Liz Josephites likes to joke that she and her husband, Dan, have a mixed marriage when it comes to landscaping.
He grew up in a one-story bungalow with a postage stamp-size yard and not much greenery. Her parents had a lot and a half and her mom grew everything–trees, fruit, vegetables and flowers. Liz is the same way. She sees something growing at a friend’s house or in a store and has to have it to plant in their yard.
The contrasting styles fuel debate between the couple on how to landscape their 3-year-old home on the northwest side of Chicago.
“Needless to say, I want creative and he wants cheap–and we both want low maintenance,” she said. “We’re not the type to putter in a yard.”
The couple has already put in a brick patio, a fence, several trees and bushes and some flower beds. They’ve spent about $15,000 so far and feel their landscaping is looking more haphazard than planned.
After Liz wrote us asking for help, we turned to Eric Schloss, a Morton Grove landscape architect and contractor. He recently consulted with the Josephiteses and gave them some ideas for reaching their goals while combining their tastes.
The couple’s two-story home faces south and sits on a lot that measures 50 by 180 feet. A detached two-car garage is behind the house and accessed through the alley.
In front of the house, along the sidewalk to the entrance and on the east side of the property are flower beds. They were professionally built but gradually the delineation between yard and bed has blurred.
“We need a border,” said Liz. “Dan cuts down stuff I put in because he thinks they are weeds.”
Schloss pointed out that several of the plants Liz is carefully nurturing–including one she has staked–are, indeed, weeds. She was surprised. Dan said he would pull them out.
Dan, too, believes the flower beds need a border but is unsure what medium to use. “Plastic edging is fine for the back yard but I think it looks chintzy,” he said.
No edging is necessary, said the landscape architect. A clean line can be cut into the soil using a spade and shovel.
“I’d like to edge with something,” said Dan.
Schloss suggested using 4-by-8-inch bricks in the same colors as their patio.
“That would bring the back-yard colors into the front yard,” Liz said approvingly.
Along the sidewalk to the front of the house, Liz has planted day lilies about a foot apart. They are in bloom and very tall. Dan thinks they are straggly.
“I prefer them bunched together,” he said.
“They are going to get bunched together but it will take time before they start to fill in,” said Schloss. “My personal feeling is day lilies don’t make a favorable impression at the front of the house. These are old standard tiger lilies that grow to be 3 feet tall.”
A smaller lily would be a better choice, he said. He also recommended that the entire sidewalk not be bordered with flowers. Flanking the center portion with grass instead will visually create a wider expanse of land.
On the west side of the house, Liz was looking for a way to hide the garden hose and other outdoor paraphernalia from view at the front of the house. They planted a crab apple tree, now about 5 feet high, but it isn’t doing the trick.
Schloss suggested a birch tree or multistemmed bush that would spread and block the view.
“How difficult is it to move things around?” Liz asked him.
“Fairly easily,” he said. “Most things you have are young,” he said. “We don’t know what conditions they were grown in” but if the roots were balled and wrapped in burlap before planting, transplants take better.
Liz said they were.
In the back yard, Liz planted a wisteria a few feet from the west side of the garage before she learned that the bush is a climber. She didn’t want to put it against the house because she wants to easily reach windows for cleaning. She staked the wisteria and left it in place.
An issue Schloss brought up is that the garage dominates the view of the back yard from the kitchen. “You need some kind of statement as you come out of the house,” he said.
One way to achieve that would be to place an arch or trellis in front of the south side of the garage and move the wisteria there. As it fans out, it will become more of a focal point.
Along the east side of the back yard, the couple put in a fence to screen them from the alley. Along the west side, they would like to somehow create privacy.
Schloss suggested a hedge of arbor vitae. “If something gets tall, chances are it gets wide,” he said.
“You don’t want it to encroach on your patio. Arbor vitae is green all year long and it grows tall as opposed to taking space,” Schloss added.
The landscape architect cautioned the couple that they will not achieve a completely maintenance-free yard.
“There’s no such thing,” he said. “You can put in good-quality plant material but you have to maintain it. The more care you put into it initially, the better off you are in the long run. But the weeds and invasive plant material are not going to go away.”
