Plants are tools. A landscape design is the method you develop to make those tools work best. Over the past couple of months, I have attended three programs on landscaping, and each speaker was trying to accomplish something different.

Bob Bangs of Windswept Gardens in Bangor spoke at the Maine Landscape and Nursery Association’s annual meeting and trade show in Augusta, explaining how he works with customers to create gardens that work best for homeowners and their property.

Kyle and Lisa Turoczi of Earth Tones Native Plant Nursery in Woodbury, Conn., discussed using native plants in the landscape during the New England Grows trade show in Boston.

And Jeff O’Donal of O’Donal’s Nursery in Gorham presented a program for landscape professionals about landscaping on waterfront properties — a specific task in which the state sets the rules.

The three approaches are not in conflict with each other, but in each case, the landscaper has a different goal.

Bangs wants to make the landscape design fit the house and the property, to help the client’s fantasies and desires mesh with the reality of the piece of land that the client’s house is on.

Before Bangs draws a line, he looks at the property to determine drainage, slope, soil conditions, existing vegetation, natural features, climate, views, the orientation of the house and property, and any other pertinent information.

“A landscape should enhance the design of the house,” he said. “I like to mimic some feature of the house in the landscape.”

Sometimes that mimicking is done with shape, texture, color and patterns, but it does bring the landscape together.

“I like to bring clients into the landscape,” he said. Bangs said patios do that, while decks are part of the structure of the house and provide more of an overview or raised view of the landscape. 

And with the patios, designers need to integrate them more with the surrounding lawn and gardens.

The Turoczis’ goal is to fit the home and its grounds into the natural landscape while also serving the people living there. Especially in the suburbs, where there often is a monoculture of lawn, they want to put in plants that will serve as a pathway for wild animals.

“The best way to provide for the native fauna is to provide the native flora,” Lisa Turoczi said. “They adapted together and work with the local weather.”

The Turoczis like using shrubs such as the native winterberry and viburnum to provide berries for birds. While it might seem like the berries don’t get eaten because they stay on the bush for a good part of the winter, the Turoczis said berries have to freeze and thaw a number of times before they are the right texture. And different birds prefer different textures, so they will show up at the shrubs at different times.

The Turoczis also like to install rain gardens capable of handling a 2-inch rainstorm into every one of their landscapes. 

“A rain garden just holds the water temporarily so it will go into the ground,” Kyle Turoczi said.

The rain garden is simply a depression in the ground filled with plants that can stand moist soil. When the plants have grown, they fill the depression so completely that it looks just like any other garden. And using a rain garden to hold your water overflow from gutters and other hard-scaping materials keeps the storm runoff from cutting through other gardens or running into your cellar.

Since 1971, any planting within 250 feet of a body of water — ocean, lake or stream that is downstream from where two perennial brooks meet — has to meet standards set by the state of Maine, O’Donal said. Many cottages with open lawns and structures right to the waterfront are grandfathered, and the owners can maintain what they have but cannot expand it. 

The rules get more restrictive the closer the property is to the water. The purpose is to prevent any erosion or runoff that would allow sediment to flow into the body of water.

“They want plantings that water has to fight to get through,” O’Donal said.

The regulations also require that the rain fight its way through the leaves on the way to the ground, and fight its way through vegetation once it is on the ground and seeping toward the body of water.

According to a handbook for shoreland owners issued by the Department of Environmental Protection, a piece of property that is 25 feet by 50 feet must contain the equivalent of one tree that is 12 inches in diameter, two trees that are 8 to 12 inches in diameter, two trees that are 4 to 8 inches in diameter, four trees that are 2 to 4 inches in diameter and five smaller saplings, in addition to some shrubs, perennials and ground-cover plantings.

That total would come to the required 24 points under the state’s system, and there are other mixes of plants that would come to 24 points. But that is a lot of plants, placed closer together than plants can be expected to tolerate.

“They expect some of these plants to die,” O’Donal said. “It happens in nature all the time, and they want nature to take its course.”

If someone is building on an undisturbed wooded site and it has more than the 24 points required by state law, some of the trees can be removed — under strict requirements. No plants can be removed within 75 feet of the water. In the rest of the area, only 40 percent of the trees larger than 4 inches in diameter may be removed in a 10-year period.

With these rules, the practice of building a shorefront cottage with a view of the water is over. The owners are allowed to build a meandering path, not more than 6 feet wide from tree trunk to tree trunk, to the water — but no clearance for view.

And if vegetation is removed improperly, it is an expensive process to bring the land back into compliance.

Tom Atwell of Cape Elizabeth has been writing the Maine Gardener column since 2004. He can be contacted at 767-2297 or at:

tomatwell@me.com