Landscape Foundations: A Practical & Technical Guide to Landscape Maintenance

Marco Stefano Crosland, Brigham Young University

Abstract

Many homeowners struggle to maintain healthy landscapes. Often, they simply don’t understand basic principles that, if followed, would make a significant difference in the health and appearance of their landscape. The hope of Landscape Foundations is to help homeowners maintain healthy and excellent landscapes by teaching these “correct principles”.

What makes Landscape Foundations different than other landscape guides is that it brings in current research and explains it in a simple way. This guidebook provides pictures and additional resources to explain landscape maintenance principles. It teaches both the practical and technical sides.

Landscape Foundations is written for both beginners and experts. It presents modern research in a way that any homeowner can understand it. Instead of being a comprehensive guide for all landscape needs, this guidebook is focused on the maintenance of a landscape. Principles for the design and the installation of landscapes are both needed and foundational to an understanding of landscapes. However, because most homeowners already have an existing landscape, the focus of Landscape Foundations is on best management practices for maintenance.

Landscape Foundations is broken down into two parts. The first part covers general practices that are performed for all plant material. The second part focuses on maintaining different types of plant material in a landscape including a lawn, trees and shrubs, and flowers and ornamental grasses.