Category Archives: Yard & Outdoors

The Art Of Landscaping Your Garden

The Art Of Landscaping Your Garden

Landscaping is the one gardening endeavor that can consume lots and lots of your time and energy. If you are thinking of tackling it on a grand scale, you will need some major preparation. If you were to consider hiring a professional landscaper, you would most probably find that the costs would be quite horrendous.

Now that’s fine if money is no object, but I personally get great pleasure from my own endeavors, gardening is after all my great passion in life.

I would strongly suggest however, that you have a clear idea in your mind about how you would like your garden to look, rather than simply starting off without a clear plan in mind.

Having said all that, here are simple but indispensable tips to guide you in making your landscaping activities extremely rewarding.

Draw Your Landscape Plan.

However not just any plan. It needs to be a well thought out landscape plan, or you are certainly doomed to lose money as well as time and energy. You really need to take account of the style
and function of your landscape, and a good idea of the plants that you also want to include. Focus on that area where you spend most of your time, because this is where your landscaping labors should all be directed.

Investigate A Free Planning Service.

Hiring an independent designer would probly cost you hundreds of dollars, but you might well discover that many nurseries offer a free planning service, particularly if you are likely to be
spending some money with them.

Take Account Of The Style Of Your Home.

When planning your landscape, the style should complement the design of your house and your personality as well. There are various landscape styles which you can choose for your garden:-

1. Formal – This style uses lots of straight lines and perfect geometrical shapes. Orderly arrangement of plants instead of random positioning is employed, and close arrangement and pruning
is used on many landscaped gardens with this style.

2. Informal – This kind of landscaping goes well with houses which have a cozy look to them. Beds with curved edges instead of straight lines and random placement of plants suit this landscape style.

3. English Garden – This style emphasizes on the harmony between the house’s architecture and the garden.

4. Formal/Informal Garden – This style often comes with a brick walkway that exudes formality. This walkway leads to the rear with a circle of plants. The arrangement of plants resembles the English garden style, but it has no formal borders.

5. Oriental – It is often the kind of garden found in houses with small backyards. It uses rocks, evergreens and water, and a wide variety of plants to create several angles with this style.

6. Woodland – This landscaping suits a house that has a wooded backyard and an inclined terrain.

Keeping those tips in mind will not only make your landscaping a very fruitful activity, but will save you considerable expense as well as time.

Don,t be frightened to use your imagination and flair for color in this project, after all it is primarily to please yourself and your family. I suggest that the satisfaction that you will gain from creating and designing your own personal landscaped garden, will make you feel like a true artist.

Landscaping Photos, Capturing Every Step

Landscaping Photos, Capturing Every Step

In landscaping design, once you’ve decided to venture into one, even if you are not a professional, you’ll be amazed as to how many the possibilities are about what you can do.

Observing is the Key
It may be true at times that you won’t know how the process was done by simply looking at the outcome. But by keen observation, you would have an idea as to what to do with your own project and by asking around, you would know how they were done. Sometimes you’ll be amazed to know that such complex structures were not that complex to do.

Observing other landscapes is good. But for you to have many other options and ideas, browse through gardening magazines and books. Sometimes, you don’t even have to read thoroughly on the articles about the process, you just have to look at photos to gather more ideas and add up to what you already have.

The Web is the right resource to go to when it comes to landscaping photos. Browse through sites of the professional landscapers to see their ideas. But the blog posts and personal sites of simple people who would just like to share what they made and how they made it with regards landscaping would also be worth seeing.

Through research, you’d have an idea as to what to do and what to avoid if you are planning on making your own.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
This phrase is true for landscape enthusiasts, when presented with different pictures as to how other people have done their project, one could come up with their own ideas, maybe inspired from what they have seen or a combination of two or more styles.

When you look at the photos, you’ll be aware as to what colors of plants look good when they are side by side or what other structures could be built in the space provided. In this case, the research that you have to do would be minimal. Of course, you still have to be knowledgeable about the place conditions, the weather, the kinds of plants that grow in it, the soil properties. These all contribute to the success of the project.

Document it Through Photos
Pictures are really of a great help with people who wants to venture into landscaping or are pondering about what they could do with their land, even the professionals would find a great deal of help with pictures.

This is why when you are already doing your own landscaping, it is important to document each step, especially the outcome, by taking pictures. You never know how these photos could eventually help others who, in the future, may look for such and would find your pictures very useful just like how such pictures were able to help you when you were starting on your own project.

Make it a hobby to keep landscaping photos even though you are not a professional. It may serve others in the long run, but it would also remind you as to how you’ve transformed simplicity into an art form.

And keeping such isn’t only for memorabilia’s sake but also to avoid mistakes in the future regarding such activity and to learn from the process.

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