Soft Landscape Materials
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Soft Landscape Materials
The term soft landscape is used by gardeners and practitioners of landscape design, landscape architecture, and garden design to describe the vegetative materials which are used to improve a landscape by design. The corresponding term hard landscape is used to describe construction materials. The range of soft landscape materials includes each layer of the ecological sequence: aquatic plants, semi-aquatic plants, field layer plants (including grasses and herbaceous plants), shrubs, and trees. See also * Hedge (gardening) * Herbaceous border * Shrub * Tree * Planting design * Potting mix Potting soil or growing media, also known as potting mix or potting compost (UK), is a substrate used to grow plants in containers. The first recorded use of the term is from an 1861 issue of the ''American Agriculturist''. Despite its name, lit ... Garden design Garden plants Landscape architecture {{garden-stub ...
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Gardener
A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby. Description A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner supplementing the family food with a small vegetable garden or orchard, to an employee in a plant nursery or the head gardener in a large estate. Garden design and maintenance The garden designer is someone who will design the garden, and the gardener is the person who will undertake the work to produce the desired outcome. Design The term gardener is also used to describe garden designers and landscape architects, who are involved chiefly in the design of gardens, rather than the practical aspects of horticulture. Garden design is considered to be an art in most cultures, distinguished from gardening, which generally means ''garden maintenance''. Vita Sackville-West, Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson were garden designers as well as garden ...
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Landscape Design
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garden design. Design scope Landscape design focuses on both the integrated master landscape planning of a property and the specific garden design of landscape elements and plants within it. The practical, aesthetic, horticultural, and environmental sustainability are also components of landscape design, which is often divided into hardscape design and softscape design. Landscape designers often collaborate with related disciplines such as architecture, civil engineering, surveying, landscape contracting, and artisan specialties. Design projects may involve two different professional roles: landscape design and landscape architecture. * Landscape design typically involves artistic composition and artisanship, horticultural finesse and experti ...
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Landscape Architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for construction and human use, investigation of existing social, ecological, and soil conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of other interventions that will produce desired outcomes. The scope of the profession is broad and can be subdivided into several sub-categories including professional or licensed landscape architects who are regulated by governmental agencies and possess the expertise to design a wide range of structures and landforms for human use; landscape design which is not a licensed profession; site planning; stormwater management; erosion control; environmental restoration; parks, recreation and urban planning; visual resource management; green infrastructure planning and provision; and private estate and residence la ...
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Garden Design
Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. Most professional garden designers have some training in horticulture and the principles of design. Some are also landscape architects, a more formal level of training that usually requires an advanced degree and often a state license. Amateur gardeners may also attain a high level of experience from extensive hours working in their own gardens, through casual study, serious study in Master gardener programs, or by joining gardening clubs. Elements Whether gardens are designed by a professional or an amateur, certain principles form the basis of effective garden design, resulting in the creation of gardens to meet the needs, goals, and desires of the users or owners of the gardens. Elements of garden design include the layout of hards ...
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Hard Landscape Materials
The term hard landscape is used by practitioners of landscape architecture and garden design to describe the construction materials which are used to improve a landscape by design. The corresponding term soft landscape materials is used to describe vegetative materials such as plants, grasses, shrubs, trees, etc. to improve landscape or outdoor space. Types A wide range of hard landscape materials can be used, such as brick, gravel, rock or stone, concrete, timber, bitumen, glass, and metals. Common gravel types include pea gravel and crushed granite gravel. 'Hard landscape' can also describe outdoor furniture and other landscape products. Advantages Hard-landscape materials like gravel may avoid the need for mowing, watering, fertilizing, and pesticides. Gravel lawns may also be useful in regions where grass doesn't grow well due to insufficient sunlight. See also *Landscape products *Hardscape Hardscape refers to hard landscape materials in the built environment structures ...
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Aquatic Plant
Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments (saltwater or freshwater). They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that grows in or near water and is either emergent, submergent, or floating. In lakes and rivers macrophytes provide cover for fish, substrate for aquatic invertebrates, produce oxygen, and act as food for some fish and wildlife. Macrophytes are primary producers and are the basis of the food web for many organisms. They have a significant effect on soil chemistry and light levels as they slow down the flow of water and capture pollutants and trap sediments. Excess sediment will settle into the benthos aided by the reduction of flow rates caused by the presence of plant stems, leaves and roots. Some plants have the capability of absorbing pollutants into their tissue. Seaweeds are multicellular marine algae and, although their ecologi ...
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Poaceae
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and pasture. The latter are commonly referred to collectively as grass. With around 780 genera and around 12,000 species, the Poaceae is the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae. The Poaceae are the most economically important plant family, providing staple foods from domesticated cereal crops such as maize, wheat, rice, barley, and millet as well as feed for meat-producing animals. They provide, through direct human consumption, just over one-half (51%) of all dietary energy; rice provides 20%, wheat supplies 20%, maize (corn) 5.5%, and other grains 6%. Some members of the Poaceae are used as building materials (bamboo, thatch, and straw); others can provide a source of biofuel, ...
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Herbaceous Plant
Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of the ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' defines "herb" as: #"A plant whose stem does not become woody and persistent (as in a tree or shrub) but remains soft and succulent, and dies (completely or down to the root) after flowering"; #"A (freq. aromatic) plant used for flavouring or scent, in medicine, etc.". (See: Herb) The same dictionary defines "herbaceous" as: #"Of the nature of a herb; esp. not forming a woody stem but dying down to the root each year"; #"BOTANY Resembling a leaf in colour or texture. Opp. scarious". Botanical sources differ from each other on the definition of "herb". For instance, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation includes the condition "when persisting over more than one growing season, the parts o ...
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Shrub
A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple stems and shorter height, less than tall. Small shrubs, less than 2 m (6.6 ft) tall are sometimes termed as subshrubs. Many botanical groups have species that are shrubs, and others that are trees and herbaceous plants instead. Some definitions state that a shrub is less than and a tree is over 6 m. Others use as the cut-off point for classification. Many species of tree may not reach this mature height because of hostile less than ideal growing conditions, and resemble a shrub-sized plant. However, such species have the potential to grow taller under the ideal growing conditions for that plant. In terms of longevity, most shrubs fit in a class between perennials and trees; some may only last about five y ...
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Tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. In wider definitions, the taller palms, tree ferns, bananas, and bamboos are also trees. Trees are not a taxonomic group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. The majority of tree species are angiosperms or hardwoods; of the rest, many are gymnosperms or softwoods. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years. It is estimated that there are some three trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk. This trunk typically ...
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Hedge (gardening)
A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced shrubs and sometimes trees, planted and trained to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedges that are used to separate a road from adjoining fields or one field from another, and are of sufficient age to incorporate larger trees, are known as hedgerows. Often they serve as windbreaks to microclimate, improve conditions for the adjacent crops, as in bocage country. When clipped and maintained, hedges are also a simple form of topiary. A hedge often operates as, and sometimes is called, a "live fence". This may either consist of individual fence posts connected with wire or other fencing material, or it may be in the form of densely planted hedges without interconnecting wire. This is common in tropical areas where low-income farmers can demarcate properties and reduce maintenance of fence posts that otherwise deteriorate rapidly. Many other benefits can be obtained depending ...
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Herbaceous Border
A herbaceous border is a collection of perennial herbaceous plants (plants that live for more than two years and are soft-stemmed and non-woody) arranged closely together, usually to create a dramatic effect through colour, shape or large scale. The term herbaceous border is mostly in use in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. In North America, the term perennial border is normally used. Herbaceous borders as they are known today were first popularly used in gardens in the Victorian era. Hybridization and new imported plant species revolutionized the form of British gardens in the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition, the works of Gertrude Jekyll, a British 20th-century garden designer and prolific writer, popularized the use of the ''herbaceous border'' through a revival of the British cottage garden. Maintaining the herbaceous border is work-intensive, as the perennials have to be dug up every 3–4 years and divided to keep the bed clean-looking and prevent overgro ...
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