Design is an important underlying component for any new garden project. Have an idea, but don’t know where to get started? Have a question about planning or getting organized? This week’s expert is Danilo Maffei, a professional landscape designer and horticulturist who believes the way to a better life is through a balanced approach to the creation, use and maintenance of our built and natural environments.
Longwood Gardens is the living legacy of Pierre S. du Pont, inspiring people through excellence in garden design, horticulture, education, and the arts. Located 30 miles outside of Philadelphia in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, we are one of the world’s great gardens, encompassing 1,077 acres of dazzling gardens, woodlands, meadows, fountains, 10,010-pipe Aeolian organ and 4.5-acre conservatory.
Visit us: https://longwoodgardens.org/
Good afternoon again my name is Katie Theriot I’m a part of our membership team here at Longwood thank you for joining us for this week’s ask the expert this is a series of conversations with Longwood’s experts and thought leaders from around the region and around the globe and this
Is offered exclusively for members where we are answering your questions on a range of home gardening topics joining us today to answer your questions on garden design and landscape design is Danilo Buffet dan is a professional landscape designer and horticulturist with a background in design public horticulture landscape contracting
Business and civic leadership he is also graduate of our professional horticulture program here and he teaches courses in landscape design and landscape construction in our professional horticulture program as well as in some of our continuing education classes dan welcome and thanks for joining us thanks Katie appreciate
Are you having me so Dave and I have received many of your design questions and we’re hoping to cover as much as you can I believe we will be able to cover as much as we can this week and we also have the chat available to you and the
Q&A function available so you can also submit questions during this session and we’ve left a little bit of time at the end to address anything that might have on your mind this is also being recorded and will be accessible after the fact to watch again at your leisure so Dan just
In getting started our first question is from Paul in Philadelphia what was your career before landscape design and what was your path to becoming a landscape designer that’s a great question Paul you know when I was in high school my intention was to become an architect and
Design buildings and for a much longer story than we have time for in this forum I discovered landscape design when I was doing a summer time job with a friend of my father’s I didn’t even know that landscape design was a career choice as soon as I found this out I
Kind of changed my thinking because it incorporated a lot of the things that I’ve really enjoyed I enjoyed the artistic aspects and the technical aspects we’ll talk about that a little later maybe but so I thought this is where I want to go but so I’ve always technically been on landscape design
Career path but I chose to approach it from the horticultural side first rather than from the design side first so I I applied to was accepted to the professional horticulture program and I learned about plants and how to grow them and how to use them this was following a practical
Experience working in a landscape architect’s studio for five years so I combined the two of those and then upon graduation from Longwood I got a job in a design-build landscaping firm and what do you do an extension of that can you share some common design theories and
Best practices that you use sure you know I think that my main job as a landscape designer is is understanding the needs of the client understanding the needs of the site what are the conditions on the site and what’s the ability of the site to hold certain things the holding capacity and then
What is the legislative environment where the garden is going to be such as homeowners associations or town or city ordinances that might impact the kinds of things they’re able to do you know a thing that comes to mind is like fences for instance there’s a lot of laws that
Said that that dictate where you can put a fence how tall the fence can be so it’s my job to take those three entities the client the site and the place with the municipality where it’s set and synthesize a creative solution that fuses all those factors together so
That’s the first part what do I do as a designer and you know the the second part of that is some some some common design theories and and best practices I’m I’m a big proponent of design as process meaning that in order to fully understand a project can be
Successful first we need to study what’s the science the site all about what’s the client all about what makes them tick what are their preferences and then give ourselves the opportunity to explore broad big picture ideas early on in the process and then as we go through those broad ideas start checking down
Into more and more specific things so we really do our due diligence on the front end in the design process and as we move forward we get more and more and more specific not wasting our time in the beginning of the process on specific things that may not be relevant to the
Final solution yeah this is not a question but thinking in your working or is it sort of like how do you it sounds like everything you do sort of using a design approach there’s there needs to be a reason for every single thing that we do we can’t just put something into
The garden and say well it’s there just because you know that that might work for a while but eventually we’re gonna come to a point where we have to care for it or we have to pay for it and was that really a good choice so we’re
Taught as designers to be able to defend our choices to justify the recommendations that were that were making to the client so yes I do use design thinking and every single thing because we need to justify it you know this is people’s time and money and livelihoods and their homes and you know
We want it to be the very best that it possibly can be so there needs to be a reason for all of it next question is from Karen in Westchester how would you design for a lathe bed against a brick wall in front of a row house this is a
Very specific question but it’s not raised beds so that is a very specific question you know the most important thing is first to know what is the purpose of that raised bed and kind of going back to the previous question you know having design thinking why is it here is
Entirely ornamental is it going to be for food production are we going to use it to create some kind of a screening and ascetic screening between you and a building or you and your neighbor you know once we answer those questions then we can make better choices as to what’s
Actually going to be in the bed if the bed’s already there or okay if the beds the raised beds not even there yet well if it’s for like food production for instance well maybe we should elevate it a certain distance so it’s easier to maintain for for our body sizes or if
It’s for screening maybe it needs to be higher or lower in order to get the best effect for that screening or if it’s gonna be for food production is that raised bed in a location where it’s gonna get enough Sun to produce the kind
Of food that I want to I want to grow so if we start off with those kinds of questions first then the later questions about well what goes in the bed or what’s the bed made out of is it wood or brick or stone and is it gonna be
Planets that are evergreen or deciduous or fruit producing or dense or thin or skinny or wide all those other questions become much easier to answer if we answer those first questions right back to design process yep ah next question is from Joanne in Newark Delaware I
Wouldn’t work in an area that’s full of weeds currently where do I start mm-hmm good question first of all you know let’s be clear about what a weed is you know weed is just a plant that’s growing in a place where we don’t want it at some point in that that weed
Identifications life it was probably some ornamental plant that was introduced somewhere or was a agricultural crop or something so let’s not necessarily malign the plan simply because you didn’t put it there right you know some of the most pesky weeds I think about yellow nutsedge for instance that everybody goes crazy about
These skinny little wispy grass like things that seem to come from everywhere it’s a native plant you know most people wouldn’t think oh yeah we’re gonna eradicate this native plants like well hold on a second you know so first of all what are the weeds and this is an important question
Because we need to know where they coming from are they getting blown in from plants that are being set from seed someplace like next-door or maybe these weeds or these these are being dropped from seed from birds that might be feeding in a bird feeder or in a tree up
Above so where the weeds coming from why do they have the opportunity to be established remember that nature abour is a vacuum so if there’s an empty space nature’s gonna fill it with something and plant life is usually the first thing that will fill in to those to those spaces so
Figure out what you have growing there and see if you can’t determine where they’re coming from if they’re blowing in from the neighbor’s property across the street maybe getting the neighbors to take better care of their property might be an easier way for you to get
Rid of the weeds we’re putting in some kind of a windbreak if it’s if it’s Birds dropping seed well maybe if it’s coming from a bird feeder or some things like well maybe just move the bird feeder how about that or use different use different seed in the bird feeder so
You’re not getting all those sunflowers that are growing up all over here all over your lawn so once you figure that out then you know where they’re coming from this will help you to make some better choices as to what I can do to make sure that when I’m if I put
Something new in there that the weeds aren’t going to continue to come back that they’re not going to be some some aggressive counterpart to the new things that we put in there so if we can reduce the source of where the weeds are coming from understand what they are and know
Which kind of plants will be the best foil for keeping them to come back then we’ll have we’ll have better success in eradicating them I love that idea I need your boys a better vacuum I learned that one from from one of my first mentors actually one of the guy
That that got me interested in my career in the first place he told me that one because I didn’t know much about plants at the time as a matter of fact I was I was kind of anti plants my parents had a big had a big home vegetable garden that
I got the opportunity to weed in the heat of the summer and I didn’t think I liked plants all that much but when he told me told me about how nature abhors a vacuum and it would be my job to fill that vacuum was something that we want
Rather than the random whims of nature I thought hey that sounds like a lot of fun yeah the way you frame that great next question is from tagging media suggested with a sweet and sunny health what would you plan there it is dear resistance another good one so if it’s
Not a weed problem it’s a deer problem right so again let’s start with some understanding about what we’re doing and you know think about their hillsides they’ve okay we have a hillside it’s what I’m planning on doing something new is this going to be something better than what I have
Already right now you have something why do you want to change it do you want to do something to make it more more interesting like from seasonal change or do you want something more diverse like a wider range of plant types or sizes or species you know are you trying to
Create habitat or are you trying to make it easier to care for so like you don’t have to mow it or you know reducing the amount of time that you’re actually on that hillside doing something is it a hillside that you see on a regular basis
Do you see it from the house do you see it on approach to your house is it something that your neighbors are staring at from the opposite side of your property you know having having an understanding of what you’re working with can help to frame up what a
Potential solution might be we call this site inventory an analysis in landscape design what do we have what’s good about what I have what’s bad about what I have right so taking stock of of what it is for you business owners out there if you ever did a SWOT analysis so with that’s
That’s what we’re talking about here strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats right that’s what SWOT is swo take so that’s kind of what we’re doing in landscape design so once we figure out what we have then we need to have some some real X realistic expectations
About the time that we want to invest in planning it building it maintaining it and how much money we want to invest in planning it building it maintaining it because everything costs something there’s your time and sweat or it’s your money and your paycheck so how much I’m
Gonna put into this you know can can I can I invest a certain amount of money or a certain amount of time and again this will help to frame up what kinds of solutions are practical for you just as an aside to this as a landscape designer
This is what I do for a living is to help people better understand the challenges that they have and get it down on paper and then do some some financial projections as to what we think the solution might cost so my clients spend a little bit of money with
Me to figure out what a realistic solution is before they start throwing out bigger chunks of money actually hiring contractors and buying plants and doing all that which is much more expensive so a little bit of homework on the front end with with a firm like my
Own can help save you a lot of time and frustration on the back side it is it is you figure that most ornamental landscape installations in a residential setting usually have a lifespan somewhere around fifteen years or so before you need some kind of a serious rethinking of usually the smaller shrubs
And perennials and ground covers so yeah you’re gonna be quote-unquote stuck with it for the next fifteen years twenty years or so or until you move away from the house so yeah it’s this is important important consideration so approaching the sunny hillside with that that’s that’s the first step and then as
For the as for the deer part of it well that’s another challenging piece you know you can do a lot of research online or read publications that give lots and lots of advice on on plants that are deer resistant if you’ve read more than one of them you’ll realize that the
Publication’s don’t always agree on which ones are resistant which ones are not and it’s not because one or the other authors are wrong it’s just because that there’s different preferences regionally or in the country or even from you know one part of the county to the other each deer herd has slightly different
Preferences and slightly different environmental conditions that will cause them to either want to or not want to eat the plants that you have so while there are a couple of plant species that I personally consider to be almost 100 percent deer proof like those two plants to be boxwood and most ornamental
Grasses they just don’t seem to want to touch either one of those after those two they’re gonna browse on just about anything else especially when they’re new as a matter of fact when the plants first installed even if it’s something that’s proven to be deer resistant in a
Particular area when you introduce a new plant into that deers feeding range they’re gonna come over and investigate it right there and the way that they investigate it is by using their mouth you know they’re not going to do research online and say I looked it up
Online I think I should like this plant now they’re gonna they’re gonna bite it and find out well if it’s a young plant like a small perennial or something in a small pot that hasn’t rooted out into the ground that little bit of Investigation they’re gonna tug on that
Plant it’s gonna pop up out of the ground when they tug on it and whether they like the plant or not chances are they dislodge the plant out of the ground the roots are no longer in soil contact if you didn’t notice it for a
Day or two it’s gonna die out dry out and die so even if it’s a plant that they don’t like they’re probably going to come and investigate it and you just need to do a little bit of dear protection for a new planting even if you’re using what we consider to be
Very reliable deer resistant plants is there anything aside from you know you can use repellents such as some commercially available liquids that are usually based on like predator type animals such as like like fox or coyote urine or something like that where the deer will be afraid of the smell of that
Potential predator so you could use you can use repellents there’s either liquid or granules you can also use deterrence something that will make noise or move they’re usually based with either with a motion sensor that will detect when something is moving nearby so if the deer comes up to your bed it’ll trigger
Them the mechanism and cause something to spin or flash I know I know one is activates a sprinkler head so when they when the deer come close it activates the sprinkler shoots a water jet and it scares the deer away and these things work for a while but keep in mind if
You’re using those deterrents that the deer get used to them and they go oh wait a minute that didn’t hurt me it’s just scary right so then you have to try something else and mix it up so you might be using one repellent one deterrent another kind of another kind
Of device in order to keep them away there’s not yet given time great okay so we have our next question and this is from Mary Beth Cox in Delaware what ideas do you have for mixing evergreens with perennials hmm okay so get a little bit more specific here you know when it
Comes to picking out plants most of us have the tendency to want to start jumping straight to a specific plant right but I think going back to my design process approach you know before you go to that specific plant start thinking first of all about okay well what’s the
Culture is is it full Sun that part shade is a dry soil moist soil soil type or quality just by thinking about what conditions you have and being honest about it doing your research and you know don’t kid yourself and say oh yeah it’s full Sun it’s like you know
Three or four hours it’s not full Sun it might be full Sun between eleven and two but that doesn’t count so know the culture and then once you know the culture that’s going to limit your sample size down to which plants are even feasible for you to choose from
Think about the kinds of plants that fit those categories that are actually available in your marketplace you know if you can’t get the plant it might be the perfect plant to pair up with with those plants but you know if you can’t buy it then you’re just you know you’re
Just teasing yourself so if if it’ll grow there and you can buy it somewhere then think about the size shape and texture that that the plants wouldn’t that would work with with those particular plants so usually if we’re mixing evergreens and perennials you know oftentimes evergreens are very
Static in there and their aesthetic display they’re usually one color for the most part they don’t they don’t have noticeable flowers that that would would make of any interest of the composition so the evergreens are usually relegated to a complementary color or some kind of a background for our perennials so think
About the simultaneous contrast of colors you know doing a dark background with a light plant in front or with a with a broad spreading plant as the background and some upright vertical plants in the front so think about that size shape and texture as you’re picking
Out the plants and if you have those attributes in mind you don’t even have to be a plant expert in order to pick them out you can come with these attributes in mind then go to your favorite garden center and talk to the person there and say hey look I’m
Looking for a plant that’s about just gonna grow to about six feet tall that’s dark color fine texture and I need a perennial in front of it that’s gonna be bright color with a coarse texture and then you can just describe them and then they can lead you to the right plan
Great and that one body in Cherry Hill New Jersey wants to know what shade plants with height would you recommend planting behind hostas and Coral Bells okay so hostas and Coral Bells are both kind of course to medium textured plants me in the size of their leaf parts right
So if you have a coarse texture big chunky parts I would lean more towards a medium to fine textured plant to complement those coarse textures it’ll help to kind of blend those other plants together the hostas and Coral Bells so think about know things like such as
Grasses one of my favorite Jenner is Pennisetum the fountain grass which grows in a wide range of conditions full Sun to even part shade would go nicely with that or if you have more shade than you do Sun maybe some of the sedges the kerrick’s genus would work well with
With those plants or if you wanted to use shrubs with them maybe something like the boxwood or Japanese Holly would be a consistent dark evergreen fine textured shrub to go along with those plants or if you wanted something that had a little bit more color maybe something like spiraea a small flowering
Shrub with a small fine to medium foliage texture usually interesting pink flowers in the late spring early summer and different different cultivars of spirea can have really interesting foliage color from chartreuse t greens to golds and limes so you can really have a wide range of fun things to play
Around with yeah I think so great Dianne in peach pot in Pennsylvania asks our peonies for hydrangea as a possible replacement for azaleas that have been removed from bed along the front of the house inu sir hydrangeas is replacement for azaleas so I said the short answer is yes you
Could there’s some there’s some sigh and bloom variations that you need to take in consideration where hydrangea is going to be blooming later than your azaleas so if you’re choosing these for bloom time the the hydrangeas will be blooming later than the azaleas even you know exactly which Azalea you’re talking
About your peonies are gonna bloom at about the same time maybe a little bit later than some of the earlier evergreen azaleas so keep bloom time in mind as for size there’s again a wide range of azaleas that are out there from villas have both of these Dorf ones it might be only
Three or four feet tall to larger varieties that might be six seven eight feet tall so if you’re looking about size replacement you know peonies might be much much smaller than some of those bigger Azalea selections whereas hydrangeas might better fit the bill of some of the larger sizes and
Then there’s also a culture that comes into play you know well-established azalea’s can handle a wide range of cultural types but they do prefer low or acid pH they usually like really rich loamy soils they like a little bit of protection in the in the afternoon blasted by that late afternoon Sun and
Hydrangea kind of the same way and peonies for that matter too so culturally they might work but the soil the soil conditions might be a little bit a little bit different whereas the peonies might not prefer that really acid loamy soil quite so much and depending on which I drained you you’re
Doing like that macro fill is your pH changes are going to influence the bloom color right so low pH is going to give you a blue flower high pH going to give you a pink flower so if that’s important to you you might want to take that into
Account as well there’s so many different kinds too I mean that’s that’s the thing about hydrangeas you know there might be early blooming summer time you know some mid to mid to late summer bloomers some bloom on previous seasons would other than the current seasons would and make a more or less resistant
Susceptible to losing the bloom so yeah there’s a lot of variety there not many of them are deer resistant okay now you’re moving on to the search choice questions that have been posed and if you perhaps want to pick one that you can answer to that would be great travel
So what low-growing grass covers do you recognize your grass replacement suggestions for low-maintenance flowering perennials how to get started designing beds and putting in flowering tree bushes so perhaps if you pick one of those two answers from numbers okay why don’t we start with the first one
About ground covers as a as a grass replacement as a long replacement I this is something that appeals to me personally I’ve I live in an InTown lot and even though it’s a relatively small lot mowing grass is just kind of a pain just it’s it’s time-consuming I’d rather
Do something else so you know I’m using I’m using resources of time and money and you know using fossil fuels to mow grass I just rather just not do so limiting my lawn area is I think it’s a great great endeavor and there’s some really good ones
Keep in mind what you think you might want to do with the space though because you know when it comes to having an outdoor activity space that can be relatively level and uniform where kids want to play or you want to lay out and
Get a tan or you want to do a lawn sport or something like that you know there’s really not much of a replacement for turf grass I mean it’s really kind of the only way to go so if you’re looking to do those things you you really can’t
Do without it so consider keeping a patch of your lawn to do the turf grass kind of thing I’m going to play bocce ball or badminton or something like that if you don’t need to do those things on a regular basis but an area you might want to be walking and the
Plants need to be something that you can step on without doing mass damage to them then you know we can we can certainly get you into business I would definitely look hard into some of our ornamental grasses things that are going to be growing taller than a turf grass
You might be anywhere from 12 to 18 inches tall up 2 to 3 feet tall so things such as sedges the kerrick’s genus for shady areas such as carrots pencil wanaka or terracotta Logica both native species that would be really happy here in the mid-atlantic region around Longwood Gardens that would do
Really well and they do better in more shady conditions if you have more Sun or a sharply draining soil conditions then maybe something like creeping flocks flocks of balata you may not want to be walking on it in your bare feet it might be a little bit more prickly than you
Might want but it really does well to give a nice solid dense ground cover that’s virtually indestructible so that could work really well other perennials that that work well is a ground cover I’m a I’m a huge fan of this it came up on the earlier questions actually is heuchera general the alum
Roots I’m especially fond of our native heuchera villosa the hairy alum root there’s one called autumn bride which blooms in September with this big long white spiky fuzzy flower with these big palm shaped medium green leaves just a little bit fuzzy around the edge they appreciate a little bit of shade in
The afternoon but once they get established they’re super tough really beautiful plants and just come back really strong each and every year there’s lots of others that are available and then the main thing is to keep in mind about how much traffic is going to be moving through those areas
And we think about you know what I want to do with this space what kind of purpose does it have as long as you’re careful about clearly defining what you want to do with those spaces then it’s a simple matter of picking out the plant types that do best in those
Situations but I’m actually asking this design exactly exactly the more work you do on the front end of landscape design the better your successes are going to be on the back end you know in in the work that I do with with my firm if a landscape design we go through a process
That gives us the time to do those things and to really learn about what’s important the more I find that my my success really stems from how well I learn about the site and how well I learn about the client asking questions and if you’re doing home design you want
To design something for yourself you try involving the household in the process don’t don’t try and do it alone try and get everybody else involved in the situation to have you know ask them questions and have them ask questions back to you because everyone else who lives in the household is gonna have
Some input as oh well I like this or I prefer that or hey you know what I really like the view and I’m sitting over in that corner of the property I’m looking back towards the house or the view across the street is really pretty let’s make sure that we save that and
Keep that open or maybe that will dictate where you place a chair or a bench or something like that and then the better you learn about those things and engage all the the end users of the garden and then document those things if we put those things onto onto a plan a
Map you know in our inventory map and so here’s where that good thing is and here’s where this other thing is we put on a plan and then that way it’s you know it’s kind of like when you plan your vacation and you start a map of
Where you want to go so I want to go to this museum and that Park and I want to stay you know it all dictates where you want to be and you kind of see all the points of interest and go well then based on that I should choose this hotel
Right or I should fly into that Airport not that Airport yeah you know where you want to be and what you want to see so that may gives you better information to plan all the other things and I will say just as an extension of that question
And if you haven’t where people and designer before what are some things that folks should keep in mind before picking up this phone that’s a great question I would say having having an understanding of you know what your preferences are and being able to articulate them the more clearly you can
Express to a designer where you would like to go the more quickly we can get to a design solution and it doesn’t mean that you have to design it for us you know on the contrary it’s a matter of we we as the designer saying oh I see what
You prefer this is why I always have a meeting with my clients at the place where the gardens going to be so I can understand what their preferences are so I can see their furnishings and their choices in colors or the you know the way that they keep their their the way
They keep their their house organized or arranged you know are they minimalist or are they eclectic do they you know did I like colorful order like monochromatic you know what’s the style that they really like so if you can come to a designer with some some imagery like you
Know using some online sharing boards like Pinterest or something like that and putting together a pin bores a I saw this garden I saw that garden I really like this that would be great or having a list of the the kinds of activities that you would like to engage in you
Know with your garden you know if you want to do gardening for food production or if you want to do outdoor activities like one sports or you want to do you want to have you want to have parties you know well if you think about a party
Is like well what size party is it is it just you and a couple of neighbors or is it you know are you inviting the whole office over for the annual Christmas party or something like that you know the more clearly you can define what it
Is that you want to get out of the project then we can document all that information rather than really kind of have to hunt and peck and search and pull it out of you and you know it’ll give us more of a head start and kind of
Hitting the ground running and just give us a little bit of insight and then the other thing that’s really helpful is any kind of documentation that you might already have about your property is really helpful for us if you have a survey or a property drawing that
Shows where your property lines are and where the house is we call those base plans or base drawings for the for the process and then we’ll use that as underlying information for the new things that we’re going to do it also gives us submit some input as to where we can do
Certain things such as you know how far back might your swimming pool have to be from the property lines or you know how what kind of a setback does a deck have to have and we can use that when we research the the codes and ordinances of your particular municipality so having
Some of that kind of background information the kinds of things that we can’t readily see by visiting the site and saying I see that you know if it’s in your head or is there some invisible information any things you can do to help enlighten us to help shorten or
Flatten our learning curve would certainly be helpful I can imagine that a project if you are do you want if you want a project where you are going to be doing show-stopping entertainment this is something that might be more intimate just for you and one or two other people
Like you said on how you’re going to use it it’s definitely to change things yep two totally different things so the more that we can fine-tune what you want to do the more relevant the design is gonna be for you and the more use you’re going
To get out of it and the better value is going to be and so we did get one question in our Q&A that I want to make sure we address before we wrap up okay this question is from Julie I have a screen of Leland cypresses approximately 30 feet tall thinning and unattractive
At the bottom what plants can I plant to screen the bottoms while making the line of trees more attractive sounds great so Leland Cypress is a very fast-growing evergreen tree and at 30 feet tall I imagine they’ve been therefore for for a good period of time
If I’ve been there for a good 10 15 years by now at 30 feet tall and they might be on their way to checking out they tend to be relatively weak wooded so ice storms and snow storms tend to break them up if they’re getting light
Down on the bottom deer might be chewing on them or they might just simply be shading themselves out because the height of the tree above them is putting shade on the lower parts of the tree and this is the trees will abandon their needles so depending what they are and might
Start thinking about some replacement by attrition and we start to slowly replace the evergreen screening with new taller evergreens some good ones like like like Japanese cedar cryptomeria japonica or green giant arborvitaes thigh up like ADA Green Giant are very similar but longer-lived evergreen trees I could do
Very nice and they grow pretty fast as well but doing something as a layer plant to kind of hide those those thinning out branches looking looking gene generous such as hydrangea which tend to grow four five six feet tall sometimes even a little bit bigger or viburnum which also
Grow about those range about six seven eight feet tall or even more depending on the cultural conditions that you had and what kind of light soil moisture and so on would dictate which ones of those might work other other shrubs that might work nicely there things like why Jeolla has
An old-fashioned flowering plant that’s in bloom right now with tubular pink flowers or some of our native plants I’m a really big fan of Carolina allspice Cali campus is the but is the genus prefer slightly moister soils but it gets a really fragrant dark maroon red
Flower in mid summer it has a spicy aroma to it and I also find that the really long straight branches make really fantastic marshmallow roasting sticks extra benefits so that is the last question thank you Dan for sharing your knowledge with us and I think we’ve covered a lot
Of ground today and open it any thoughts or words of wisdom for you no landscape design is a fantastic fantastic career if you’re considering entering the career or making a career change this other lots of other backgrounds can lead nicely into into a career in landscape
Design such as art or the sciences even business managers find some really interesting things about landscape design that can use their skillset but maybe they’re looking for something to do that’s more outside oriented or nature or they just like working with plants so it’s a fantastic career choice
I’ve been doing it for quite some time now and I can tell you that I’ve thankful every day that I get to do this as a career I get to spend you know good a mess of time indoors and outdoors and anything else to our slide here is
Actually Dan stands right here and so this is one of the plans it looks like that yep yep the one of the that was one of the students of final final design submissions in the landscape design one course great so I’m looking forward to it yes we were to the recording of this
Presentation will be available to members and the next week’s expert is Nancy Agnew who will be answering questions about annuals so you can register for that session as well as get the recording of this session through our Longwood from home email that comes out each Friday and thank you all – who
Are joining us today we hope you learned something and remembers we’re very grateful for your support and engagement and we look forward to welcoming you back – long live soon thanks so much guys have a good one you