Low-Maintenance Landscape
This project was for an extended family with 3 generations living together. They lead busy lives and needed something low maintenance.
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Our high school friends were living with their kids and parents together in a large home in Lee’s Summit. They were all very busy with activities and didn’t have much time to keep up with weeding their landscape. But their house needed a face lift and some curb appeal and the Mom was a realtor, so she understood the value of making these improvements.
the challenges
Large beds with a long walkway to front door
Needed hardy plants but didn’t want to deal with mulch and weeds
Existing rock wall needed to be beautified
No Curb Appeal
Corner Lot makes landscape challenging
Some sun and some shades
Our Design Approach
Step 1) Connect the wall to the walkway with a landscape bed
We didn’t want a skinny strip of grass between the wall and path. It wouldn’t look good and would be a pain to mow and maintain. So we connected the wall to the walk with a rock bed and added flowering cherry trees with red leaves to create height and interest.
Step 2) Use narrow plants
The space between the front walk and the house was very narrow, and the facade of the house was tall. We needed to have enough height to frame the house and fit the scale, but didn’t want to have the plants overgrow the path. Taylor Juniper was the perfect fit for this narrow space and the evergreen tree looks great all year round.
Step 3) Plants, rocks, and water
We knew we wanted to use river rock in the beds and fabric below to keep the weeds at bay, but the heat from the rock can be hard on some plants. We chose super hardy perennials that don’t mind the heat and we also upgraded the sprinklers to make sure the plants got adequate watering.