Show #20/7207. Fine Tuning Garden Design

The Right Plant For The Right Place

Eric also likes their choices of shrubs. The right plant for the right place is important here, as well. And involves 2 considerations. 1 is - what is it supposed to do? The planting in one area consists of Rotundafolia Holly. It's a Chinese Holly, very prickly and they have it planted in this location because they have had a problem with people coming from the great lawn and walking down the slope, which has caused the slope to erode. Thus this requires a very practical planting, one that makes coming down the hill difficult. The other consideration is the practicality of the light and how much light that plant gets. The Japanese Plum Yews planted at the Southern Company Amphitheater are good low light plants and when they grow underneath the Cryptomeria they're not going to get a lot of light. So light needs must taken into consideration.

In many respects planting a plant is as simple as digging a hole and planting the plant. But there is more to it than that. Mark sees a lot of plant mortality where plants are planted improperly. The size of the hole is critical. The size of the hole needs to be 3 times the size of the root ball and as we plant the plant we must loosen the roots so the plant will get a good foothold and have lots of oxygen. Oxygen is important, water is important, all of those factors effect the survivability of a plant.