Landscape design and plant selection

Landscaping can be exciting, fun and rewarding. But deciding how to start a project can be overwhelming. The five considerations of design are a good starting point, and the following videos on each of the considerations and a case study example explain the process.

Thinking through what you want to be able to do in your landscape, maintenance, and how to have a positive effect on the environment really helps guide the rest of your project toward a long-lasting and beautiful landscape.

• Function: Support what you want to do and need to accomplish in your landscape.
  • Entertaining, games, pet, access, firepit, rainwater harvesting, composting, garbage/recycling
• Maintenance: Reduce maintenance and support proper best maintenance practices in your landscape.
  • Mowing, pruning, mulching, watering, snow removal
• Environmentally sound: Minimize or eliminate negative effects on the surrounding environment and animals.
  • Reduce plant stress by selecting plants with growing requirements that match your site conditions (soil, sun, planting space).
  • Plants that are growing in optimal conditions are less stressed and can tolerate or recover from insect damage, animal browsing, disease, weed competition and weather events.
• Cost-effective: Design within budget (cost, labor, time, etc.)
  • Put the right plant in the right place to avoid having to replace plants that die or perform poorly because they are planted in the wrong growing conditions.
  • Install hardscape correctly to eliminate future problems with heaving, cracking, failing walls, etc.
  • Plant trees with enough room to grow so you don’t have to hire a tree care company every year to prevent them from growing over your roof.
• Visual appeal: Design for what you want to see in your landscape.
  • Views from your windows, patio, or deck.
  • Materials for hardscape.
  • Colors of flowers, foliage.

Videos

• Introduction to the 5 Considerations of Sustainable Landscape Design (00:05:28)
• Functional considerations (00:06:24)
• Maintenance considerations (00:12:01)
• Environmentally sound considerations (00:03:46)
• Cost-effective considerations (00:02:57)
• Visual appeal considerations (00:02:49)
• Case study: Applying the 5 considerations of sustainable design to a home landscape (00:15:45)

The Sustainable Urban Landscape Information Series (SULIS) is a collection of advice and how-to articles on landscape design, plant selection, implementation and maintenance. These articles form a curriculum for landscape designers as well as easy-to-follow instructions for home landscapers.

• Design: The first step in creating a sustainable landscape
  • SULIS: Designing Sustainable Home Landscapes
• Implementation: Preparation, planting, installation, and construction.
• Maintenance: Sustainable practices for lawns, and herbaceous and woody plants.

• Choosing evergreens for your landscape
• Select trees and shrubs for Minnesota landscapes

Specific landscapes

• The Best Plants for 30 Tough Sites
• Building a rain garden
• Gardening in the shade
• Ornamental grasses for shady sites
• Planting bulbs, tubers and rhizomes
• Planting and maintaining a fine fescue lawn
• Planting and maintaining a prairie garden
• UMN annual flower trial results

Edible plants

• Edible flowers
• Fruits
• Vegetables A - Z

For pollinators

• Creating a butterfly garden
• Flowers for pollinators
• Native grasses as pollinator food
• Planting and maintaining a bee lawn
• Plants and landscapes to support pollinators and butterflies
• Trees and shrubs for pollinators

Home owners often ask Extension how to find a student, a Master Gardener or an industry professional to help them with a home landscaping project or garden design.

Landscape professionals

Landscape professionals typically have a degree in landscape design or a related area, or are licensed as a landscape architect. Some garden centers offer full service landscape design, implementation and maintenance services.

Homeowners can find firms by searching the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association website. Use the search function to find the type of help you are looking for in your geographical location—for example, "landscape designer St. Paul, MN".

Word-of-mouth is also a very good way to find a landscape professional. When you see a landscape you love, ask the homeowner for a recommendation.

Master Gardeners

Master Gardeners are educated by University of Minnesota Extension and volunteer by teaching research-based horticulture information in their communities.

While Master Gardeners are volunteers and not allowed to accept payment or work on private properties as part of their volunteer hours, some are professional gardeners, designers or landscape architects by trade. A county program may have a website or newsletter for volunteers where job postings can be published. You can send a job description for your landscaping project to the Extension Master Gardener program in your county.

Students or alumni

To reach students looking for seasonal work or alumni in the landscape business, post a job description on GoldPass: Job, Internship and Volunteer Listings. GoldPASS is the U of M's online database to help connect students and alumni with employers, volunteer organizations and internships across the country. Posting is free, easy to do, and open to anyone.

The “Right plant, right place” 3-part video series shows you how to:

• Assess your planting site for soil, sun and space(00:08:44)
• Select plant options using the Plant Elements of Design database(00:07:54)
• How to plant the plant(00:04:10)

Why good plant selection matters

Good plant selection reduces plant stress. Choosing plants with growing needs that match site conditions results in better plant resilience and recovery from damage caused by climate, weather, pests and diseases.

• It reduces pesticide use. Plants growing in optimal conditions are more resilient to disease and pests, reducing the need for pesticides.
• It’s economical. Selecting the right plant reduces the need to remove or replace plants that are poor performers. Healthy, attractive plants in a landscape can improve property value.
• It improves longevity. Finding the right plant for the right place and purpose leads to a long-lived, healthy landscape.

Understand your site conditions

How your landscape functions for you will affect the plants you select. 

• Download and complete the Landscape Design Questionnaire to determine how you want to use your landscape, how it will be maintained, your budget, visual aspects, etc.
  • Include everyone in your household (don’t forget your four-legged friends).
• Analyze and observe the areas in your landscape you plan to design.
• Download and complete the Site Evaluation Form to help you consider features like structure, topography, existing plants, soil, etc.
  • Note things that do and don’t work well, such as accessibility, utilities and service areas, storage, entertainment, etc.
• Consider submitting soil samples for analysis, creating a light map, and noting microclimates in your landscape.

Watch the 5 Considerations of Sustainable Landscape Design videos to help you understand your landscape’s necessary functions and how to improve maintenance so that it has a positive impact on the environment, is cost-effective, and is visually pleasing.

This information will help you develop a list of “plant criteria” or attributes based on the site conditions in your landscape and the specific plant features you prefer.

Selecting plants that will thrive and not just survive in your yard and garden depends on choosing plants with growing needs that match your site conditions. 

The Plant Elements of Design plant selection tool uses 18 attribute groups to help you build a plant search. Each attribute group has a list of options that can help you define your site conditions and your plant interests.

Plant attributes and what they mean

1. Plant Type - Trees and shrubs (deciduous, evergreen, broadleaf evergreen); ground cover, hardy perennial, wildflower, annual, edible, vine, etc.
2. Minnesota Native Plant - Whether or not a plant is native to Minnesota.
3. Landscape Use - The type of landscape in which a plant serves an important role, such as pollinator garden, erosion control, foodscape and good urban tree.
4. Alternative For - Plant options to replace invasive species such as buckthorn, exotic honeysuckle, garlic mustard, etc.
5. Zone - A guide for perennial plant survival based on the average lowest temperatures. USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map
6. Ecoregions - Area(s) in which a native plant grows in Minnesota based on soil, precipitation, topography, and other natural vegetation. See Recommended trees for climate-ready woodlands.
7. Soil - Soil conditions preferred and tolerated by a plant.
8. Light - Light conditions in which a plant will grow.
9. Height (in feet) - How tall a plant will be at its full size.
10. Width (in feet) - How far a plant’s branches will spread at its full size.
11. Design Use - A plant’s role(s) in the landscape from a design standpoint, such as accent, specimen, key, group, and mass.
12. Texture - The perceived coarseness or fineness of a plant’s foliage and branching.
13. Form - The natural shape of a plant at full size.
14. Seasonal Interest - The time of year when a plant’s main features are most visible in a landscape and typically why we select a plant in the first place (bloom time, fruiting, fall foliage, etc.)
15. Flower Color - The color(s) of a plant’s blossoms.
16. Pest / Disease Resistance - A plant’s resistance to specific insects and pathogens (bacteria, fungi, nematodes) that may cause cosmetic or injurious damage.
17. Beneficial Insects - Endangered and valuable insects supported by a plant.
18. Wildlife - Animals that are attracted to a plant and the plant’s resistance to certain animal browsing.

Using Plant Elements of Design

Poor plant choices cause landscapes to fail. For a healthy and long-lived landscape, choose plants with growing requirements that match your site conditions such as the amount of light, soil type and spacing.

Plant Elements of Design is a plant selection tool for upper Midwest yards and gardens. 

• Create plant lists and data sheets.
• Download plant images.
• No subscription or login is required.
• Accessible on any computer, tablet and mobile device.

Searching

Start on the Plant Elements of Design (PED) homepage.

• Scroll down to review the Plant Tips on design, plant selection, plant care, and seasonal tasks. These tips change seasonally.

Open the Search page by clicking Search for Plants on the Home page banner or on the toolbar.

• For tips on searching for plants, click on the gold button Instructions under the PED header.

Search for landscape plants by selecting plant attribute options from the dropdown lists.

• Start with the most critical attributes (such as soil, zone, plant type, height, and width).
  • As with any database, the more attributes you select, the fewer the results.
• Click Search and review the list of results. To narrow the results, add more attributes and click Search again.

Viewing your results

Click on a plant in your results list to open the related Plant Data page.

• Review the plant information.
• Use the buttons on the page to take any of the following actions:
  • Download PDF
    • Click to download a PDF of the plant information and images.
  • Plus sign button
    • Click to add a particular plant to a plant list for export to a spreadsheet.
  • Previous Plant and Next Plant
    • Click to scroll through your search results.
  • Back to Search
    • Click to get back to the main Search page.
• View and save plant images to your device.
  • Click on an image to view or enlarge it.
    • On a computer:
      • Scroll through the pictures for the plant by clicking the arrows in the left and right margins of an image.
      • Zoom in by clicking on the image.
    • On a mobile device:
      • Scroll by swiping with your finger.
      • Pinch or spread with two fingers to zoom in and out.
  • Click the X in the upper right corner of the image or use the back arrow in your browser menu to close it.
  • Use the following actions to save an image to your device:
    • On a computer:
      • Right-click on an image and select from the save or download options in the pop-up window.
    • On a mobile device:
      • Touch and hold on an image and select from the save or download options in the pop-up window.

Getting help and other resources

• Click on Help / Feedback in the toolbar to get help, report an issue or provide feedback.
• Use the toolbar to visit our Yard and Garden and Natural Resources web pages. Click on links provided elsewhere on the database to visit web pages related to the content you’re viewing.
• All links in the database open up in a new window.