Confused about how to design your dream yard? Instead of panicking,  call the landscaping pros for advice

Landscaping or Gardening?

So you’ve just finished building your dream home or cottage, and now you’re contemplating the pile of dirt and scrap lumber in what will someday be your garden and lawn paradise. Or perhaps you’ve got the outdoor-renovating urge and have decided that those boring ball-shaped evergreens flanking the foundation have got to go. The only thing is, you have no idea where to begin to create your dream yard.

What can you do? First of all, don’t panic. You can do it yourself, a little at a time, but it helps to get some advice when you’re starting out. Just as you did for the inside of your dream house, you should call the professionals—certified landscapers or horticulturists—to help make your dream garden and yard a reality.

When the conversation turns to plants, gardens and yards, we often hear three terms bandied about: gardening, landscaping and horticulture. Gardening is the hobby and avocation of growing edible or ornamental plants around our homes. Landscaping is the design and planting of a finished garden or yard design, incorporating many features and using mainly ornamental plants in a design scheme. Horticulture is all of those things encompassed under one umbrella: the science and art of growing any kind of plants in gardens.

Tim Amos lives and breathes horticulture and has since he was an 11-year-old boy mowing lawns, weeding gardens and “cutting down people’s peonies when I shouldn’t have” in Ottawa. That early interest in horticulture led him to enroll in a three-year program at Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission School of Horticulture in 1977. He moved to Nova Scotia in the early 1980s and has been a designer, landscaper, consultant and instructor since then. Along with teaching the horticulture and landscape program at the Nova Scotia Community College’s Kingstec campus in Kentville, N.S., Tim continues to consult and design, although he no longer does actual landscape installations.

The Evolution of Landscaping in Atlantic Canada

As we roamed around Tim and wife Melanie’s 15-acre (six-hectare) property in Medford, near Canning, he explained the evolution of landscaping in Atlantic Canada in recent years. “In the early 1980s, when I first came here, things were not very well developed in terms of ornamental horticulture,” he recalls. “You’d see lawns with a few shrubs or trees scattered here and there, not joined together in any sort of a grouping except a straight-line foundation planting. Now, however, there are a lot of new materials, such as excellent lighting options and unique paving stones and wall blocks for building walkways or walls, and, of course, great plant options, but it’s really interesting how some things that were popular 50 or more years ago are popular again.”

There was a time when horticulture and landscaping truly went “from the ground up,” says Tim, with great preparation of the soil and an understanding of what makes plants happy. Then came the era of chemicals, where the prevailing philosophy meant that it didn’t matter if people under-prepared their soil; the plants would grow poorly, but we’d apply chemical fertilizers and pesticides and “save” them that way and force them to grow. Today far more emphasis is placed on having healthy, rich, living soil as the proper foundation for any sort of planting, whether it’s a seeded lawn, a grouping of trees and shrubs, an annual cutting border or a rock garden of bulbs and perennials. “We’re right back in good old-fashioned horticulture again,” says Tim, “where we understand the soils and the plants and how to maintain the plants by feeding the soil, and we aren’t looking for quick fixes all the time.”

The Bones of a Garden

Is it easier for a landscaper to start with the clean slate of a newly built property with only a pile of soil or to work on an existing yard and add new elements? Tim says that each scenario has its challenges. He likes designing around existing things “because it’s fun; you get mature trees to work with, rock outcroppings and interesting elements like that. Blank slates are good too, but you really have to think ahead, and that’s tricky. But then you have the opportunity to create the pathways, to get the ‘bones,’ or structure, of the garden in place and modify the soil properly to make it all work.”

It’s also a challenge to help clients understand that their yards will be works in progress and will change as they grow. Most people lack the understanding of how plants grow to visualize a 3-D garden as it will look in a few years’ time, and they’re afraid that they’ll make the wrong choices. Good landscapers can reassure their clients and help them look ahead at what will develop as their plan comes to life.

When Tim accepts design projects, he’ll often ask to look at the inside of his clients’ houses to get a sense of their tastes and interests. “And if their house is brilliant, with furnishings and accents all nicely done,” he says, “then I tell them it’s exactly the same thing on the outside, except the furnishings are going to grow larger each year.” That sort of explanation takes away the worry for many new landscaping customers.

Hardscaping and Trends

Often, new gardeners aren’t sure of themselves when it comes to designing and creating their own landscape. When they spend good money on plants or “hardscape” features, such as a pergola—an arbour or covered walk, formed of growing plants trained over trellises—and water feature, and the result isn’t the way it looks in the magazine, they can get discouraged. Tim often gets consulting jobs because clients have thrown their hands up in the air and say they’ve been planting for 10 years but it’s not coming together. His response? “Often it is coming together, and they just need a few additional elements or some time for it to all work out.”

As with almost any design-related activity, whether it’s home improvement or fashion or gardening, there are trends in landscaping. One that is popular with many designers now is the creation of garden “rooms”—dedicated areas that often are defined by trees or shrubs or hardscaping features—to separate one section of the garden from another. You might have a room that features a deck with a fireplace and chairs and container plantings, while others could be a hedged-in grassed area for playing games or a secret garden nook where you can lounge in a hammock and read Saltscapes—the options are limitless.

How to find a reputable landscaper

How does a homeowner find the right landscaper? Tim says word of mouth is often the best route. “Ask around,” he says. “If you like the look of your neighbour’s place, ask who did it.” Don’t always let price be the deciding factor; as with anything, you get what you pay for. If you’re talking to potential landscaping contractors, ask them about their experience and tell them that you want to talk to some of their previous customers. Ask about their education and to see a portfolio of past jobs. What sort of guarantees on the work does the person give? Exactly what materials and work will be done for the price quoted? Is the contractor a member of the Better Business Bureau? Most importantly, does the contractor have liability insurance? Any landscaper who belongs to one of the three professional landscape associations in Atlantic Canada (see “Where to find help,” below) will have liability insurance, which is vital in case the contractor makes a mistake on the job or an employee gets injured.

One step that makes it easier for customers to find and hire a professional landscaper is checking for the Certified Horticultural Technician (CHT) accreditation. Individuals who have certified status have passed a written as well as a gruelling practical test and have demonstrated their competency. In order to take the test, says Tim, you have to log 1,000 hours of practical experience after completing a horticulture program such as the ones at Kingstec and the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. This is a national designation, so a person who is a qualified CHT in Newfoundland and Labrador has passed the same qualifications as a CHT in Nova Scotia, Quebec or British Columbia.

The cost of landscaping

As a general rule of thumb, home or cottage owners should be prepared to spend 15 to 20 per cent of the cost of their home on landscaping their property. The good news is this cost outlay doesn’t have to happen all at once. A good landscaping job also will add value to your property when the time comes to sell.

Most gardens are a work in progress, and most landscaped yards and properties are as well. Tim says that people are willing to invest in the outside of their homes as well as the inside. “We’re staying in our homes a whole lot longer and enjoying our yards, even over travelling, in many cases. That means we’re willing to save for the items we want, so we put in our gardens and we may put in a deck this year and buy a hot tub next year—and the year after that invest in a good walkway or pergola or even a garden shed or gazebo.”

If you spread out the 15 to 20 per cent cost over 10 or 15 years, it’s not such a big deal. What it does require, of course, is a plan to get you there, because it’s important that you think about what you want your dream yard to look like. Whether you prefer the freer form of a cottage or naturalized type of garden or the more structured lines of a formal landscape design is up to you.

At the same time, Tim would like people to adopt the British gardening philosophy: “We need to relax and just have fun with it all, plant some stuff and, if it dies, plant something else,” he says. “If it grows bigger, move it somewhere else. Yes, do a little research and some planning, but don’t get all in a knot over it. Your yard is supposed to be fun, after all; it’s where we go to relax and enjoy ourselves with family and friends.”