2

I've recently bought a new built house from plans in the UK. The landscaping plan the developer has given me states that the plants I have for my hedge should come in 5L pots and they should be between 60 and 80 cm tall. The plants I have are all less than 40 cm tall.

I raised it with the developer and I was told that the plants are as specified because the height is measured from the bottom of the roots. I find this completely ludicrous, but before I will take it further, I wanted to have a sanity check that is indeed nonsense.

Are there any circumstances when on the landscaping plans, the height of the plants are to be measured from the bottom of the roots?

Edit: This is what the legend of the landscaping plan specifies. The hedge on the plan is marked as ELAEB.

enter image description here

tst
  • 121
  • 3
  • Which plants are they, what are they called? Its usual for plant height in a pot to refer to topgrowth only, but it may not matter depending on which plants you have. More important is are they actually in 5l pots or are they smaller too? – Bamboo Feb 26 '23 at 14:17
  • @Bamboo the species is elaeagnus x ebbingei. We have the correct variety or something close enough. I don't know in what pots they came, as I've seen them only already planted – tst Feb 26 '23 at 15:59
  • If these are pots not temporary bags, then I am on the fence about it. Because the plants are 60cm off the ground. Also here in NZ, its normal to just specify the bag size. Because that's how the garden centres price them. – Rohit Gupta Feb 26 '23 at 19:38

1 Answers1

2

I've been trained as a landscape designer and have practiced in the trade for several seasons in the past (I'm an occasional landscape consultant now). No one - absolutely no one who is honest, that is - in the US measures the height of a plant specified for a design from the bottom of the pot to the top of the plant.

In my own designs, I always drew the plants in the plan at their "mature" heights and widths. There is no other way to create a "to-scale" design otherwise. In this case, the height is determined by measuring from the ground or root flare to the top of the plant and is always an estimate, as some cultivars grow slightly smaller or taller than others. I always used specific sources for this information.

I sometimes specified optimal planting size by container size or "B&B" (balled and burlapped), but that was in the plant schedule and was subject to the client's budget. The size a shrub is planted at doesn't matter; the size the shrub attains as it matures DOES matter.

If your plan does indeed call for shrubs to be planted at a height of 80cm and the developer is providing plants at 40-60cm, then that developer is incompetent at this part of their job, can't easily source the proper sized plants and is lying to you, and/or is intentionally trying to save money by scamming you.

If this is the case, I'd question the plant in the design - who knows if they're even appropriate to your site? I once moved to a house where a "landscaper" had done a "plant dump" at the end of the planting season, just putting whatever stock he had left wherever he could. He put a shrub that got 15 feet wide 2 feet from the house, and another that got 25 feet wide only 6 feet from the house. He also added a ton of perennials that required excellent drainage to a site that was 100% clay subsoil. He truly ripped off the original homeowners who had hired him.

Make sure your design doesn't have issues like my house did.

Jurp
  • 18,009
  • 1
  • 15
  • 36
  • Hey, thanks for your reply. From my understanding, the landscaping plan is fine, the species is correct. It's just the size that is wrong. I have added a photo of the legend. – tst Feb 26 '23 at 16:07
  • By the way, they have added more plants than what the plan specifies, because they are much smaller. So I assume this is an extra indication that they are not correct – tst Feb 26 '23 at 16:08
  • 1
    The increase in the number could be both a blessing and a curse (if you're the one paying for the extra plants). More plants should mean that they're planted closer together on-center, which means that they'll fill in to make a hedge quicker. As the plants mature, however, closer planting than normal could (note: NOT will) mean that some of the hedge plants may be crowded out and die - therefore, a waste of plant and money. (continued) – Jurp Feb 26 '23 at 20:47
  • 1
    (continued) This is where the curse part comes in, because if you're paying for the extras then you're paying for a better looking hedge earlier than would be expected given the smaller plant sizes AND you're paying for any plants "wasted" by being over-crowded due to the over-planting of the hedge. Using smaller plants means waiting longer for the hedge to form but would be more cost-effective. If the developers are paying for the extra plants, then they're no funny business, so enjoy your free extra plants :) – Jurp Feb 26 '23 at 20:48