Tired of pulling into your driveway, or looking out your window to see a barren and unattractive yard? If you want to transform your home’s exterior landscape into an aesthetically appealing, impressive display — you need focus foremost on appearance and functional design. Poor yard design, planning, and spacing can force you into more work, from rearranging flower beds to uprooting trees.
To make your landscaping project enjoyable and affordable, and turn your vision into a reality, these eight techniques will help you understand and outline your entire design process efficiently.
Plan for Invading Equipment
When you begin mapping out your yard design, remember that pieces of equipment, such as largescale mowers and company trucks, will invade the space throughout the process. Make sure you’ve allocated access routes for landscaping machinery and potential additions to the exterior of your home. You may eventually decide to add on a deck, pool, or playhouse for your kids, so think ahead before “overdesigning.”
What’s the Focal Point of the Space?
Out of the entirety of your yard design, select one space or feature as your “focal point.” Your focal point should capture the viewer’s attention and keep them engaged, and could be a graduated bed of assorted flowers or a young poplar tree whose branches overhang a bubbling fountain.
While it should stand out from the rest of your yard, it should also coincide with the overarching design, color scheme, and layout. Consider the texture, form, and style of the plants in your focal point, and how they will fluidly connect with the whole landscaping theme.
Formal Landscaping Is a Challenge
Formal landscapes, despite their symmetrical beauty, require a constant devotion to maintenance. If one part of your landscaping is damaged or certain plants die, it can throw off the entire look and feel of your yard. Keep ground conditions, weather, and time consumption in mind if you’re drawn to design on the extremely formal side.
Curves
Curves can add stimulating visuals to your landscaping design but can be easily overdone. A yard composed of snaking paths or oddly shaped flowerbeds can be more distracting than appealing. Try to keep sharp curves out of your design. Instead, go with long curves that are more subtle.
Try to limit your different geometrical shapes, too. If you have mostly square flowerbeds, anything curved is going to stand out. Instead, go with one type of geometry and repeat it throughout your landscaping to unify the look.
Movement
To make your design catch the eye, you need to add movement, for which there are many opportunities. You can incorporate design flow by planting tall ornamental grass, or hanging wind chimes and garden spinners that will react when it’s windy. Planting flowers that attract hummingbirds and adding bird feeders will also help bring motion and life into your garden during the summer months.
Another excellent way of bringing movement into your landscaping project is by blending your flowers and garden into the exterior of your home. Map out your yard design without defining a separation between your home and plantlife. You want your house to blend into the garden, but not entirely sheltered by shrubbery and wildlife. Balance is key when incorporating movement and design into your landscaping project.
Find the Right Plant for the Right Spot
Some plants need bright sunlight in order to thrive. Others need to grow in indirect light with less water. Make sure you keep your space in mind when you’re selecting which plants to grow in your yard. Some are going to need specific conditions, and if you can’t provide those conditions, they will die.
Also, remember that while some plants mature quickly and can streamline the road to a finished yard, other plants are vulnerable to their growth, and can be easily over-shined and outgrown. Plants and flowers with fast growth rates also often need more maintenance, need to be continually trimmed and watered, and require extensive surrounding space to ensure air can flow correctly.
Otherwise, it’s possible that you’ll see fungus growing among your plants. Insects may also pop up if your flowers are too close together. A few of these plants go a long way, so be sure to use them sparingly.
The Key is Planning and Spacing
Allocate the appropriate amount of time to your design and planning processes before actively composing your landscape project. If you plant flowers that complement each other, you’ll find that you don’t have to do as much maintenance as you otherwise might. Be sure to welcome space, too. You don’t have to fill everything with a plant, flower, or other design element. When it all comes together, you’ll find that your landscaping is uniquely you and uniquely gorgeous.
