How we care for the land reflects our character.

" At last I have seen a landscape where art is blended with nature in such a way that neither of them spoils the other." Honere de Balzac.

Just like the smaller gardens and landscapes that you've created and tended before moving to the country, a beautifully landscaped country estate reflects your own unique aesthetic values.

In contrast to smaller garden projects, landscape design for the country property incorporates a greater range of management objectives. Successful vegetation planning for your larger property evaluates several groups of seed and plant selections for a variety of objectives. Improvements to your property may include choosing plants and trees for dramatic fall color, protective windbreaks and wildfire prevention around your buildings and homestead areas. Or, you may need to select shrubs, perennial grasses and wildflowers to provide decorative borders for hiking, biking and equestrian trails and to shelter formal and kitchen gardens or to provide sturdy or hardy vegetation to protect play areas. You' ll need to know which balanced grass, wildflower and shrub plantings enhance forage for pasture areas and how good management practices provides wildlife habitat in your meadow and woodland.

Your country estate exists within nature.

Since the scale of the country estate is greater, a successful landscaping design project also regards the influence of larger environmental factors. Landscape elements that will influence your plant and seed selection include changes in topography within the property, ranges of soil types and conditions and micro-climate conditions created by land forms and vegetation within and outside of your property.

While a good landscape design provides beauty and functionality, to protect your investment and maintain or enhance your property's value, landscape planning for your country estate needs to support a vital landscape by protecting or restoring healthy soil, plants and clean water.

Good stewardship protects soil, water, plants and animals.

Your legacy depends on good stewardship and conservation of natural resources. Stewardship includes planting a balanced selection of soil and climate appropriate plants to encourage plant and animal diversity and promote the ecological richness of the land. The landscape advisors at Three Ravens Ranch take into account your property's unique climate zone or ecoregion location. Ecoregions help ecologists discover how indigenous plants and animals adapt to environmental factors such as soil, climate and topography in the native habitat of your location. The biological activities of native plants and animals sustain a healthy environment within these communities. Interpretation of the ecoregion dynamics of your area helps landscape advisors apply similar principles to plant and seed recommendations and management suggestions for your country estate.

The Natural Plant Selector Kit from Three Ravens Ranch.

To help you get started, the advisors at Three Ravens Ranch have developed a basic kit that lets you organize and streamline your landscape project. Using the Natural Plant Selector Kit for Landscape and the concept of ecoregion adaptability, you'll be able to achieve your landscape goals more efficiently. This basic kit arrives with a question and answer survey sheet to help you determine your landscape objectives and your ecoregion habitat location along with a simple soil test kit that you send to us for laboratory analysis. When soil testing is completed, our advisors evaluate your soil test results and landscape needs and provide you with a list of ecoregion adapted seeds and plants. Your comprehensive report also includes customized planting and cultivation tips for your landscape project.