Serving Nanaimo & Area
250.210.0895
Naturalistic landscapes are wild, emotive, spontaneous places. We strongly believe they are the future of landscaping here on Vancouver Island and beyond.
Naturalistic landscapes or gardens are designed to visually mimic natural plant communities, and are highly biodiverse. However, they do not necessarily rely solely on native species.
Naturalistic gardens by North Arrow are designed with equal measures of artistry and horticultural science. The end result is a more sustainable, resilient, ultimately gorgeous, and largely self-supporting garden.
BENEFITS: This approach to garden design brings with it a variety of benefits, from lower maintenance requirements to significant positive ecological impact. You can learn more about the benefits of naturalistic landscape design in the next section.
When building a naturalistic landscape, we focus on what will thrive in the present conditions. We design with a huge variety of both native and exotic plant species that originate from similar environments.
We're influenced by world-famous designers, horticulturists, landscape architects, ecologists, and nurserymen including Piet Oudolf, Nigel Dunnett, James Hitchmough, Sarah Price, Dan Pearson, and many others.
With the right approach, naturalistic gardens can thrive nearly anywhere, including the diverse geographies of Vancouver Island. The key variable is understanding and selecting plant communities that will thrive in the present conditions.
SAY WHAT? One of our favourite sayings is "we have a plant list for that!". You know those places in the garden that don’t ever dry out in the winter but can’t get enough water in the summer? We have a plant list for that! As we do for nearly every challenging planting area.
The point is, we won’t waste your time and money trying to change the conditions to fit an unrealistic goal. We are experts in the field of naturalistic landscapes, and will select plants that will thrive without any serious modifications.
Explore the key features of a successfully designed and executed naturalistic garden.
A naturalistic approach to landscape design ensures that the maintenance requirements and material inputs of your garden are kept to a minimum. This leaves you with more time to enjoy your garden, and less time spent restocking at the local landscape mart. Learn more about maintaining your naturalistic landscape.
Blending species that originate from similar or harsher climates around the world creates a resilient garden. Naturalistic landscapes can better withstand our increasingly challenging environmental conditions, such as changing climate and the influx of exotic pests and diseases.
Our motivations to perform this work are not only aesthetic and creative in nature. Naturalistic gardens work hard to alleviate stress and scarcity on our plant, insect, and bird communities by reintroducing year-round pollinator plant species and safe shelter for our bird and insect populations.
Ambient temperature at ground level in a naturalistic garden is significantly lower than the surrounding air temperature, and drastically lower than landscapes built using gravel or concrete elements. This helps cool nearby structures and residences, and provides a comfortable outdoor retreat to relax in.
We design our gardens, schedule our irrigation systems, and teach our clients how to rely less on water in the landscape without compromising the health or beauty of the garden. By selecting the right plants and maintaining a manageable level of plant stress, we can encourage strong, resilient gardens that won’t need to be doted on.
Growing your garden or meadow from seed provides considerable price savings when compared to installing potted plants purchased from a nursery. Depending on the budget or aesthetic of the project, naturalistic landscapes can be planted from pot, designed from seed, or a combination of the two.
By design, each of our natural landscapes are completely unique. However, they do share some common elements and themes, which are explained here.
Naturalistic landscapes are dominated by grasses and flowering perennials. They offer long bloom times from spring to autumn, with each season bearing a new palette as different species come in and out of bloom.
Though our landscapes are full of grasses and perennials, we also include carefully-selected trees and shrubs in our naturalistic designs. These elements bring structure, permanence, and shade to your garden; perches and shelter for the birds; and year-round visual interest for you!
The dense planting style found in our naturalistic designs out-competes weeds, and protects the soil and soil organisms from wind, sun, and rain.
THE MORE THE MERRIER: One of the biggest misconceptions is that the naturalistic habitat must be large to be effective. More to the point it must be abundant, as every flower in every garden contributes to this critical mass. As more homes and businesses get on board, we will see an ever greater benefit to our local ecology.
Loving a perennial garden in winter requires a paradigm shift in the way we think about landscapes. We encourage our clients to fully embrace the winter beauty of tans and browns found in dead foliage and mature seed heads. We choose our plants carefully so that sturdy grasses and strong stems persist through the coldest, wettest months and even under heavy snow loads. This unique plant architecture is an important part of the naturalistic garden aesthetic, but also part of the winter diet for our birds.
Climate change, urban sprawl, and heavy industry all pose threats to available resources and our plant, insect, and bird communities. Here are three key areas where naturalistic gardens help to alleviate these stresses.
