Michael Spencer

Michael Spencer

An awabuki hedge offers offers a green presence in front of a veranda, but offers insiders a cool, private place to enjoy. It’s made more interesting with lower level plantings in front of it.

Michael Spencer

An oleander tree can both block an electrical transformer and give a gloriously blooming focal point to the yard.

Michael Spencer

A low hedge can serve as a traffic guide around water.

Michael Spencer

Low foliage can emphaize the geometry of a landscaped garden. The stone border gives it some extra show.

MICHELE COHEN / Michael Spencer

A vine trained up a metal cage or frame can become an instant, and often blooming hedge.

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I tell clients that there are 2,500 commonly available plants in Florida, so the work is to find exactly the one you want for your garden spot.

But how do you even begin to limit the choices? You obviously cannot go through all of these species, one by one, until you find just the right plant.

I don’t actually know if 2,500 is the correct number. I do know that when I pick up the monthly publication Plant Finder — an essential resource — I see 32,000 listings. More to the point: once you discover and list the plant criteria, you will certainly find the right plant, and if you search assiduously you will find a suitable, low-maintenance candidate.

Picking the plants

How do you develop plant criteria? First, remember that specifying species is almost always the last thing you do in garden design. I know this is not a simple thing to visualize, so by example let’s discuss how you specify a hedge.

We will see how to specify a simple, homogeneous hedge. Next week, I will show you how to translate these criteria into great plant choices.

The term “hedge” covers a wide territory. In garden design, often we want to control what we see outside the garden when we are inside the garden. Other times, we want to be able, for example, to see a pool or lake from the patio, but we still want privacy. Occasionally, the objectionable off-site view is so tall that screening requires a combination of tall trees or palms combined with lower material.

And, from time to time and mostly in larger gardens, a hedge is used internally to control views or to set up a surprise in a series of focal points.

Buffer or beautifier?

Often we speak of a hedge as having near-opaque characteristics; technically we call this a “buffer.” A subset is usually called a “screen,” which is less transparent and can have the interesting characteristic of being more opaque from a distance and less opaque when standing up close.

Larger-scale situations are also “buffers” and often contain large earth mounds. In a future column I’ll talk about the differences between garden design and very large communitywide design; the differences are surprisingly few.

For today, though, we will focus on residential projects, so get a piece of paper and let’s get a sense of what kind of plant we need.

Specifying hedges

■ First, think about the character of your hedge. Does your garden, or your personal preference, prefer a well-manicured design, perhaps more formal? Or is it wild and “natural” looking? In the first case, you might want to maintain the hedge size closely; in the second case, occasional new growth coming at odd angles simply adds charm to the space.

If your hedge is blocking an undesirable view, you want a plain and simple hedge that does not become a focal point; there is little benefit, for example, to use a spectacular flowering hedge to screen a trash enclosure. On the other hand, though, a hedge that is built to control views into your garden can surely be a point of interest.

■ Second, think about the scale of your garden. Do you need something that has a narrow bed requirement or can you support a hedge with a larger bed? It’s useful to imagine a bed width of 4 feet for something like podocarpus, and a bed of 8 feet for seagrape. I give these numbers so that inexperienced folks have an idea of what might be required, although the range is actually quite wide.

Perhaps your garden is quite small. The hedge must be extremely narrow or it will simply require too much precious ground space. And if your space is extremely limited, hardscape construction, rather than a hedge, could give you the effect you need without taking a lot of ground space.

■ Third, how will the hedge relate to other garden plants? In a small space, we often want to use a hedge with a finer texture, because the finer texture, the farther away the hedge seems to be. This is easily explained: faraway objects simply look smaller.

Compare, for example, a coco plum hedge and a seagrape hedge. The seagrape has huge leaves and will seem quite close. In this case, then, other plants adjacent to the hedge would be coarser subjects. Similarly color: the hedge will be a uniform wall against which we will place more interesting material.

■ Fourth, think about the height of hedge you need. You will occupy several different places in the garden and each of these spots has a unique “view shed”: by the pool, sitting at a table, looking out the bedroom window or reclined in a chair are all examples. Put yourself into each of these situations and then imagine how tall your hedge needs to be.

Be aware that a hedge may not be solid from the ground up to the top; perhaps you want to have some privacy while sitting around the pool, but you still want to see the adjacent lake, for example. In this case perhaps you want a “patio tree,” a plant that is usually multistemmed and has leaves in a band from perhaps 3 to 6 feet above the ground to 15 feet high or so. With these dimensions you can see below the patio tree when seated, but when walking around you are screened from off-site neighbors.

Sometimes, you need a hedge that is very tall. Recently I specified a buffer planting for a very large PUD in southern Lee County to protect the view of very high electrical lines and towers. The solution there is tiered: sabal palms cover the view from 12 feet off the ground to 28 feet off the ground, entirely sufficient to block views. Below the palms, we planted a hedge that will become 12 feet tall.

Similarly, have a look at the screen hedge on the west side of Moorings Park, just south of Pine Ridge Road and Goodlette-Frank Road: this is a fine use of Viburnum Awabuki and sabal palms.

■ Fifth: How much sun is available? One tough problem that I have faced is a situation where I need a uniform, structural hedge, but the site has sunny spots and shady spots, a condition that will automatically limit your choices. There are many suitable plants that will tolerate sun and shade, and it is important to chose one if you want a uniform look.

■ Sixth: Do you want to use only native materials? This decision will help narrow the choices. Don’t be fooled into the notion that natives don’t need irrigation. They do.

■ Seventh: Soil conditions, of course, are always on my mind. I usually assume that the planting site has sandy native soil with an alkaline pH. Simple inspection will tell you if the available soil has been degraded in any way by construction or fill and of course this needs to be rectified.

■ Eighth: Is your site naturally xeric or hydric? A wet site also limits plant choices, while a dry site would require more irrigation.

■ Ninth: Is dependable irrigation available? So far, here is what we know: character, scale, volume, height, sun, nativity, soil, xeric or hydric, irrigated or not. This is a lot of information, and with this list we can find the desired plant.

That’s what we will do next week.

Michael Spencer, ASLA, has been practicing landscape architecture for 25 years and is president of MSA Design Inc. You can learn more at www.msadesign.com or call 598-2828.