Landscape plan
Posted on May 10th, 2008 – 7:55 AMBy Jason Hammond
I must say, knowing a good Landscape Architect is certainly nice. Dustin Halverson from Village Green Landscapes is helping us to develop our plan and was gracious enough to allow us to provide some very early design thoughts, along with indulging some of our more unconventional ideas. Our landscape plan will include the use of several rain gardens and a great deal of native plants. We hope to contrast and complement the natural elements with strong geometric forms and rugged materials like concrete and steel. One of the bigger things that we are dealing with is the fact a concrete driveway provides a great deal of run off, dumping water (and whatever comes with it and as it goes) into the street. In order to off-set this effect we’ve done a couple of things to ensure we manage our run-off. The first is the that we pitched the driveway. We have an equal amount of sloe running both down the driveway a we do across. This will make sure that we traffic the rain water less towards the street and more towards the yard and ultimately the rain gardens. Yet there will still be a fair amount of rainwater running down the driveway towards the street, which triggered and idea in my head. What if we placed barriers in the drive way that would absorb some of that water before it made it to the street? As a result I asked Dustin if would be possible to place several large circles in the driveway that would be filled with grass. After some calculating he determined that if we made them roughly 36″ in size and planted them with rich potting soil with a good deep sand base we would most likey be able to grow grass in them. Additionally if the grass was unable to grow we could certainly place some loose stone in the holes and achieve a similar result.
A top down view of our landscape plan. The large circles in the driveway will be filled with grass to manage some of the run off from the driveway
8 Responses to "Landscape plan"
Did you consider using pervious concrete for the drive? Local governments here in Illinois are very open to allowing one to try it out.
Will you be driving over this grass? If so, how will this affect its “health”?
Did you consider using the pavers that allow water to percolate down into the underlying soil?
Good suggestion, JoAnn. Jason, you might also consider using a green paver system such as GrassPave2 or Grassy Pavers (or the multitude of similar products). The green paver system supports the vehicle while allowing grass to grow inside the cells. Without support, the topsoil in those holes will be compacted by vehicles, lose the ability to support grass and become a muddy mess (which would defeat your purpose of being “green”).
Hi Jason,
This will be really exciting to watch unfold for sure.
One thing I’d say is it’s easy to grow sod in the context you’re talking about with the driveway but, you’ll likely have to replace most of it each year. We’ve used this approach to great aesthetic effect… nut it’s just not super functional in the end.
I’m most curious about the wetland and retaining wall choices you end up making.
Keep up the great work!
Cheers,
Matt
Sorry to all for the delayed response. I took a much needed vacation and was away from both home and internet connection of any kind.
Matt,
I know that you and I had talked about your concerns with the circular grass cutouts in the drive getting burnt out and my Dustin (my landscape architect express the same concerns) but I figured at worst I could fill them with a permeable and manage the run off that way. I’ll share more images as as it comes to the wetland and tree as well go.
Jason
JoAnn,
We will not be driving on the grass areas, they are spaced specifically to fit between the wheelbase of the vehicle.
Our landscape architect presented us with some permeable paver options, but they were cost prohibitive and I was less then enthusiastic with the design aesthetic they presented (they felt a bit traditional in my opinion).
Jason
David,
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll look into that to use specifically in the circular areas. Although we don’t plan to drive on the areas I love the suggestion of an alternative solution.
Jason
David,
I looked into the open cell paver systems but they’re really not a viable solution here in the Upper-Minwest because they make almost impossible to shovel snow off your driveway. However, I think they’re a great solution for warm climates where snow removal isn’t an issue, and really a cool idea.
Jason
