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Why Making the Correct Plant Selection is Important

Jun 20, 2017

Plant selection can impact branding, support business efficiency and help enhance educational outcomes.

Well-manicured gardens of any scale are a joy to behold. They build affinity and a sense of belonging. These are important for commercial spaces, educational providers and healthcare providers.

Corporate branding and imaging are built through arresting statement areas consisting of entrances and gardens, which like the gardens of Versailles, have a recognised ability to a create sense of arrival, success and prestige.

Astute planning, covering plant choices, plant placement and maintenance, at the initial stages of a garden’s design and construction yield important long term results as well as deliver significant financial savings over the long term in the establishment of these areas. 

Elsewhere in our blogs, we’ve demonstrated how gardens can contribute to students’ tactile and sensory learning, as well as give them lifelong skills in healthy eatingworking together, and building racial tolerance and harmony. We’ve also seen how they contribute to lowering costs and free up resources for other revenue-generating business priorities.

Proper plant selection extends these benefits. 

Astute plant choice according to the industry you are in and the local environment helps protect your reputation while extending your investment in landscaping. 

Succulents require little water usage and may be seen as appropriate plant choices for that reason. But they can also be toxic. Even innocent looking plants can put out toxic berries, which are less than ideal if you run a childcare centre. Similarly, pollen-producing plants that trigger allergies aren’t the wisest choice around schools and hospitals. 

Astute plant choice expands your garden design from showcasing your property to include safety. Consider plants whose silver foliage reflect the moonlight, naturally illuminating pathways and decreasing the chance of falls. Occasionally, roses, favourites in retirement villages for their scent and colour, are planted too close to pathways and benches. Proper placement reduces the potential for lacerations to elderly residents.

Some sites pride themselves of having trees of significance on their grounds. These can include heritage listed trees, those of a protected species, and even those planted by a founder or someone important. However, large trees have roots that can also interfere with sewer lines, or break up paths. If left to grow in the wrong place, such trees could present hazards. Expert guidance on the correct tree to be planted – as well as where it should take root – in the first instance is invaluable, and appreciable over the long term. 

Such insights will reduce the need to fix broken areas or intervention to ensure a safe site in the future. In worst case scenarios, entire sections of your grounds or gardens may need reconstruction, with the removal of trees and plants in the interest of safety or lowered maintenance requirements. This is minimised if consideration is given on the onset to the types of plants appropriate to the chosen site and its location.

When combined with well-founded principles for landscaping and good garden design, an expert approach to plant selection help you retain the ‘wow’ factor you seek to establish and retain.

It isn’t unusual for key insights on how choosing better suited plants or their correct placement to be found through a simple conversation with the local gardener or nursery. However, to fruitfully prolong the extremely impressive aesthetic features of your site, leverage the knowledge of experts. Their advice combines acuity, passion and experience to help you leapfrog challenges around planning, planting and maintenance for faster, better results. 

Do you want to be certain the trees and plants in your gardens are the most suited, and safe, for your site? Ask a Programmed expert to have a look today.

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