Don’t crowd those shrubs and trees
Garden Expert
Will we ever get the spacing just right when we plant our perennials or landscape plants? So often we crowd our plants together, underestimating their mature sizes, and then we pay the price later. We have to rip out, divide and thin, or tolerate overcrowded landscapes.
Yet it’s not easy to space things properly, even when we know what we’re doing. As a veteran gardener, I, too, wrestle with the problem: Upon seeing a small plant, it’s hard to believe it will really grow to 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide—perhaps in just three years!
We believe what we see now, more than what we read on a tag or know in our minds.
What’s even worse: Sometimes it’s the professionals you have hired who make the overcrowding mistakes. Some may be simply overselling to you; they know the plants will outgrow the space, but they’re making the sale.
Often, however, it’s the customer driving that choice. The landscaper knows how big the plants will get, but if he/she spaces the new planting appropriately, the buyer will complain that it looks so sparse! So the landscaper plants to please you now and hopes to be called back to fix it later. (Or he’s criticized by the next guy for that terrible spacing.) It’s not easy.
So how do we choose between a pleasing look now and a suitable plant arrangement for the long run? Where are the compromises?
Plan for year three
It helps to think of any new flower garden or mixed border as a three-year project. We are planting not just for next spring, but for the third spring. Accept that this planting will look a little sparse at first, but it will really reach its peak during the third year. Gardening is about patience. It’s all worth the wait. The well-planned, maturing flower bed will please you for several years, before you must divide, split and begin regrouping.
. . . Or year 20
When we’re dealing with trees, the timeline stretches much further into the future. Now we’re thinking in decades about what the landscape will be. So we must space trees with a truly disciplined awareness of the size they will become, regardless of their present size.
How sad it is, for arborists, to take down perfectly wonderful beeches and elms that were planted 10 feet from a house foundation! Didn’t anyone know the trees would grow to 50 feet tall?
Fill in with temps
Once we have spaced perennials, shrubs and trees, for the eventual, mature size of the plant, how can we fill out the landscape?
It’s all about “staging”—placing temporary fillers (annuals, or perennials to be moved later) in between the permanent plants. Even a first-year garden can be full and lush, without ruining the beauty of the mature planting. And a new home landscape can be beautiful, without requiring a complete overhaul after 10 years.
Spacing is a big part of the fine art of horticulture.
Sally Cunningham is a garden writer, lecturer and consultant.
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