Imagine a landscape. It could be a blank canvas, or already be your dream landscape. What is in it? Is it a fenced-in yard with a tree canopy and flowers blooming everywhere? Is it a landscape with hills and rock stairs leading to a patio and outdoor kitchen? Is it full shade or more on the sunny side? Is there a water feature? All of these questions point to one problem we can help you with: choosing what type of landscape you want. Here at American Lawn and Landscape, we love helping our customers decide what is best for them and their lifestyle!
Shade Garden
Starting things off, we have a shade garden. A shade garden is probably one of the hardest gardens to have as it involves growing plants with little-to-no direct sunlight. Typically it involves trees creating a canopy of shade, either naturally or by design. Most flowers require sunlight, so you can’t use flowers in a shade garden, but other plants such as hostas thrive in this little light. There are also trees you can plant to help create a more shady environment.
Pretty Perennial Patch
Perennial gardens are going to be our version of flower gardens. We use perennials because of one simple fact: they come back year after year! Perennials are great for adding a pop of color to the landscape, and they are very low-maintenance as well (and if you haven’t seen our blog about low-maintenance, check it out here). If you check out our website, we have a list of our Missouri-native perennials that would work wonderfully in this type of garden.
Kitchen Garden
Kitchen gardens are super fun to grow, especially since you can eat what you plant! Herb gardens and vegetable gardens are prime examples of what a kitchen garden could look like. Most herbs and vegetables require sunlight, so having minimal trees surrounding the area is perfect. Having a mix of the two means you could intermingle the herbs with the vegetables and allow the herbs to act as natural pesticides as certain herbs are great at keeping bugs away. Adding a rock pathway such as in the image below allows the focus to be on the plants and keeps everything low-maintenance.
Container Crazy
Container gardens are always fun! The containers allow for easily moving around your plants, and they can add height variance to a patio or porch. With container gardens, you can have any type of plant in them–perennials or annuals. These can be tropical plants, drought-friendly, or anything you want. If you’re trying to stick with Missouri-native plants, we recommend the Persian Blue Catmint or the Lythrum.
A Buzzing Beauty
Pollinator gardens are designed for pollinators specifically–bees, wasps, butterflies, ants…anything that can carry pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the flower. These are great for the environment, and always fun to see all the different creatures that come to visit your garden. This specific garden is more focused on the type of flowers and plants that pollinators like, but you can also add in things you like! We found another blog from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about how to build your own pollinator garden, so be sure to check it out!
Botanical Brilliance
Botanical gardens are next on the list. A botanical garden is specifically a garden filled with plants someone is researching. The focus is more on the plants than the landscape, but the landscape can be just as attention-getting as the plants you are studying. Keeping the landscape simple and adding in rock pathways helps keep maintenance low (read no mowing or weedeating).
Creative Culture
Finally, there are culture-based gardens. Japanese gardens, Chinese, Greek, French, Italian… the list goes on. There are too many to cover in just one blog, so there will be another blog regarding this list.
Out of all of these choices, there are still plenty of other types of landscapes that you can create. You can do just one of these and combine multiple of these to make your dream landscape. The ideas we have are just that–ultimately you get to decide what is best for you, and we are along for the journey!
Keep an eye out for more blogs to help you dream up your future landscape! Check out some of our other blogs and videos for more information, too!
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