Advantage of mulching a sunny garden

Mulch is essential in a sunny garden both from the perspective of maintenance (less frequent watering is needed) and in order to tie plantings together. Dark colored mulch will give a solid grounding to your plantings but gravel might unify a natural looking landscape.

Focal points in a garden

The focal point is an interesting element where the eye comes to rest when viewing a garden. The focal point of a garden may be a bench, a striking Japanese maple, a garden sculpture, or your neighbor's majestic oak tree. There should be only one focal point to any view, but a series of focal points can take the visitor from area to area in a garden. This creates movement, a very important element to any garden.

Impact of dense plantings in your design

A plant's density or visual weight creates a great deal of impact in a garden. For example, consider an evergreen tree, as opposed to a deciduous tree. Even in the middle of summer, the evergreen tree tends to have more visual weight than the deciduous one. This means these plants should be considered carefully in developing your garden picture. Used as specimen plants, they will attract a great deal of attention. Used in groupings, they can serve as a dark background for a plant of finer texture.

Choosing plants for a landscape

When choosing plants, do not focus on only the flowers they may provide. It is important take into consideration a plants foliage texture (feathery, shiny, fuzzy) and colour (yellow, silver blue). Consider fruit trees and shrubs that can provide attractive flowers, colors and a good quantity of edible fruit. Fruit can stay on the plant for several months and also feeds the birds. Consider fall leaf colour that may last for 2 weeks and stem and bark colour that can add to a dreary winter landscape.

Adding vertical elements to a design

Vertical elements impact a garden in a variety of ways. The higher a fence or hedge, the smaller the enclosed space appears. Accordingly, the smaller the garden, the more the vertical elements predominate the area. In small yards, then, it is crucial to consider your vertical elements carefully. Using trellising or a nonsolid fence can give a small garden structure while still allowing light in. In a large yard, vertical elements can give a sense of intimacy and security by dividing the space into garden rooms.

Overgrown Yard - What to do?

If you have bought a house whose yard was ignored or abused by its former owners, do not be in a hurry to correct the problem, tempting as it may seem. It´s a better idea to take a slow but steady course of action that lets you first trim back ungainly overgrowth and then discover what´s worth keeping and what´s not.
It´s a good idea to live in a house for a year--through the four seasons to see how the landscaping elements work before making any landscape changes. That old maple tree you may have initially wanted to remove may be doing a great job of shielding out the hot summer sun on the patio. You won´t know that until you´ve seen how and where the summer sun effects the house.

Tips for planting on a large yard.

With a large property, you have a much broader selection of planting to choose from than gardeners with a small yard. However, with choice comes responsibility. Don't spread tiny groups of plantings out over the entire yard. If you can't afford to plant the entire garden at once (and really, who can?), choose a couple of key areas to focus on and build outward from them.
Eventually, you will be able to link these areas together into a unified whole.

Sunny yards

Gardeners with sunny yards certainly have a vast number of plants to choose from, but sometimes all you want is a little shade for contrast and relief. You might consider creating your own shade with structures like arbors or pergolas covered in vines or by planting trees and shrubs. These are also good elements from a design standpoint in that they provide bones for the yard. The main challenge in designing for a sunny yard is to keep things interesting. One strategy is to play up the amount of light in the yard with light colored plants. Grey leaved plants such as Lamb's ears, Lavender, and Carnations or pink Dianthus can be used to a great effect in a sunny exposure.

Best time to landscape

A good time to begin landscape planning if at all possible is when the new home is being built. Only then can the best possible use of outdoor space be obtained as the house and landscape are planned together.

Benefits of landscaping your property

The purpose of landscaping is to enrich the quality of life on your land, be it a small backyard in the city or acres of space in the country. Gardens offer texture, color, and fragrance, pleasing shapes, fresh tastes, protection from the elements, and sound (from winds)----in countless combinations. Also, the average landscaped house can add 10 to 15% more to the value of a home!

Tips for planning a yard design

To help plan a design for your yard, take a walk around the property and note both the good and bad features of your landscape. Take into consideration the location of walks, drives, utilities and existing plants. Look for good views you wish to keep, as well as bad views you would prefer to hide. Examine how the sun and wind strike the house and decide whether you wish to change these. Look for ways to increase privacy in certain areas of your landscape.

Plan ahead for outdoor living areas

If areas for outdoor living are included in your landscape planning, you may need to plan for fences, hedges, or informal mass plantings of trees and shrubs to provide privacy from and for people in nearby houses or on the street.

Adding depth to an uninterestingly shaped yard

There are several options for adding depth and interest to an uninterestingly shaped (but definitely typical) yard. Place the entrance to the garden on an angle or on the lower half of a long side. This creates immediate interest by giving visitors an unexpected perspective as they enter the yard. Next, if practical, place your entertainment area (barbecue, patio, terrace) in a location away from the house for the same reason. Or use decking to create different levels, creating more interest for the eye.

Plantings for slopes

Use hardy plants at the base of slopes. Cold air flows downhill and settles in low spots and can damage tender specimens planted there.

Proportion in a garden

Proportion considers the relationship between the size of one element in a garden with the size of another. Unity or the repetition of an element (shape, color, texture, or even the same plant) throughout a garden ties it together. Contrast provides an element of surprise or variation to your garden. Using two plants with similar sizes but different textures or placing a strong colored element against a pale background can be appealing. It is usually important to keep some element of similarity between plants in order to provide unity to a garden picture, but that shouldn't stop you from experimenting to create your own unique look.

Adding trees to landscape-considerations

When it is time to buy the trees that will form the basic structure of your landscape, invest in only those which are hardy for your climate or Zone. The trees and shrubs that you plant are an investment and should be able to grow healthy and relatively problem free for decades to increase in beauty, as well as, the value of your property.

Draw a rough base plan first

When developing your own landscape plan, first put ideas and notes on paper along with rough sketches. A good idea is to draw a simple base plan at first. Try to make it complete but it does not have to be to scale at this point. It should show your property lines, house location, utilities (above and below ground), existing plantings, walkways, drives and any other features such as rocks, streams, slopes, hills, etc. Although exact scale is not necessary, try to obtain realistic proportions. Show dimensions for property lines, house outline and other permanent landmarks or structures. This can be the base for future drawings from which a more final and exact plan can be derived.

Landscaping with a new home

With a new home you have the advantage when it comes to planning your property's landscape. Although a complete landscaping project may be financially impossible to undertake at one time, homeowners should devise an entire plan to include patios, planting beds, shade trees, flower gardens, play areas and perhaps a swimming pool. A master plan means the finished product will be cohesive and it
is much more economical to spend extra time and effort in proper planning than to correct mistakes after the work and money is spent in your garden.