guide | Madrone Landscape

Your Ideal Landscape: A Step-by-Step Guide

Sep 8, 2023

Plants breathe life into gardens, offering seasonal dynamism. During the spring, radiant flowers blossom, and deciduous trees flaunt lush foliage, only to become stark in winter. This landscape design guide will help you factor in these seasonal shifts for a well-thought-out strategy that beautifully balances the ever-changing nature of plant life.

However, lasting elements like hardscape materials (think concrete, stone), outdoor furniture, pergolas, fire pits, and water features provide a constant backdrop. When harmonized with seasonal plantings, these elements impart a unique ambiance throughout the year.

Wondering how to transition from a bland lawn with deteriorating surroundings to a dream garden space? This landscape design guide will help you.

The initial steps are straightforward; but as you proceed, expertise in design becomes essential. A landscape designer will greatly benefit from your preliminary research and ideas. Investing time in understanding and pinpointing your preferred landscaping styles will refine your design aspirations.

Discover Local Landscaping Styles

Embark on a neighborhood stroll. Bring along a companion to evaluate various landscape styles. Discuss the highs and lows of each design, noting standout plants and materials. Equip yourself with a notebook for jotting points and a smartphone for capturing images. Don’t restrict your exploration to just your immediate neighborhood. Venture further to discover unique architectural and landscape inspirations.

Madrone North County Native Natural Landscape

Gather Digital Inspiration

Following your local exploration, dive into the vast digital world. Platforms like Pinterest, Houzz, Instagram, and HGTV are treasure troves for landscaping ideas. Tailor your online search for region-specific inspirations like California or Mediterranean landscapes, emphasizing drought-resistant or native plants. Familiarize yourself with terms like “xeric” or “ornamental grass” to better communicate with industry professionals.

Craft a Materials Palette

With a collection of inspiration at hand, start categorizing. Separate your finds into:

Character: Character photos contain a mix of elements, including furniture, architecture, vegetation, and landscape. These images are often broad angles and represent a particular style or sense of place.

Hardscape: Hardscape is the structure and backbone of a site—walls, flatwork, fountains, walkways, boulders, rock mulch—anything that is installed once and stays put. Hardscape elements are typically the biggest-ticket items, consistent throughout all seasons, and relate closely to building layout and materials.

Plant Palette: Plants breathe life into a space—yet come with a unique set of opportunities and strengths; not the least of which is need for the proper combination of sun, soil, and water. Taking plant inspiration from the neighborhood is often one of the best ways to find climate-appropriate plant selections. Even so, the microclimates within your property (particularly sun and wind exposure) may differ and affect plant viability. A palette based on the desired look can be combined with some horticultural know-how to develop a specific plant list.

Transition to Professional Collaboration

Having established your materials palette, you’ve laid a solid foundation for your landscape’s transformation. This groundwork has set the stage for the next pivotal phase. While it’s empowering to spearhead the initial steps on your own, partnering with a professional will ensure the fruition of your vision. From this point on, the subsequent steps will be a collaborative effort, where you and the landscape expert work hand in hand. Their expertise will be invaluable in bringing your landscaping dream to life, ensuring both aesthetic appeal and practical functionality.

Madrone Landscape Design Concept Drawing Plan

Develop a Conceptual Plan

Begin the design phase with a precise base map. This should encompass utility locations, existing greenery, and structural details. If unsure, consider hiring expert help. Concept plans broadly represent proposed changes, highlighting primary features.

Sketch Ground-Level Views

Vignettes or sketched views offer a ground-level perspective of your landscape. They provide a tangible feel of the space, supplementing your concept plan. Employ tools like Adobe Photoshop for digital sketches or stick to hand-drawn illustrations.

Delve into 3D Modeling

3D modeling tools, such as Google Sketchup, can elevate your design visualization. With an accurate base map, these tools help in plotting out your envisioned space in three dimensions.

Bring Your Design to Life with Rendering

Photorealistic rendering tools like Lumion offer a tangible glimpse of the potential landscape. By blending 3D models with realistic textures and elements, you get a vivid visualization of your dream garden.

Not everyone might find all steps achievable. But even accomplishing the initial stages can significantly assist landscape designers in realizing your dream. From plan drawings to advanced visualization tools, every stage plays a crucial role in materializing the perfect landscape for you.

Contact Us for an Ideal Landscape

Ready to bring your landscaping vision to life? Connect with our landscape design team today and let’s craft your dream garden together! Reach out at [email protected] or call (805) 466-6263.

Mulch Madness – A Guide to Mulch

Sep 24, 2021

Key Benefits, Types, and Methods of Using Mulch in California Landscapes

It’s almost insane how many ways mulching adds to the success of California landscapes. It is easily one of the most useful practices one can do in the garden. Mulching is a great way to control weeds, retain moisture and protect your soil. It also hides and protects drip lines, keeps dust down, provides a safe, relatively clean walking surface, and looks better than bare ground. Mulches can prevent erosion on slopes, and organic mulches improve soil structure.

Saves Time and Money

One of the most important benefits of mulching is it saves time and money! By reducing weeds, especially annuals, by up to 90%, landscaping labor costs are reduced significantly. Mulching can reduce or even eliminate the need for costly and toxic herbicides. And mulch can significantly conserve soil moisture, reducing the cost of irrigation. Many California Coast gardens use surface-mounted drip irrigation and mulching serves to visually cover up and protect drip lines, which are vulnerable to damage and weathering, thus saving on costs to repair or replace.

Promotes Healthy Landscapes

Mulching promotes healthy plants and garden areas by reducing competition from weeds by preventing their germination. The decomposition of mulch also adds nutrients to the soil as it breaks down, improving soil by adding organic matter that feeds beneficial organisms. Mulching reduces soil compaction and insulates plants against temperature extremes. A 2-inch mulch layer can cut summer soil evaporation by 20% and lower temperatures in the top 4 inches of soil by 10 degrees. There is a notable improvement in establishing young plants and trees when mulch is used.

Reduces Soil Erosion

Another benefit of mulch is how it reduces soil erosion. Covering the soil simply helps keep soil in place when exposed to rain and wind. This is especially true on slopes, by deflecting the impact of raindrops, which in turn reduces stormwater runoff and creek erosion.

It Just Looks Good

Mulch is often the finishing touch for planting areas. In addition to the functional benefits, it just looks good! A clean, uniform mulch layer helps to really tie the garden together.

Mulching with a Multitude of Materials

There are a wide variety of materials that can be used for mulching. The style and design of your individual garden or landscape will inform as to which types might be best for you. Bark and wood products are the most common types of mulches on the Central Coast. But there are many others, such as stone – from colorful rocks and boulders down to a wide variety of gravel and even decomposed granite. An under-layer of sheet mulching can be employed using newspapers, cardboard and even plastic sheeting. Living mulches (e.g. Dutch white clover) are cover crops planted around crops or between crop rows, adding nitrogen to the soil while discouraging noxious weeds.

We want to call attention to Recycled Organic Mulches. These can include chipped or shredded wood chips, compost, simple fallen leaves or pine needles, or even grass clippings. We also favor chipper mulch from local tree trimming operations. Our endorsement of these recycled materials stems from the fact that these materials are not only potentially an attractive ground cover and mulch, but they are by-products that don’t have to be shipped long distances, and mulching with them contributes to maintaining their usefulness in another form (good for sustainability).

Consider Flammability

With all the benefits of mulching, also comes an issue of organic mulch’s combustibility and wildfire safety. In areas of many California communities, there is a real need to consider how to reduce hazardous conditions, and how mulching can play a useful role and not contribute to wildfire danger.

An in-depth study conducted at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension of landscape mulch types analyzed their relative combustibility, flame height, rate of spread, and temperatures. They demonstrated a wide range of variability in mulch type combustibility, suggesting the need to consider flammability when choosing mulches. In general, it is obvious that the least flammable mulch types should be used closest to vulnerable homes and structures, and the study recommends “not using any organic mulch within five feet of a house located in wildfire-prone areas.”

How Much Mulch?

Planting areas should be mulched as needed to maintain a 2- to 4-inch layer. Plan on refreshing your mulched areas periodically. An annual inspection usually keeps you apprised of how often additional mulching is needed. Keep mulch at least two to three inches away from the stems and trunks of plants to avoid moisture-related fungus and bacteria problems. When mulching individual trees planted in lawns, create a circle of mulch about 2 feet in diameter for each inch of trunk diameter, even out to the edge of the canopy of mature trees if possible. If irrigating mulched areas with overhead irrigation, make sure that the water penetrates the mulch layer. Mulch can absorb the water and prevent its ever reaching soil.

We Love Mulch!

Mulching covers and cools the soil, conserves moisture, suppresses weed growth, slows erosion and adds nutrients as it decomposes. It also hides and protects drip lines. Plus, it looks good. What’s not to love?

Learn more about our maintenance program. Have questions about our mulching services? Contact us at [email protected] or (805) 466-6263.