Some Practical Ideas For Designing You Own Landscape
By: Ken Asselin
Designing your own landscape, can be both exciting and
challenging. If you are considering such a project, here are
some practical ideas and suggestions.
Planning the Project
Planning your landscape design is the first and most important
step. Take the time to gather the information you will need to
make your decisions on the elements you wish to include in your
landscape design. Will you want a deck, patio, foot paths,
walkways, a pond? What type of plants, trees, flowers, and
ground cover will you want to use? You should research books,
articles, and landscape design magazines to help you make these
decisions. This will pay off in the end by saving you money,
time, and frustration, enabeling you end up with a beautifully
finished project to be proud of.
The Design
The landscape design is your next step. You will need to make a
layout of the area to be landscaped, as close to scale as
possible, and with accurate measurements. Many landscape design
planning guides that will give you step-by-step instructions are
available on the internet for free, and books or eBooks are
abundant. Once your landscape design layout is done you can
began to place your elements on the layout pad. This should be
your first or preliminary plan and as you progess, changes can
be transfered to your secondary or updated plans. Changing your
mind often is just fine. After all this is just on paper at this
point and you have not spent any money or performed any labor
yet. Experimenting with a few plans is necessary before you come
up the final landscape design. A well planned landscape will
never look the same in different seasons. Plan your landscape
design to change with the seasons. You should attempt to design
your landscape as maintenance free as possible. Landscape Design
Software
If it is hard for you to visualize your finished landscape
design by just looking at your layout, there is some very good
landscape design software available. Much of the landscape
design software was originally developed for professional
landscapers, but since has been modified for the beginner who
wants to do-it-themselves. There are many do-it-yourslef
landscape design software programs available today. Landscape
design software lets you see a virtual picture of the landscape
design and enables you to move items around and see the changes
you make come to life. Some software allows you to import a
photo of your home or building and designs the landscape around
the photo. Most landscape design software programs offer advise
on using and placing the many different elements available today
in your landscape design. A well designed landscape will always
change with time, abd some of the landscape design software
available will allow you to view your landscape as it matures.
You can see what it will look like 5 or 10 years from now when
the trees have grown and the plants matured.
Gardens
Many people like to incorparate a garden in their landscape
design. Gardens can be tucked away in the corner of an area, or
be the focal point of the entire landscape design. Gardens can
even be stragecly placed among the plants, flowers and trees so
they blend in with the entire landscape design. If you like to
garden, dont overlook all the garden design possiblities when
planning your landscape design.