Creating a Sustainable Garden

1 Nov, 2008 By: Bridget White Livescapes

For Daniel Lowery, APLD, of Washington-State-based Queen Anne Gardens, designing a garden is much more than just sketching a nice layout and specifying plants. With each carefully made decision Lowery is not only helping his clients succeed, he's supporting a much larger purpose: creating more sustainable and environmentally friendly gardens.

1 Using quick-growing plants made not only created privacy in this urban garden but also helped give definition to garden rooms in a crowded backyard.

A Sustainable Design

All landscapers aim for a healthy finished garden that will grow and thrive for years to come. Lowery believes a good design goes a step further, ensuring perfect alignment of plants, design and environment to create a beautiful retreat.

2 The new landscape filled two of the owner's requests by providing lots of privacy with splashes of color.

"People who hire a designer are usually not enthusiasts; they are the people who have already failed or are too busy to do it themselves," explains Lowery. "I'm trying to do them justice and the environment justice by making gardens that are the easiest to take care of and most sustainable that I can. I don't think a landscape should be dependent on flowers; it should be calm and cool and green without seeming like it's missing something."

3 Before the project, the home was open to the street and sidewalk, with little privacy.

Lowery's designs rely on a backbone of trees, shrubs and vines, a fairly typical concept, but instead of adding on a layer of annual "color" beds to complete the project, he confines annuals exclusively to containers. This "temporary art," as he describes it, will only be in the landscape for a single season and offers the homeowner abundant opportunities for creativity.

4 A requirement of the new garden, the dining area relies on architectural fragments to add a personal touch to a completely green garden room.

"In the containers, I'll try any new combination I see ... the wildest I can come up with," says Lowery. "It's the splash of colors most homeowners need to bring their garden to life, and it can easily be replaced if it doesn't work."

5 Relying on a palate of cool green, Lowery designed a garden that is self-sustaining and needs little "farming."

By using the containers, Lowery gives his clients both what they see in the gardening magazines as well as a low-maintenance, very natural design that increases their chances for success."

6 Lowery allocates experimentation to decorative containers spread throughout the garden.

Sustainable Plant Choices

At Queen Anne Gardens, the overriding criteria are maintenance and continuity — what plants will optimize the natural resources of the space and require as little care as possible for the homeowner. In the color department, this often means perennials or bulbs, supported by a backbone of blooming and/or brightly colored trees and shrubs.

7 In these temporary settings, plants that don't quite live up can easily be replaced.

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