Thailand - new house surrounded by dirt - how to landscape!

Where to start! The house is a year old. Thai people don't go in for landscaping - or even borders or boundaries. Their culture expects everything to be open, public and accessible. (Old grannies wandering about hacking at your bushes with machetes because it's what they've been doing for for the last 50 years etc).

The concession at least is that I've got a boundary of some scraggy shrubs. But essentially I have a rectangular patch of sand, in front of the house, which is about 100 feet (frontage) by 40, bordering onto a side section with a huge, shady, mature fruit tree.

First, I want something that's a more substantial boundary between the front 'patch' and the dirt track outside. Not a wall or a fence, but something that's growing.

Second, I'd like to stagger this with different levels, somehow linking it into the side part with the big tree.

BUT - every single landscaped garden I've looked at online and tried to get ideas from - every one of them is bounded by high walls or fences, making a firm boundary for a raised ground level inside. I can't do this!

I'd like to incorporate a water feature - a cascade and/or pond. Plus have a contrast between decking, stones/pebbles and/or ornamental slabs.

So - any ideas as to how to raise the ground level at part of the boundary without using a retaining wall? Can it be done?

Plus - I'm going to need to add topsoil - the ground here is 90% sand. Should I think about starting with some kind of foundation-work using stones and mortar to create raised 'beds' and in-fill with topsoil?

At the age of 66 this is my first landscaping project and I don't know where to begin!

Help!

Rob

A few ideas to start:

1) Draw the property to scale on a sheet of paper. Include the house, the edge of the road, and any features you want to keep (such as the mature tree). Is that a raised planter I see in the 2nd pic?

2) Add things like the main route to the front door and similar features. Just a sort of blob/line sort of concept- at this point you don't need to worry about how wide it is, or what material it is made of.

3) Make several copies, or lay sheets of tracing paper over the base sheet and start laying out where you want some raised beds, or where you want some traffic control/barrier plants. Start firming up the main walkway, and secondary walkways. As you develop this part of the plan, go out there and scratch lines in the sand to see how things are laying out. Put something on the ground where you want a tree or large shrub, then go inside and look at it through the window. Imagine the tree growing taller- is it OK there or should you move it.
Similarly, the water feature. Optimum is to have the waterfall flowing toward the place from which you will be viewing it. A stream and a walkway suggests a bridge. Giant flat slab of rock, rustic wood bridge, or something else.

4) Keep looking for materials- Is there a source for rock that will work for the walls, walkways and bridge? Does wood (such as tree trunks) rot too fast to use as retaining walls?

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To improve sandy soil-
Add lots of compost, manure or other fairly fine organic matter. If you can blend it in with the sand at the ratio of 1/3 organic matter: 2/3 sand this would be good for many plants that thrive in full sun. For shade plants, 50/50.

How to make raised beds:
Method 1: No borders. Just add as much organic matter as you can to areas you will plant, and rototill. Leave the walkways bare. You could rake the walkways smooth and add this soil to the beds to make them a bit higher. The beds will gradually sift down into the walkways.

Method 2: See method 1, but add rustic, local materials for the sides. Rocks, logs, whatever. Large enough, heavy enough not to shift.

Method 3: More formal walls build of masonry, concrete or similar materials. To build something like this probably means digging a footing, so put this soil in the beds, blended with compost.

With method 2 or 3 you can also make walkways with fine gravel or other materials. In sandy soil I would dig it out a couple of inches and line the walkways with weed mat, filter fabric or something so the sand and gravel will not mix. As above, use the soil removed as part of the fill in the raised beds.

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Fencing without fences:

I would give up on this requirement and add some split rail or other simple, rustic fencing. Then grow some vines on it. If you want to remove the current scraggly line of shrubs you could make a very gentle mound (maybe 6" or so high) by blending compost in a line down the middle, then planting in this enriched area. You could make the posts taller here and there and decorate them.

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In a culture where trespassing is acceptable you need to be more firm in defining your space, or they will walk all over it. Never mind that fences etc are not used. Call them a trellis for the vines, or hang some wind chimes or garden art from them. Give the fences a reason to be there and perhaps the wandering grannies with machetes will stop and enjoy the scenery, and not cut it down. Other wise, hide rocks in the plants and dull their machetes.

Thanks so much Diana. A really helpful sand detailed reply.

I will follow your advice and start to map it all out.

There's so much detail in what you've said that I've copied your reply and pasted into a reference document - I'll be studying it and working from it for months!

I'm indebted to you for your time and patience with the reply you wrote - thanks so much!

Rob

Keep in touch- scan the base sheet and post it here.
I am sure other people will want to add ideas, too.

Measuring it and drawing it out has made me realise that I'm thinking about this the wrong way. I was looking at a rectangle in front of the house - but it's actually an L-shaped plot which runs front and side.- see pics.

Back to the drawing board!

Cheers

R

So far so good.

I must gravel the entrance, and the area to the car port, as it gets boggy in places when wet. So that dictates right away the part left to play with. (Grey area on the sketch.)

The big fruit tree is something of an island. So now I'm thinking about lowering some parts around it - and then using the sand/soil from this to raise other parts - particularly around the front boundary.

Raise the outer corner (where the scrubby bushes meets the banana trees) and dump some big rocks in the raised corner. A water feature here flowing down the rocks into a pond at a lower level with a walkway over, and a grassy bank coming down to it from the higher level of the tree island.

The far side of the tree alongside the raised sun patio can have an echoed treatment, with the water being circulated between the rocky waterfall and the two ponds.

At the same time that the boundaries are being raised at the edges from the dug out soil, I can bed a series of chunks of timber into the soil - there a sawmill not far away which just scraps the outer slides on both sides of the logs. I can then set climbing vines to go up and across between them.

That gives me a basic terraform - no thought at this point about what plants to use . . . that'll come later.

How's that sound for a starter plan??

R

The plan is really coming along! Wonderful!
It is a good point about getting the layout of the grading and hardscape right first, and worrying about the species of plants later.

If you dig out soil from around the tree, will that make the water stand in that area? That could kill the tree. Another concern is that the tree might have roots in that area. Go slow when you are digging it out, and be prepared to stop when you come to the roots. The tree might end up still on its island.