Au Natural

When landscaping focal points come to mind, many homeowners immediately think of a snazzy party patio or a cozy gazebo where they can spend some time. Both are fine choices to make customers’ landscapes as enjoyable as possible, but they are obviously man-made indulgences.

Currently, many landscape designers report that more clients are requesting natural-looking focal points, such as rock walls and even swimming pools that appear as though they’ve always been part of the landscape.

“People are starting to appreciate elements for their natural states,” comment Dan Steigerwald, president, Designscapes, East Patchogue, N.Y. “They don’t want things that are overpruned or overmanicured to the point where they look unnatural. We use very selective hand-pruning to achieve that and we don’t even own mechanical shears.”

To gain the best of both worlds, some customers want man-made creations that are made to look like part of the landscape. “We just finished a large swimming pool with two water features that was set into a slope behind a Texas ranch,” describes Angelynn Zimmer, landscape designer, Fowlkes, Norman & Associates, Fort Worth, Texas. “We came in and carved out the slope and set in big boulders. It was really interesting because the client wanted everything to look totally natural – like we hadn’t been there. Getting such a large focal point to not look contrived and really make it blend into the landscape was an interesting challenge.”

Zimmer and her colleagues also recently installed landscapes at the Fort Worth Zoo that were intended to reflect different Texan landscape and wildlife regions. “Not only did we have to create habitats that were animal friendly, but we also had to incorporate native Texas plants to create an authentic design,” she explains.

To make these kinds of natural designs easier to create, Steigerwald urges his employees to take a good look around when they’re in genuinely natural settings.

“It’s really a question of ‘What would God have done here?’” he explains. “I encourage my employees to follow what nature is telling them. If there’s a soft, rolling hill, install a soft groundcover on it. In a natural setting, erosion may have exposed the top of a boulder. In a landscape design, rather than plop a boulder on top of the grade, try to insert it into the ground so it looks more like it was exposed rather than just put there.”

Similarly, Zimmer approaches natural landscape projects by analyzing and working with the types of plant material already on the site. She also uses techniques like softening rocks with plants or groundcover to keep them from looking out of place.

Additionally, Stiegerwald takes his employees on field trips to local woodland parks for hands-on experience. “As a designer you can visualize something and draw it but getting it implemented is important,” he notes. “The guys and girls have to know how to manipulate rocks and gravel and moss, so we try to show them what happens naturally.”

The author is Assistant Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@lawnandlandscape.com.