Foundation Planting

Foundation plantings are a vital part of good home landscape design. Too often foundation planting is overdone and left to stand alone. History reveals that foundation plantings were used to block the view of raised foundations and to slow cold air movement under the house. Although these needs do not often exist today, some homeowners think it is a must to cover every linear foot of the foundation with plants.

The objectives of foundation planting are to focalize the main entrance, compliment the architectural style of the house and to break long continuous lines of the house and blend it into the surroundings. The designer should avoid competing elements that detract from the main entrance and the house in general. An isolated bed in the middle of open lawn area is one of these competing elements. Plants should be selected which can easily be maintained to proper scale with the house. This is probably the most common failure of foundation plantings.

A general rule of thumb is that the height of plants in the foundation planting should not exceed two-thirds the height of the wall at house corners. Generally, plant height should not exceed the height of a line extending from the doorway to this imaginary point at the house corner. This does not mean every house should have plantings this high.

Just as foundation planting is vital to a good design, so also is ease of maintenance. Maintenance should be considered in the planning stages of landscaping and not as an afterthought. Winding border edges, scattered arrangement of flower beds, garden accessories, shrubs and trees are a few items that create problems when unplanned.

Interest in a landscape planting is often created by contrast. This can be a contrasting ground cover other than grass in the planting design. In addition, one might become more aware of the contrasts in plant forms, texture, flower, fruit and foliage color, with the possible introduction of certain non-living structural elements. These could be interesting paving patterns, screens or baffles, planters and water features.

Now is a good time of year to take a look at your planting design and analyze it for design quality. If you've massed plants in a continuous row that make it appear as if plants are clinging to the building, you can remedy the problem without completely renovating the existing plantings. The rearrangement of some plants and the addition of others may be all that is necessary to make an appealing landscape out of an eyesore.