Preliminary landscape design help

Um, on my drawings I left off a lot of possible planting - just to be clear about that.

I really like BOTH of those designs, osso!

I'm still pretty convinced I want to kock out those stem walls though -- at minimum I'd want to replace them -- wrought iron maybe....?

My problem with that is that we have to keep the back gate to keep the dog in (but I'm thinking of replacing it with something more decorative that incorporates trellis and vines -- something that makes it more of an entrance) and the double gate for such a small area doesn't work very well.

Honestly, I think I'm really stuck in a rut with my thinking about the courtyard area because of my neighbor's laural. You can probably tell that I've cut it back from the south facing photo - what you can't tell is that I've cut it back by 8 feet! That thing has completely overtaken my yard. I fianlly got fed up and started hacking it away (I have about another foot of hacking to do). I've offered to pay to have it trimmed and cleaned up but it looks fine on their side and blah blah blah they don't want it trimmed.

I like the "bones" of a laural and would love to strip all the lower branches but blah blah blah "No."

Anyyyyywayyyyy

I worry about any permanant planting along that side of the yard/courtyard.

<sigh>

Understood!

I have some very ideas of what I want to plant -- reds and oranges. The color I've picked for the house is a tan with just a tiny hint of green. The gargantuan rhodedendrun (spelling?) is an unfortunate purple but I'll have to live with that.

Oh, neat. Real life placement would vary as real measurements would happen, but they're two representative ideas. The one with the perpendicular could be softened with planting so that you hardly see 'sharp corner'.

I love wrought iron myself..
One can also do a short stucco wall with wrought iron on top. Good solid w.i. is also expensive, but the number of feet you'd need isn't all that much.

Now that I said that, I'm probably more for wall replacement to mimic the original. Also, check out serious wrought iron pricing. I believe in solid, and I think your house calls for some design that works with your exact house, with some amount of curves. Hah, I once designed a gate that had what could be discerned as a rabbit on the top.. wrong for your house though.

Also, I don't really mean that about mixing a stucco wall with wrought iron. That's a sort of eighties look..

Just reread - so, a pergola-like/overhead trellis thing over wall/single gate for the entry to back yard, right?

Now I'm more clearly a no (re me, not you) on wrought iron at the front. Perhaps as the gate.

They were only to show examples of the hardscape walkways, various materials and how some shaped the deeper foundation beds, not examples of planting bed content.

There is this company in Washington that sells "architectural slabs" -- 24x24 cut pieces for use in landscapes. I'm thinking something like this for the extension on the covered patio and courtyard area, layed out and planted something like this....

Looks great to me, a look I like.

Consult locally re whether the pavers are best set on mortar so they don't mush around and up and down. You can set on mortar and still leave spaces in between for planting. That's mortar, not actual concrete.. Real stone of much more thickness moves around less, but costs a lot.

Weeds do come up between the pavers (one thing in favor of a real concrete slab). Slabs tend to be 3 1/2" deep and may have rebar in them if you live in earthquake country, and should have proper expansion joints and scorelines. They can also be broken up with spaces, say, 8 x 8 ft slabs (+ scorelines) with several inches in between.

Another choice in LA, and somewhat used by us in Humboldt county, was to recycle broken concrete into good sized pavers (instant old look) setting with or without mortar under and between. I'll dig up a photo if you're interested.

With the pavers you're showing (architectural slabs, I chuckle - but maybe they are thicker than they look, and I have been presuming wrong), you can change your mind, move them around into different patterns. Plus, less money as an investment, I presume. That greyish plant between the pavers looks like woolly thyme, which is what I used and worked well; I mostly had woolly thyme, but also placed some others of the low growing type (elfin thyme, and some names I forget now).



edit - I should have just asked how thick they are...

They're 1 3/4 inch thick.

Here's the spec sheet: http://www.mutualmaterials.com/data/Uploadlinks/755/US_ArchiSlabs_02-09.pdf

They're most commonly used for rooftop patios and large plazas.

Oh, that's better than I thought. I still might mortar under them, but see what's normal practice up there (and how's the drainage in your yard..)

Haven't looked at the specs yet. On large plazas they'd be over a concrete base; not sure what base they'd rig up for the roof tops (I haven't done a big roof top since the late 80's).

Now that I know they're thicker I'm not chuckling with the word slab.


edit -

I see, patio area is set on contained (headers or curb of some sort) compacted aggregate + sand. I took the photo to just have them plopped down, and those would likely go for a ride.

Anyway, cool....