Why Fall Is Actually the Best Time to Start Thinking About Your Landscape

Everyone thinks landscaping starts in spring. I would argue that by spring, you should already know what you’re doing.

Everyone thinks landscaping starts in spring.

The weather gets warm, the garden centers fill up with hydrangeas, and suddenly everyone in Kentucky collectively looks outside and thinks, we should probably do something about that.

I would argue that by spring, you should already know what you're doing.

Fall is one of my favorite times to think about a property because everything slows down just enough to actually see it. You can see what worked all summer, what didn't, where you needed shade, which spaces nobody used, which plants completely lost their minds, and which sad little mulch bed has been bothering you since April.

And if you're planning any kind of meaningful landscape or outdoor living project for next year, this is when I want you thinking about it.

Spring is for executing. Fall is for figuring it out.

There is a huge difference between buying plants and designing a landscape.

You can absolutely walk into a nursery in April, fill two carts with things you love and technically call that landscaping.

I have also done enough landscaping to tell you exactly how that usually ends.

You get home.

You start placing things.

You realize you bought six plants that want full sun for a bed that gets approximately eleven minutes of sunlight.

Then there is one enormous hole in the middle.

So you go back.

Then something else doesn't work.

Then suddenly you've spent $1,400 and your yard looks like seven different Pinterest boards got into a bar fight.

Pretty plants do not automatically make a good landscape. A plan does.

Fall gives you time to actually create that plan.

A landscape works better when the entire property is considered before individual plants are chosen.

You can see the problems before you start buying solutions.

This is probably my favorite part.

When I walk a property, I'm rarely looking at one flower bed.

I'm looking at where you park.

How you approach the front door.

Where water goes when it rains.

Whether that walkway makes any sense.

Where your eye naturally lands.

Where people gather.

What you see from inside the house.

Whether the patio feels connected to anything.

And yes, eventually, where the hydrangeas go.

But the hydrangeas are not allowed to be responsible for fixing every bad decision that happened before them.

Sometimes a bed isn't ugly because it needs different plants.

Sometimes the bed is the wrong shape.

Sometimes the walkway is wrong.

Sometimes the scale is completely off.

Sometimes you have six unrelated materials fighting for custody of the house.

And sometimes the landscaping is simply being asked to solve an architectural or layout problem that landscaping cannot solve.

Fall is a really good time to notice those things.

Fall is also legitimately good planting weather.

This isn't just me trying to convince you to think about landscaping while everyone else is thinking about mums.

For many trees and shrubs in Kentucky, fall can be an excellent planting season.

The air is cooler, the soil retains warmth, and plants can devote energy toward establishing roots rather than supporting a full canopy of leaves during summer heat.

That doesn't mean every plant should automatically be installed in October, and site conditions still matter enormously.

It does mean spring isn't the only game in town.

And for larger projects, even if we aren't installing everything immediately, fall gives us something incredibly valuable:

time.

Time to design.

Time to price materials.

Time to work through drainage.

Time to talk to contractors.

Time to make changes before someone has poured 900 square feet of concrete in exactly the wrong place.

The little decisions work better when they’re part of one larger idea.

If you're building, please think about the outside now.

This is the hill I will apparently die on.

If you're building a house, renovating heavily, adding a pool, building a guest house, putting in a pergola or making major changes to the property, please do not wait until everything is finished to think about the landscape.

By then, some of the most expensive decisions may already be literally set in concrete.

Exterior design affects grading, drainage, walkways, retaining walls, utilities, lighting, planting space, views, entertaining areas and the way you actually move around the property.

The earlier those conversations happen, the more opportunities there are to make the whole thing feel intentional.

The house and the land should never feel like two separate projects.

That's a huge part of how I approach design at The Sweeter Magnolia.

I'm not particularly interested in designing one nice flower bed while ignoring everything happening twelve feet away from it.

I want the driveway, garden, architecture, outdoor living areas, lighting, materials and planting to feel like they belong to the same property.

And no, you do not need to know exactly what you want yet.

Actually, sometimes it's better if you don't.

You can know that the yard feels unfinished.

You can know that you hate walking out your back door.

You can know that the pool area technically functions but feels like a concrete island.

You can know that you've saved 638 inspiration photos and somehow they have made you more confused.

That's enough.

The point of design isn't for you to arrive with the answer.

The point is figuring out the answer before you start spending money building the wrong one.

So yes, I'm asking you to think about spring landscaping in October.

Annoying, I know.

But there is something really lovely about using the quieter months to figure out what you want your property to become.

Then when spring arrives, you're not standing in a garden center staring at fifteen varieties of hydrangeas while making several hundred dollars' worth of emotionally driven decisions.

You have a plan.

And then we can buy the hydrangeas.

Obviously.

Planning a landscape, outdoor living space or exterior renovation in Lexington, Kentucky or beyond? The Sweeter Magnolia offers landscape and exterior design for residential and destination properties.