Mass Planting - The Design Element You Didn't Know You Needed

by Ben Bowen

What are you looking for in your new landscape design?

Low maintenance and drought tolerant, you reply.

In this imaginary exchange “you” is just about every potential client I have talked to in the last 5 years.

One of the key ways we look to deliver low maintenance and low water use gardens is by utilizing “mass planting”.  

Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass mass planting in a modern garden

What Is Mass Planting?

Mass planting (or “massed planting” or “planting in drifts”) is the term we use to describe using one variety of plant to fill an area. A lawn, for example, is a mass planting of a low grass. Unfortunately, the most common lawn grasses are high maintenance and need lots of water. 

But when you take this concept and use plants that are super hardy and don’t need a ton of water? Now you have a powerful way to take large swaths of garden and make them beautiful, low care, and water wise. 

For example, you can plant a hardy grass-like evergreen in a bed, filling most of it. This plant (perhaps a sedge or liriope) will fill in and keep weeds at bay. They don’t need to be cut back and are tall enough to swallow up leaves (to a reasonable degree). And since they are drought tolerant very little water is needed once they are established.

We don’t use these plants alone though. That would be boring and might make your yard feel like a commercial parking lot. So these mass planted beds will be anchored by carefully chosen trees and shrubs. These should also be tidy and hardy. Their water needs should be similar to the main mass plant’s. We choose colors and textures that complement each other, so the area feels like a cohesive composition- a structure, not just a collection of pretty plants we like. 

Boulders are also useful. They can add age and weight to a flowing mass of soft foliage. Garden statuary, fountains, and lighting can all be incorporated as well. 

This is not a modern concept, though you do see it employed most often in modern and minimalist gardens. These mass plantings occur naturally. At the coast you can find hillsides covered in grasses, with just a few structural pines as focal points. It’s not planned but it’s beautiful. In the woods of the coast range you find mass plantings of ferns or salal, with vine maples snaking up out of them. And as you head east you can locate large swaths of manzanita with madrone or conifers towering above.

So why don’t we see a lot of strict mass plantings in Portland?

Perhaps they seem to too modern, even though they certainly don’t need to be. Or maybe designers love plants too much. It’s hard to use your hard earned knowledge of plants to pick out just a handful of bulletproof plants for a client (though most designers certainly have the expertise).

Or it could be that garden owners love plants too much. Are you willing to have a garden with 80% less variety than your neighbor’s?  If so you’ll find it’s a very good way to lower maintenance and lower water usage. Done properly, it certainly won’t lower your enjoyment of your new landscape design.

Contact Ben Bowen today to discuss your new garden plan!

Mass plantings are used extensively in this water-wise landscape design