So many great answers…so many problems with this landscape! Everyone who made a comment was spot on in their reasoning. And each of these flaws was completely preventable with good design. But I’m not sure I would have been able to predict the problem that I now see every week at this location:
his area is the only access point for service vehicles of any persuasion. And sometimes they DO park on top of the planting strip. Fred’s designation of these ground covers as “Stompus flatii” was perfect!
Lesson to be learned: sometimes it’s best NOT to have planting strips if they clash with the realities of site use.
Though I will say that the curb shown most likely helps keep down the number of vehicles running up into the planting strip…Our street has no curb, and the planting strips are a mess of crabgrass and bare earth. (One of our neighbors even runs his pickup-attached snowplow up off the street onto the planting strip, over the sidewalk, and onto his front lawn — it’s an efficient way to make parking for his kids’ cars, but boy, does that planting strip look like hell when the snow melts!)
You’re right about the curb, Deb…but intrepid drivers (especially moving vans) go the the end of the sidewalk, which is conveniently graded for wheelchairs. Makes a great truck ramp!
Would it work to take out that “parking strip” and a third of that large sidewalk to have actual parking space? I thought that’s why parking strips where there in the first place – in case the road needs to be widened.