I could likely write a book on all that I’ve learned designing and building landscapes across New York City. As anyone who runs a small business in any of the five boroughs knows, there is a world of difference between us and any of our counterparts in smaller cities and non-urban settings. In our industry, the logistics of an installation become significantly more complex without the ability to back a delivery truck into someone’s backyard. For the extremely ambitious New Yorkers taking on their own backyard, here are my pro tips:
1. Focus on what you have!
Do you LOVE tropical plants? What about growing tomatoes? The fastest way to feel like a failed gardener is to try and grow things that are not appropriate for your site’s conditions. How many hours of sunlight do you actually get in your growing area?
0-3 hours
You’ll need SHADE plants like pachysandra procumbens, cimicifuga racemosa, adiantum pedatum or aruncus dioicus.
3-6 hours
You’ll need PART sun/ part shade plants like scutellaria incana, rhus aromatica, aster nova-angliae, or rudbeckia fulgida.
6+ hours
You’ll need FULL SUN plants like echinacea purpurea, asters, agastache or eryngium yuccifolium.
How wet or dense is the soil? Can you amend it (make it better) or do you need to adjust the plant palette? The overlap of all of these conditions will narrow your choices down for you. And remember, native plants are going to bring the most interesting pollinators and generally require less maintenance due to their generations of adaptation to the location.
2. An ounce of preparation…. is actually 2 lbs. of preparation, do it anyway!
You’ll want to take advantage of soil and gravel calculators online to get the best estimate for your material needs. If you have an irregularly shaped backyard, don’t guesstimate, divide it into separate rectangles and get as precise as possible when calculating the area, this is what all that high school math was for! When you’re carrying 75 pound bags of stone from the sidewalk up the stoop, through the house and then down the stairs into the backyard, you won’t want to make a single unnecessary trip. Call vendors that deal in stone, lumber, plants and soil specifically. As convenient as Home Depot can be, the expertise of specialized vendors is going to help you avoid costly mistakes.
3. It’s just a phase.
Having a solid foundation, whether that’s new hardscape or some mature trees, is a critical building block to a long-lasting space that you can grow into and evolve with. When planning your project keep this in mind as you set reasonable goals that spread across growing seasons. Your plants will take several years to mature (but not as long as humans so don’t start the panic at this disco) and some will die. The first year that you install plants you can expect to water every other day up until the first frost of that calendar year. Adequate watering is critical for plants that are establishing themselves in a new landscape. They need to know you’re in it for the long haul. The next year watering won’t be as important but filling in gaps, due to loss or slower growth, may become the new priority. A year after that, you may feel like you’ve spent the whole year weeding but over time there will certainly be less and less work to do. It won’t become your dream garden overnight, that’s the wisdom of nature, but solid steps in the direction of your dreams will yield something that feels like magic.