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Your How to Landscaping Guide
What it takes to Create Picture Perfect Landscaping Designs
Landscape designs generally add value to the worth of your property. In fact, experts say that through these landscape designs, the total value of a particular property is increased as much as 25%. No wonder almost 20 million American households utilize landscaping services for their properties.
The Concept
Landscape designs are actually subdivided into two categories. These are the softscape and the hardscape.
The softscape part of a landscape design is the different green vegetation to be used in the area, and includes grass, shrubs, and trees.
The hardscape portion refers to the "architectural elements of the design, and may refer to the benches, fountains, poles, or other materials, not including plants.
These two main categories of a landscape design define the overall outcome. Landscape designs also employ five additional elements that are considered the foundation of good design. These are the line, color, texture, form, and scale.
The point here is that all of these elements should constitute the design, and the design is vital to the total personality of a landscape. That's why it is important for a landscaper to incorporate all of the necessary elements when landscaping. In this way, the landscape designer will be able to create a design that is not just artistic but also dynamic and will speak for itself.
If you plan on putting in a pond, decide at the beginning where the pond will best fit in. Chances are, that is going to be the focal point of the landscape.
I like to divide things into sections. First I decided where the pond was going. I took some spray paint and painted a design I thought might look good. That became my first project.
After that, I broke down the rest of the yard into small sections. Taking each section one at a time worked best for me. It made it so the project didn't seem so overwhelming.
Keep in mind; just because you do things one way doesn't mean you can never make changes. Now it's hard to change the location of the pond however, (not impossible but more work than I ever want to get into). I ended up later adding a 2nd pond, then putting a small wooden bridge in between the two, making it look like they were joined.
We add plants and flowers every year so landscaping is an ever evolving project.
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