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Proper landscape plant spacing saves time, moneyTue, 05/02/2006 - 12:37pm
By: The Citizen
By Gary L. Wade Most landscapes today are overplanted. With too many plants for the given area, each plant is less healthy, requires more maintenance and just doesn’t look as good as it should. The really sad thing is that such landscapes cost more money than they should, too. If you’re planning a new landscape or shopping for plants to add to your landscape, proper plant spacing is a great way to stretch your dollars. Move over, Bud When plants are spaced too closely in the landscape, they begin competing for space, light, water and nutrients. Internal foliage begins to die off. Air circulation within the plant canopy is restricted, and the plants become stressed and more susceptible to insect and disease problems. Close spacing reduces curb appeal, too, when plants lose their individuality and are sheared as huge blobs of intertwining green foliage. Creating chores When this happens, the dense inner growth begins to die out, and it becomes a haven for spider mites and twig blight diseases. To avoid these problems, thinning the plant canopy to increase light infiltration and air circulation becomes an essential chore every three to five years. Whoa! I recently bought several dwarf Burford hollies, for instance, and the label said they grew 12 inches to 15 inches tall and wide. Fortunately, I knew the plant grows 12 to 15 feet tall and wide. The label was misprinted. What a disaster this would have been if I had planted them 12 inches apart! One of the most commonly used foundation plants is dwarf Yaupon holly. This plant will eventually grow 8 feet high and 8 feet wide. Ideal spacing, then, would be 8 feet apart. To do this, take the projected mature width of the shrub and decrease it by 2 feet. In other words, if the plants’ mature width is 12 feet, space them 10 feet apart in the row to allow the canopies to overlap slightly. Happy plants By spacing plants properly, you’ll likely find that you don’t need as many plants as you thought you did. The landscape may look a little sparsely planted at first. But it will grow healthier, require less maintenance and look better. It will stretch your landscaping dollars, too. That’s something you can bank on. |