Index
Pages
-
Garden After the landscape is installed, the ongoing work of landscape maintenance and gardening commence! Gardening is not a chore as much as on opportunity to care for the plants in your landscapes. Gardening can be a joyful experience if you learn the techniques to keep the landscape low maintenance and focus on tasks that
-
Design Responsive Gardens design program centers on creating unique solutions to your circumstances while maintaining beauty, function, and an ecological connection to the greater world. Designing a landscape starts by defining your desires, tailoring design solutions to the site, and creating elegant designs that are very functional and will allow you to accomplish your objectives
-
Bio Hi, I’m Liz! Here’s my personal website. I live in Lehi, Utah, and currently garden on a half-acre suburban yard in a cold, semi-arid, zone 7a climate. I started gardening as a teenager. I fell in love with it so much that I decided to study horticulture. Then I had children. As a full-time mom,
-
Plants A key to be successful is choosing the right plants and understanding the care it needs. But this can be a daunting task. Utilize these resources to find great plants to plant, pick the right plant, and know how to care for it. Find ideas for plants Make sure it’s the right plant for
-
Eco Gardens Gardens can be places that can have a huge positive impact on the environment. Learning to work with nature will create create regenerative, sustainable solutions that help the local ecosystem. Sustainable landscapes can include gardens with a focus on ecology, wildlife, pollinators, permaculture, edible and useable plants, and food forests. How can gardens
-
Landscaping After design, the next step is to install the landscaping. This includes the hardscape elements, garden features, irrigation systems, lawns, trees, and other plants. Responsive Gardens does not provide landscaping service, but will work to provide the resources you need to find and work with a landscaper, as well as DIY your own landscape.
-
Hi, I’m Liz! I am a gardener and landscape architect located in Lehi, Utah. I started Responsive Gardens to provide all the resources you need to transform your yard. For timely tips and see what I’ve up to, check out my monthly newsletter: December Newsletter You can create a garden that is: Beautiful Functional Sustainable
-
Gateway to Permaculture Workbook This workbook will guide you through the basic principles of permaculture through design. It is a great place to start learning permaculture and learn how to apply your knowledge to new designs. Note that this workbook is still in beta form, there are still occasional mistakes and I’m looking to make
-
Online Course: Simplified Low Maintenance Landscaping Do you feel overwhelmed with landscape maintenance? Sometimes, I do too! As an avid gardener and landscape designer, I enjoy working out in the yard. But life can get busy, and I often don’t have enough time to do much in the garden. I can quickly feel overwhelmed and behind, dreading the
-
More Info… Responsive Gardens is the home of Liz Braithwaite. For more about me see here. I am a landscape architect, horticulturist, and gardener. My first priority is to work directly with you to achieve your goals. I also have a love of sustainable landscaping including permaculture, water-wise landscaping/xeriscaping, ecological gardens, kitchen gardens, food forests,
Posts
-
Garden Vision
The garden vision pulls together the garden goals, garden design style, and site inventory and analysis. The previous steps helped you to develop goals and understand your site. Now you can compile that information together into a garden vision. This acts as a checklist for your design. You can compile this into a vision board
-
Site Inventory and Analysis
Developing a good understanding of your garden through a detailed inventory and analysis of the site. A garden or yard is rooted in a specific location or site. This is the time to take a step back and observe that site. Inventory is the first part of this step: taking note of the features of
-
Garden Goals
Learn about your goals, desires, and needs, and create the program/design brief for the site that portrays the vision of what you want your garden to be. One of the first steps in design is determining your desires and needs for the site. Once you have determined what you want, you can develop a site
-
Garden Design Styles
What style of garden do you like? You might think of established garden styles like formal French, English cottage, baroque, modern, Japanese meditation, naturalistic, desert, new American, contemporary… All these labels can get confusing, and I think do a poor job of explaining what you want your garden to feel like. Instead, a garden style
-
Landscape Plant Lists
Are you looking for plants? Figuring out a great garden also means understanding plants. Here’s a list of places to go online to find information about plants. The resources are local to my area, Utah Valley, but similar resources can be found anywhere. Landscape Plants I’ve used all the resources listed below at times, but
-
What services do I need?
When considering landscape design, most people generally want designs for two reasons: inspiration and construction. Design for Inspiration When you focus on design for inspiration, the design work offers ideas, guidance, and direction. Changes in the landscape are gradually done over time, and it is perfect for people who like to DIY, or who are
-
Installing the Landscape. What can I DIY?
Getting sticker shock is common when you get that first landscaping bid. And if you can’t afford to put the whole landscape in with a professional, most homeowners will turn to DIY. That’s great! But there are some tasks that are easy to DIY, and others you should leave to professionals. Here’s a rundown. These
-
Why you should hire a garden designer
A good landscape design leads to loving your landscape and loving gardening.
-
FAQ: Clover Lawn
Lots of people have shown an interest in a clover lawn. I have had one for six years and here’s what I’ve learned. I’ll start with what it looks like, and then explain what I did below. Crimson clover in the foreground, white clover in background. Quick note, crimson clover is an annual, so if
-
Vegetable Planning Guide
The Vegetable Planning Guide is a resource designed for easy planning in the garden. This table uses a last frost date to determine approximate planting dates for commonly grown vegetables. After downloading the form, you can input your own last frost date, and the dates will adjust accordingly. Included in the form are: Dates are
Responsive Gardens 