative approach.  The best design comes from talking at the kitchen table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Fix for Front Entry Patio

Kris Jones is a professional graphics designer of Red Door Designs.  She hired me to help her with what seemed an impossible task. Kris wanted a private outdoor dining lounge in her tiny front landscape that was next to a public sidewalk.  She told me on the phone that the property was so tiny there was no additional outdoor space.

modern front patio fits with old house

Modern clean lines and simple plantings of boxwood fit the space perfectly

Before the Design in a Day

Before the Design in a Day

While I was hired to create a design for the front,  on the day I arrived the back porch was being torn down.  I immediately realized we had the perfect opportunity to  design a covered private dining room.  The front dining patio idea had problems: too far from the kitchen, too public, and we couldn’t do tall screening plants without removing natural light from her living room. The end result is a semi public sitting area in a front courtyard patio that looks like a million bucks and a small, but highly functional, private dining room directly off her kitchen.  I could see she had room for an 8′ x 8′ area,  Kris needed a second pair of eyes to see the possibilities.

“Carol is not only fun to work with, but she is a creative out of the box thinker who is thoughtful, and has a deep knowledge of her subject. She is incredibly talented and helpful. She helped me put together a plan for my front patio area and my back covered porch. Now both areas feels like shangri la.  I don’t have a green thumb and Carol was able to break things down in a way that really made it easy for me to achieve my exterior planting goals.

I really look forward to working with Carol again in the future.”

 

Landscape Design Takes N.E. Portland Concrete Jungle into Graceful Entry

Can She Do it? Design 2 tiny concrete jungle gardens into unique graceful entries

Putsch before front yard best pic

For Jeff and Carrie the biggest problem was the builder had planted two Aspen trees.  2013

After Tiny N.E. Portland Entry Design is installed with boulders and new plantings. (2016)

The Design Challenge    

Initially Jeff and Carrie hired me to create a Landscape Design in a Day for their small backyard. They loved the design we created together and installed it themselves over three years.

Last spring they contacted me to design their tiny front yard in tandem with their next door neighbor.  The front yards were less than 400 square feet and set in a very urban environment.  They wanted their landscapes to flow together.  I thought this was a great idea!

Design Requirements for Difficult Site  

The clients wanted plants with low maintenance water needs that could thrive in hot south sun. There was reflected heat off the ginormous concrete drive.  They wanted plants with year-round color/curb appeal.  There were so many problems to solve but the biggest was the two initial Aspen trees planted in their tiny front yard.

Landscape Concept Sketch for quick landscape design for front yard in NE Portland

Rough sketches helped my clients and I work through to the best idea.

Five 10″+ wide trunks (suckers) erupted from the small Aspen trees.  The roots filled every square inch of the soil in their yard and their neighbors. Their neighbor wanted simplicity and color and no Aspen tree roots.

Before Photo: Tiny landscape is completely engulfed by Aspen trees and needed a new landscape design.

Aspen trees and roots removed and new soil and boulders installed by D and J Landscape Contractors

Remove the Tree Roots and Bring in New Soil

Because the “soil” was tight hard clay fill, I knew my design solution would include bringing in new soil. Attractive boulders would retain the soil and add a naturalistic style.

The Process  I met with all my clients, collected their thoughts and desires and sketched two design options.  Important considerations included:

Tiny Driveways  The driveways were so tiny that there was no place to walk except in the soil side strips.  I used large flagstone so they could step out of their car onto the flagstone.  I repeated the same flagstone for the front walk.  Practicality reigns in all my designs.

Cars were constantly running over existing plants at the end of the drive, so we added a strong turf stone and planted it with Stepables.  This softened the look of the turf stone which is rather industrial.  I also selected plants that would grow to hide a large 4×6 metal plate.

Once planted this turf stone will make a safe place for stepable plantings.

Practical material suggestions from Donna Burdick.  Once planted this turf stone will make a safe place for stepable plantings.

Boulders and Soil  Raised rock wall planting beds were designed for each property. Each bed had its own individual shape so they fit together, but had their own style.

While removing the Aspen roots and grading, the contractors discovered there was more concrete and rubble than fill dirt!  It would have been impossible to grow anything (besides aspen trees or maybe cactus) without the raised and retained new soil.

Trees:  The Focal Point

New tree Lagerstroemia 'Cawtaba' (Crape Myrtle) replaces the evil Aspen trees for this tiny NE Portland front yard.

“We are very happy with the design and install. Thanks for all the great ideas!” – Jeff Putsch

The focal point trees shape and mature sizes were selected with care so they won’t grow into one another as they age.  The new trees, a Crape Myrtle and an improved Bloodgood Japanese Maple, provided each landscape with individuality.  They will need some yearly pruning to achieve my goals.

Teamwork   Since it was such a tricky site, I needed an experienced and creative contractor for the final landscape installation. I met with Donna Burdick of D&J Landscape Contractors and walked through the design and site.  I knew my clients were in good hands.

The Results   Designing both front yards at the same time allowed me to create a landscape that appears larger and cohesive for both homes.  Since I always work collaboratively, the clients helped me make each garden unique.  They loved my design and I got kudos for referring Donna Burdick, since her installation made these gardens come together perfectly.  The clients were very pleased with her work.

Contact Me in 2025

This design was completed and installed almost 20 years ago.  Today I have many Portland landscape design clients with wildly different needs.  Its been wonderful taking on these difficult sites.  They don’t have to be difficult but I love a tricky city landscape property with problems to solve.  I still specialize in custom landscape design because even if the property is simple the clients may have unique and complex wants for their home.  Call me.  I still answer my phone, return voice messages and quickly answer my contact form.