This month’s Landscape Malpractice Tip #38 is a sad one. The photos were taken one year after installation. It is an example of poor design, ignorance of horticulture basics, within both municipal and commercial entities, waste of money and good plant material. Along with a “who cares?” attitude.
A commercial landscape designed by the developer/builder to get a C.O. and permitted by the municipal building department to receive approval and provide a C.O. (certificate of occupancy) Just get it done.
·Prime example of “instant landscape.”
Two large canopy trees, Taxodium spp. one installed in undersized, curbed beds in the middle of the parking lot.
The other cypress planted too close to the curb and other plants.
The Muhly grass needs full sun and not spaced correctly — planted too close together. Muhly’s mature size is too big for that small bed and is not maintained.
The Liriope muscari needs shade and mesic soils. It is not getting enough water to handle the sunlight.
The Ilex vomitoria ‘Schillings,’ is fine, albeit planted in a yawn-inducing formal row instead of naturally spaced, but okay.
One small Redbud. It is fine.
African iris in the far bed is fine, just overplanted.
Plants in native landscapes should be spaced based on their mature size, alongside other plants that have similar growing requirements.
Landscape architects and designers should know what the future site conditions will be and need to use mature sizes as a guide for the number of plants to spec and how far apart to space. Muhly grasses are 5’ to 6’ wide at maturity. With an 8’ x 10’ bed with an eventual 20’+ tall cypress tree in the middle, there should only be one to two Muhly grass spec’d, not four to six.
Using native plants in unnatural landscapes, (middle of parking lots and cement curbs) is not natural and looks terrible. Eventually companies get tired of looking at the high-maintenance, dead plants and trees in ugly areas. These mandatory “native” landscapes are then cleaned up and filled in with turf, or rubber mulch, gravel, and cigarette butts. Municipal code departments who permit these atrocities should know better. Who cares? The property owners who deserve guidance in planting native habitats should care, and the wildlife who deserve to have their environments protected care. We all should care.