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S AT U R DAY, J U LY 19, 2014
Navigate your outer space with style Get full use out of your yard this year
flowers, such as blazing star, butterfly milkweed and JoePye weed. He says the true native purple coneflower is dull, so he uses cultivated varieties such as Magnus and Merlot. Plants such as slug-resistant hostas are growing in vogue and variety and represent an excellent and colourful choice for people facing leisure-time constraints. As a bonus, hostas also last for the entire growing season. To further shrink your outdoor workload, crabapple trees with small fruit are an ideal choice — the fruit remains on the trees all winter for the birds (our tree kept a wild turkey grazing for days on end this winter). O t h e r sw e a t - s av i n g trends: ground cover instead of grass, artificial but remarkably lifelike topiary for dry areas, and oxidized steel ornamental flowers for hard-to-plant spaces or to add modern visual variety.
PATRICK LANGSTON POSTMEDIA NEWS What’s the stylishly clad yard sporting this summer season? According to a recent survey by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), it’s everything from swanky outdoor lighting systems to ornamental pools and low-maintenance plantings. Gardens, landscaped spaces, outdoor kitchens and entertainment areas are also hot. We have a look at how that shakes out on this side of the border:
Hardscaping goes mainstream As the population ages and many of us scramble for free time, hardscaping — low-maintenance patios, walkways and more — is gaining on work-heavy plantings. “It’s becoming popular in a stylish way,” says Denis Flanagan of the provincial industry organization Landscape Ontario. “We already know what a patio looks like, so how can we be creative by mix-
ANDREW RICHARD DESIGNS
Paul Lafrance of HGTV’s Disaster Decks and Decked Out is noticing fresh attention to style in outdoor furniture. ing patterns and colours of stones?” He says that drystone construction, which uses no mortar but instead relies on the strategic placement of stones, is gaining traction for garden walls, pillars and the like. “It’s an art; it’s like it’s weaved.” To learn more online and
for how-to seminars, visit Dry Stone Walling Across Canada (dswa.ca). Hardscaping is emerging as part of a general trend to more structural and less planting-based design in small urban infill yards. Multiple elevations, in decks for example, add considerable visual interest.
Blooms for the birds The ASLA survey found strong interest in low-maintenance, drought-resistant and native plants. Jason Smalley, of Jason Smalley Landscape Design in Ottawa, agrees, but says the term low-maintenance can be misleading. “If you want to keep your
garden neat and tidy, it’s going to take some work.” As well, even droughtresistant plants need to be watered until their roots are well-established, and some native species such as black-eyed Susans spread aggressively by self-seeding or sending out shoots. Smalley favours native
Fresh veggies and bench pressing Vegetable and fruit gardens, once a mainstay of backyards, are making a big comeback after dropping below the radar for many years, according to Flanagan. People are saying, “If I can buy fresh raspberries at the farmers’ market, why can’t I grow my own?”
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