Spring Landscaping Treatments

Spring Landscaping Treatments: is about how this architectural firm creates special landscape treatments for various surfaces around your house.

This treatment is a custom application of tan Tennessee 2″ thick sandstone flat rock in combination with 2″ diameter rounded River Rock (also Tennessee for the tan color). And at the start (closest to the camera) are some 4″ thick TN flat sandstone 18″ to 12″ in size. The key to this design is the color. This drainage bed is in front a house in western North Carolina, where there is an abundance of grey and white granite. Use of that, however, would not have the warmth that the HOME ARCHITECTS ® wanted for this scheme for this Client at this existing lower-end to mid-level “builder’s house” that this firm did not design. The richness of textures is the key to the appeal of this design, with all the rocks matching in color. It actually looks like a dry river bed, which was the intent.

What is not visible is a key element of this spring landscaping treatment: weed control fabric. 30″ wide sheets of this filter fabric, up to 360′ long line the drainage ditch and its side slopes and the planting beds. Why? This will prevent weeds from growing up between the rocks and around the desired decorative plants.
You can see a previous post about this material here:
https://www.homearchitects.com/weed-control-around-my-house

Not having to become a slave to your landscaped ground (pulling weeds) is a critical component of spring landscaping treatments. All it takes is a few extra dollars (about $60 for a 30″ x 360′ roll) and the payback in low to no weed maintenance in landscaped areas is one of the main reasons anyone might want to have their Architect design and specify such treatments. Can you imagine? NO WEEDS. Sounds like a slogan on a t-shirt.

Other people have complained about pine straw and mulch attracting bugs. Specifically carpenter ants (in mulch) and normal ants and other insects in pine straw (to a lesser degree). See that beautiful dark brown mulch? Think that’s going to fade, rot and attract bugs? Think again. Why? That’s a very Green product. It’s not wood. It is rubber. That’s correct: vehicular tires, permanently dyed and cut up into mulch-sized pieces. Can’t rot, bugs aren’t particularly fond of it (because they can’t eat it) and it’s 5x heavier than organic wood, like ordinary mulch.

Here’s another view of the entry drive area, looking at the “dry creekbed” landscape treatment at the end, a row of junipers, the artificial mulch bedding, real pine straw to the right and to the left, an edge of flat 3″ thick sandstones to give the existing asphalt driveway a little more visual interest, as well as physically widening the driveway itself. All of the planting and stone areas have the weed control filter fabric under them, which allows water through, but make it just about impossible for weeds to penetrate.