Builder with budgeted front yard only landscape.  Each home in this development has $1,167 to install landscaping in the front yard to give the overall development a pleasant feel.  A pre-established number of trees and shrubs are required to be used at each lot.  Homeowners have the choice to upgrade by purchasing a rear yard package or landscaping it themselves after they move in.

Builder offering front and rear landscaping with new homes.  Plants often need to be chosen for builder landscape installations for their availability, price point, and durability.  With limited budgets, contrasting positive and negative space with lawn and garden beds can help accentuate a limited number of carefully chosen plants to embellish both the house, and neighborhood.  While builders generally only want the landscape to look good the day it is installed, it is the designers responsibility to ensure the right plants are chosen for the right location for long term growth and aesthetics.

Some builders offer home buyers the opportunity to meet with the designer and help design their landscaping.  This particular owner had a budget for the entire property and decided to use it all in the front yard.  They were particularly interested in adding a seating area to enjoy views of Lake Washington from their front yard, and making the landscaping look established the day they moved in by utilizing larger plant material.  To create a level patio area on this steeply sloped site, additional retaining walls were installed with perennials to screen the concrete walls.

A small school requesting low maintenance landscaping at the front of their parking lot and entrance sign needed a design that could survive no irrigation, little to no maintenance, surrounded by blacktop, and create an attractive approach.  Extensive soil amendment work was done, and a large dry river bed became the focus of the landscape.  Plants were selected to meet the clients needs, as well as keep views open for cars exiting the parking lot and providing seasonal color.   

Incorporating ideas from residential customers into a cohesive design can often be a challenge.  This client was hoping to utilize some open area of common landscaping at their corner lot in a Lake Washington Lake front community.  Established landscape design for this new development was already based on a strictly native plant palette, and all new work needed to be approved by the Home Owners Association.  Our client very specifically wanted front to rear connectivity, a rose garden, and was very in love with formal English gardens.  Creating a design that would blend well within the development and meet the clients needs involved many preliminary design sketches, 'interviews', and creating explanatory materials for the H.O.A. approval process.

Plant call outs are typically on the design to lessen the amount of paperwork in the field for installers.   To cleanup complicated prints and better identify plants to clients, plant legends can be helpful.  This also forces clients to search out all symbols on a plan which forces them to become more familiar with the proposal.  When a client isn't paying for full sets of design documents, there is typically a little more work involved for them to really understand a proposed design.

Example of explanatory sketch demonstrating how to level off a slope, install a paver pathway and the spatial relationship between the  plants on the plan.

Final proposed design as a sketch for H.O.A. approval process.  Existing common area plants needed to be shown and how they would look with new proposed landscaping behind them.