Dealing with the right landscaping company
For our own landscaping, we dealt with the Foliflor Center and I highly recommend this company! The team gave us great advice in addition to excellent service.
Understanding plants, their specific needs and the synergy between them can be challenging, but they were able to explain things in simple and efficient manner. In addition, they recommended plants adapted to our specific lot and lifestyle.
Foliflor were also the ones who took care of coming and planting them with us, it was a great team effort! They have a keen eye for detail which in turn allowed them to achieve these beautiful results!
Try planning your landscape during construction
Many people ask us whether landscaping should be planned during the construction process. Personally, I think we can think about it without having to plan EVERYTHING. Having a general idea of the look can help organize certain elements accordingly, but if you don’t know what you want, it’s really not a problem. Fortunately and luckily, exterior design is very versatile!
Camouflaging using landscaping
Landscaping your yard with plants can also be very useful for hiding certain elements. Anything that is necessary for a home but not aesthetically beautiful can be hidden by landscaping. For instance; the outdoor heat pump, septic tanks, sewage field… You know, the kind of thing that is not aesthetically pleasing to the eye but is essential? Well, these elements can quite easily be “camouflaged” using different landscaping strategies.
At my home, we chose to hide some of these with hydrangeas which will grow and do a great camouflaging job. To hide our large gas cylinder, we surrounded it with Salix which are large bushes that will eventually become dense and hide everything.
Budget landscaping in your construction
During construction let’s face it, there isn’t much going on the flowerbed front. With all of the trades going back and forth, the time is not chosen to start planting flowers. Flowers that would most likely be stomped on and ruined. However, you can plan your paving stone during construction if your budget allows it. And of course, this can also wait. Flowers, bushes and plants can be significantly expensive so we can plan for it in the long term. The advantage is that we can do it in stages to better integrate it into the budget.
For our project, the people at Foliflor were able to guide us according to our budget and offer us alternatives to achieve the result we wanted while respecting our financial plan. It’s not completely finished yet, but it’s a really great start!
Landscaping done in an orderly fashion
Here is the order in which you should plan your exterior landscaping according to the experts at Foliflor.
1- Choose where your main path/passage way will be seeing as the layout will depend on it.
2- Tree planting. Choose their location seeing as they take up the most space.
3- Next comes the shrubs.
4- Choose your perennials that will come back year after year
5- Now comes the choice of annuals plants and flowers.
6- At the very end, you can move on to the grass/lawn. This way you will know the exact amount to buy if you opt for lawn rolls
Our plant choices
Kevin my spouse, the Foliflor team and I chose the location of the plants based on their volumes. I wished to have a nice variety by alternating the different plant heights. We also chose some that actually helped to highlight the house.
Since our house is on land surrounded by forest, we didn’t want to steal too much of the spotlight. We wanted fairly neutral shrubs and flowers. We mostly opted for green and white plants and flowers.
Our little entry pathway
I absolutely LOVE the path that leads to our front door. Generally speaking, I’ve always been attracted to delicate, almost mystical pathways so it became very clear that I would have something similar and orginal as a pathway to my home.
My spouse and I chose to start it at the entrance to my yard. People naturally park their cars there and don’t tend to enter through our other secondary door. I also like that it goes through the big patch of grass in front of my house.
Our little path offers lots of design possibilities. We topped it off with a repetition of really cute Buxus (also called “Green Velvet”)
Eventually we will add paving but it is not a priority at this time. I already have no many other landscaping ideas!
Originality in the choices you make
We wanted to add a little originality to our exterior decor. Here are some of our favorites in a nutshell.
This lilac planted near our bedroom window is ideal for giving us some privacy. It reduces the view of our room from the street. Plus, I really like that it makes flowers and that it stands out from the trees that surround it.
Our Weeping Willow was the only tree my hubby absolutely wanted to have. As it gets really big, we placed it on the corner of the lot so as not to hide the house. I like the idea that when it’s bigger, it will be the first thing people see when they enter the street.
We chose an apple tree to put near the park area seeing as I thought it brought back the playful and childish aspect of apples.
We love lavender, in addition to being beautiful, it smells so good!
To obtain a quote or a landscaping plan, contact the Foliflor team located in Saint-Cyrille de Wendover.
Now, to your rakes everyone!
Jenn xxx
