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GROWING IDEAS Trends with staying power include color contrast, low-maintenance— for everything from container gardens to water features—and stonework

If all winter long you have been considering improving your outdoor space—steps down to a once-unreachable area, a soothing water feature, taking advantage of a view, screening a neighbor—some local landscape professionals have a few ideas. Photo by Cameron B. Scott/courtesy Exteriorscapes

Add Color Alan Burke of Classic Nursery suggests introducing color contrast to your yard to liven up the outdoor environment. Variegated foliage, lighting and bright pottery look great during the spring and respond well to the challenge of making a Northwest garden look good in winter, Burke says. Burke lists his choice plants: climbing hydrangeas, new daphne varieties, dwarf nandina and actaea, as well as fargesia, which is used as a substitute for bamboo because it does not grow in an invasive manner. Hebes and all their varieties especially excite Burke. “They have the same habit in many ways that azaleas and small rhododendrons do without being azaleas and rhododendrons,” he says. “We tend to want to specify hearty evergreen material.” Keep It Easy Hearty evergreen material fits into an “ease-of-use” garden setting that many landscapers develop for homeowners. According to Rick Perry of Falling Water Designs, whose retail garden center and nursery opens in Monroe in March, homeowners want low-maintenance gardens. Perry has been able to accommodate the trend with improvements in water-feature technology. “The different components that you use in creating a water feature have continued to improve, and nearly all water features now have components that make it easy for the homeowner to maintain their water feature once it’s installed,” Perry says. It’s common for homeowners to install a small water feature at the entry to the house and a larger water feature in the back garden, where they are spending more of their entertaining time, Perry says. In the front garden he’ll place ceramic pots with water rolling over or out of them, small bubblers or stone dishes with water spilling out. These types of small water features are another way to liven up the outdoor environment. Elizabeth Price-Asher of Price Asher, a home and garden store in Seattle’s SoDo district, sees similar design trends in container gardening toward less maintenance and lively organization. “Good design is form and function,” Price-Asher says. Whether defining an entrance or ending to a deck or simply for visual interest, Price-Asher places containers in groupings—one grouping might even include a small water feature. “[Container gardening] in the Northwest comes in two seasons: spring-summer and fall-winter,” Price-Asher says. So the focus on low maintenance, two-season plantings means fewer flowers and more texture using perennials and evergreen shrubs, she adds.   From left: Glazed Chinese rustic pottery in Rustic Brown, Celadon Green and Amber. Waterfall Garden from Classic Nursery. Stone works And when it comes to low-maintenance landscaping, stonework has an obvious niche, but it’s also a great way to create personality in your landscape, thanks to the variegation of colors in the natural stones, notes Jan Nielsen from Marenakos Rock Center. Stone applications by Marenakos range from patios to oversize-rock placement, rock art to gravel walks. Nielsen recommends redoing a gravel walk periodically to provide interesting variety in an outdoor space over time. “Flagstone patios are growing in popularity,” he says. “You can integrate flagstone into the yard, you can put plantings in between the stones, and it doesn’t rot.” Nielsen says because stone is the oldest building material around, its place in the garden comes as no surprise. In fact, he thinks perhaps it helps people escape from their electronic, digitized worlds. “They now want something they can feel and touch, and I think that’s what stone supplies,” he says. “Each stone is unique, and I think that’s how it is being pulled into today’s society. You’re never going to get two exactly the same.” With area landscapers’ insight on varieties of plants, water features, wise design and timeless stone, no two gardens in the Northwest will be exactly the same.

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