Plants that live here. Stone that stays put. A maintenance schedule you get to keep.
Design, build and stonework on the Boise bench. One crew, one designer, and a mason who has been laying dry-stack basalt in this valley for twenty-two years. We do not mow anything.
- plants in the palette are native to the Intermountain West
- 10 of 12plants in the palette are native to the Intermountain West
- of them want no water at all after their third summer
- 6of them want no water at all after their third summer
- is how far out we are booked, and we would rather you read that here
- 5 monthsis how far out we are booked, and we would rather you read that here
What we plant
Twelve things, and a reason for each. Ten of them are native and the two that are not have earned it.
Ninebark
7 ft across · 5–8 ft
Physocarpus opulifolius
The shrub this business is named after. Peeling bark in winter, rust colour in October, and it will take the worst corner of a yard without complaint.
Nothing after year three
Big sagebrush
5 ft across · 3–6 ft
Artemisia tridentata
Smells like the foothills after rain. Silver against basalt, and the single hardest-working plant in the palette.
Nothing after year three
Rubber rabbitbrush
4 ft across · 2–4 ft
Ericameria nauseosa
Yellow in September when everything else has finished. Cut it back hard every third spring or it goes leggy.
Nothing after year three
Firecracker penstemon
2 ft across · 2–3 ft
Penstemon eatonii
Hummingbirds. Three weeks of red in May and a tidy clump for the rest of the year.
Nothing after year three
Yarrow
2 ft across · 1–2 ft
Achillea millefolium
Flat white heads that hold seed all winter. Will spread if you water it, which is a reason not to.
Nothing after year three
Blue grama
1.5 ft across · 8–15 in
Bouteloua gracilis
The closest thing to a lawn we will plant, and the eyelash seed heads are the reason people stop asking for turf.
Deep soak monthly, July and August
What we will not plant
Same page, same size. If you want one of these we are the wrong firm, and it is better to find that out now.
Turf grass, as a design element
We will keep a lawn if you use it — children, dogs, a place to lie down. We will not install one as decoration. A front lawn in Boise is about twenty-five thousand gallons a year for something nobody walks on.
Hydrangea
It wants water and shade and an acid soil, and it has none of the three here. Every one we have ever been asked for was somebody remembering a garden in a wetter state.
Russian olive and tree of heaven
Both are on the state noxious list and both are still sold. Planting one is handing your neighbours a problem for thirty years.
Barberry
Invasive here, thorny enough that nobody prunes it, and it harbours ticks. There is no version of this plant that ends well.
Arborvitae hedging
Not on principle — it just dies in this climate about six years in, from the middle out, and then you own a wall of brown sticks that costs more to remove than it did to plant.
Anything we cannot source within a day's drive
A plant that has been on a truck for four days starts behind and stays behind. If it is not grown in the Treasure Valley or northern Utah, we will design around it.
The maintenance schedule is yours, not a contract.
All twelve months, three years outA planting nobody prunes correctly for three years is money somebody set on fire. So every job ends with this written down, month by month, and we come twice a year for three years to check our own work. That is included in the planting price and it is not a maintenance plan — we do not sell one.
January
Nothing. Do not tidy. The seed heads are feeding birds and the dead stems are insulating the crowns.
February
Nothing, still. If there is snow on a shrub, leave it — knocking it off breaks more than it saves.
March
Cut the blue mist spirea to four inches from the ground. Cut nothing else. This is the one hard prune in the year and it feels wrong the first time.
First visit. We check every wall, reset anything the frost has heaved, and walk the irrigation with you.
April
Turn the drip on and run it once. Walk the lines while it runs and look for a wet patch — a chewed emitter is the commonest fault and it is a two-minute fix.
May
Weed. This is the month that decides the summer; an hour a week now is worth ten in August. Do not mulch over the crowns of the grasses.
June
Deep water the year-one plants once a week. Everything past year three gets nothing at all and will look slightly unhappy in July, which is what these plants do.
July
Deep soak once, at the end of the month, on anything marked low water. Cut the yarrow back after it browns if you want a second flush.
August
One more deep soak. Do not fertilise. Nothing in this palette wants feeding and most of them go floppy if they get it.
September
Stop watering the established plants entirely. The grasses colour up now and this is the best month in the garden.
Second visit. We assess anything that has failed, replace what is ours to replace, and take the maintenance schedule out to year four with you.
October
Plant, if anything is going in. Autumn planting beats spring here by a season and nobody believes it until they do it once.
November
Blow the drip lines out before the first hard freeze. We will do it if you would rather — it is ninety dollars and it saves a repair in April.
December
Nothing. Look at the ninebark bark, which is the whole reason it is in the plan.
A quote from us has three numbers on it, not one.
Plants, stone, and irrigation, separated. Most people cut one of the three at some point and we would rather you could do that with a pencil than by ringing us and starting again. A front yard on the bench — lawn out, planted, drip, and a low wall — runs $18,000 to $34,000. Design on its own is $2,400 and it comes off the build.
We are booked about five months out and design alone is about six weeks. Ninebark is six people and one crew, which is the reason for both numbers.