Common Mistakes of Landscaping

It’s about time we gave a nod to HGTV, the Home and Garden Network, in our hallowed pages. So we dug this list of Landscaping Don’ts, because they all seem obvious in hindsight, but if you look around your neighborhood, you’ll see plenty of examples anyway.

1. “Don’t let landscaping overwhelm your house.” How many of us have seen that one house on the block, referred to as “the jungle?” Probably the trees and hedges they planted there looked tidy enough at first, but it all grew out of control after a while.
2. Lack of planning. A fun anecdote: When they designed the MIT University campus, they didn’t put sidewalks in for the first three months. Then they watched where footpaths naturally formed from people walking to and fro. So that’s where they ended up putting the sidewalks!
3. Planting too much of the same thing – meh, we’ll give it a pass. Sometimes a theme is important.
4. The huge lawn. You don’t need enough room for a rugby match in front of every house.
5. Ivy is beautiful, but yes, it is a pain to maintain. Also dangerous to be teetering on a ladder trying to reach it.
6. Trees overwhelming the house again. It bears repeating twice! Perhaps you should check out a full-grown species of a certain tree before planting the sapling.
7. Layering your plant species. Always nice to do, if you have the space.