Walls of green are instrumental in create a private and charming outdoor living space. The care and attention you provide these walls with directly results in the overall appearance of the walls. These materials are growing things, and when cared for properly, they add to the overall beauty of the setting. Each variety has unique tendencies and habits, and these need to be considered when determining what to plant where. Also, it is important to be aware of the growing condition of the area you live, this can have an effect on the growth if the plant as well.
Planning the desired look and material is important, as this well help you determine what to purchase. It is usually easiest to visit a local nursery and select form a catalog that tree or shrub that matches the desired look. The landscaper or nursery owner should be able to help you determine what plants will work best for what you are trying to create.
There are two basic types of walls you can create, formal and informal. The design you choose will effect the plants you choose. In some outdoor rooms, there may also be used a combination of formal and informal. For an informal room, a rather formal hedge planted along a walk or boundary line is often needed. For a formal outdoor living room, you can use some informal planting in the proper places, unless a completely formal look is desired.
The scheme you adopt for your living space determined the types of plant walls you will need to choose, whether formal or informal, or a mixture there of. For an informal wall setting, the plants should be planted irregularly in a border, and should grow naturally. This creates the informal and charming spirit of the wall. For the formal type of walls, the best scheme is to plant the same species in rows, and later trimmed to a specific shape along the lines of the established plan. A hedge is typical for a formal wall, but when left untrimmed and shaped they take on an informal character.
It is also important to consider the skyline when your planting as well. Studying the skyline and the elevation is important to planning for an outdoor room, just as studying the elevation is important for your home.
A Wall of Green
When creating an outdoor room, privacy should be the first thing aspect considered when planning your room. The border needs to be used as a way of screening the area, and blocking out unwanted or unsightly views. This will also create an interesting skyline.
You can create a lovely effect by using some high and low growing shrubs for your wall, as well as intermixing in a tree or two. This adds variation and height, making the wall unique and special, while keeping ugly sites from your view.
When planning out the border for your garden room, the border should not go over four feet wide for a medium height border. For staggered or zigged zagged plants you can allow up to seven feet. There should be a combined width of 6 to 7 feet for areas where perennial flowers are to be planted in the front of the wall. The widest areas of the garden room are the corners as well as the points where the greatest height is desired. Borders should be widened as the plants grow, the higher the shrubs, then the wider the border should be.
For an area with limited space, it can be hard to establish a good border. In this case, creating a more formal border setting is prudent. The more simple the design the better. You can use a hedge that is kept trimmed, thus allowing it to grow to 6 feet tall, but only be 2 feet wide.
If a high screen is needed for your setting, but there is little width available for a hedge, consider using a trellis or fence. Plants can be trained to grow up them, creating a natural look while still providing needed privacy.
Remember that once you plant shrubs, or trees, or any plant, they will need to be properly tended too. They are living things, and cannot simply be set and forgotten about like a table or chair