Two Commercial Landscaping Ideas
Annuals.
You get far more bang for your buck with less work with annuals than you do with a perennial garden.
In the spring, till up the garden area.
Plant your annual flowers - for the ease of gardening, use impatiens if in the shade and seed-geraniums (make sure they're seed-geraniums not the big doubles) or the new Wave Petunias in the sunshine. Spread 20 pounds of corn gluten per 1000 square foot of garden area onto the area. This will act as a weed deterrent as well as an initial feeding source for your plants. Water the entire garden thoroughly.
Do it in this order - till, plant, spread corn gluten, water because we want to get the plants in the ground and then dissolve the corn gluten so it spreads out and forms a layer over the top of the soil to kill weeds.
Once a month give the annual flowers a shot of liquid fertilizer (read the label for recommended rates) to keep them growing strongly. Note the Wave petunias require this feeding to keep growing strongly.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Lots of color. Relatively inexpensive for the color. Less work than perennials but there is still some weeding to be done through the season. These recommended annuals self-prune their flowers (the flower petals fall off the plant instead of rotting) and the Impatiens and Wave petunias are self-cleaning with no further work. The seed geraniums will require a snapping off of the dead flower stalks every two weeks.
The disadvantage is they have to be purchased every year.
Wave Petunia with purple Verbena and a few pink geraniums
Shrubs and Evergreens
The easiest to maintain for commercial landscaping but far and away the most expensive to install are evergreens and shrubs.
I'm going to assume on a commercial landscaping you'll have a company do all this work - simply make sure they plant at the correct distances for the varieties they're recommending and mulch the area afterwards with at least 3-inches of mulch. (4-inches is ideal). My personal preference is for evergreens planted so at the 4-5 year time frame they mature and touch each other. This fills in the garden area further reducing weeding. Shrubs are often recommended but these can take up pruning time once a year when they are mature or they can look rather “overgrown”.
Every fall, top up the mulch to stop the weeds from becoming established. This is your ongoing cost along with a few hours of weed pulling (no chemical is 100% effective at stopping weeds).
Some landscapers recommend putting landscape fabric down to prevent weeds from growing up around the plants. And then cutting back on the layer of mulch. I've never been a huge fan of the fabric; plants grow better and faster without it and if you ever decide to change the landscape or add annuals or bulbs to the mix, there's even more labor involved here.
Advantages and Disadvantages
The largest advantage is the lack of labor to maintain this kind of bed over the years and the "formal" established look it gives the building. The disadvantage is the higher initial cost to purchase the evergreens and install them
Summary
When it comes to commercial landscaping ideas, I'm a big fan of evergreens and big bold annuals for color. Stay away from anything having to do with maintenance (such as perennials or small hanging baskets)
