What Are Common Landscaping Mistakes to Avoid?

Residential landscape design is an art as well as a science. This is why homeowners, HOA boards, and commercial property owners across North Atlanta often hire experts to design custom landscapes or come in and fix mistakes in their current layouts.

Common landscaping mistakes include choosing plants without considering how they’ll change, planning hardscape and softscape separately, ignoring drainage and irrigation, and failing to make maintenance plans for the long-term.

Mistake One: Designing for Today

One of the reasons an expert eye is so helpful during the design stage is that a landscaper trained in horticulture can look at a plant and tell you what it’s likely to look like in five years.

It’s not uncommon for people planning landscapes to fall in love with a plant only to find that it grows into a problem that has to be removed. When landscape layout doesn’t account for the mature height of plants, pedestrian access, neighboring plant health, sunlight, drainage, and visual impact can all suffer.

Designing for the future also means planning for other factors as well. What will each part of the property look like at each point in the year? Will they support each other’s sun, shade, and water requirements?

Mistake Two: Keeping Softscape and Hardscape Separate

Beginners often think of softscape and hardscape elements as two distinct elements. They know they want a path here, and they know they want this kind of tree there. A master chef wouldn’t plan a prix fixe appetizer without considering the main course, and you shouldn’t plan softscapes and hardscapes independently.

A walkway might affect drainage, which affects what plants will thrive, or a plant might mature to a dimension that begins to crowd a patio. This doesn’t mean every component needs to be installed at the same time, but these details should be considered in concert, working together to elevate each other and the property as a whole.

Mistake Three: Treating Infrastructure as an Afterthought

As it should be clear by now, smart landscaping means understanding how multiple factors work together. One of these factors is drainage and irrigation.

North Georgia properties can face steep slopes, red clay soil, and heavy rainfall. It’s important when designing a property to understand how water will flow, where there risks for erosion are, and how to avoid standing water.

These design elements are functional, but just like hardscape, they should be integrated into the environment for both aesthetic and function.

Mistake Four: Not Planning for Long-term Maintenance

The fourth mistake comes back to thinking about the future. When installing or replacing a landscape, it’s tempting to think about the bottom number on the price tag. However, a landscape is a living, breathing thing; it’s much more complicated than that one number.

Each component of your landscape will need some level of care. This care is affected by the design of the landscape, property needs, and changing seasons. Who’s going to monitor plant health and irrigation? How often does pruning and weeding need to be done? How is landscape health going to be measured and documented so issues don’t become unmanageable?

A smaller price tag up front might be hiding expensive maintenance or a lack of follow through. Michaelangelo's Sustainable Landscape and Design Group can solve that problem.

The Expert in Your Corner

Michaelangelo's specializes in designing, installing, and maintaining landscapes for high-end residentials, HOAs, and commercial properties throughout North Atlanta. We’ll create a customized layout that will be perfect for your property, and we can make sure it’s properly cared for after it’s built, even if it requires caring for landscapes during drought.

If past landscape mistakes or recurring problems are costing you time and money, book a consultation with us today and see how we can help you get the landscape you want.

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