Landscaping - Gardening - Lawn Care

From the magazine, Simply Perfect Landscapes
Whether you design your landscape by yourself or enlist professional help, the guiding idea is to fit together different elements in a way that meets your needs and is visually appealing to you.

Dreams & Designs
Form Follows Function

Good design requires looking at your yard as a whole. One way to start is to make a bird's-eye sketch of your property on paper or on your computer. Then, using tracing paper or computer landscaping software, try out all sorts of ideas for dividing up the space according to the uses you have in mind. It helps to draw ovals to represent each area. Erase and redraw until you find the locations that work best. Some elements to consider:

- Entry areas
- Outdoor living and dining spots
- Play areas for pets and children
- Flower and vegetable gardens
- Storage

Allow space for plants to mature. Trees and shrubs grow up as well as out; be sure no overhead wires fill the space where you visualize a tree.

When you have a tentative plan you like, visualize how it will look in five years and in 20 years. Do you still like the look?

Stick with One Style

Your ideas may steer you to a particular style, such as formal, natural, or English cottage. Choosing a style early on makes it easier to select and reject ideas and will result in a more unified look. You may also get design clues from the architectural style of your home and its native environment. The most attractive landscapes arise naturally from the immediate surroundings.

As you decide on materials to carry out your look, keep in mind the basic design principles on the following pages.

Focal Point & Perspective
Focal Point

Design your landscape around one prominent element or area to which you want to draw people's attention. Many of the other elements in the landscape -- the lines of flower beds or the curve of a path -- revolve around and direct attention to the focal point.

Perspective
Related to the focal point is perspective, or awareness of what's in the foreground, middle, and background. You can "force" the perspective in your landscape by making things seem closer together or farther apart. For example, if you plant a tall tree in the foreground and a short tree in the background, the distance between them seems greater. Switch the positions of the trees, and the same space seems smaller. You can create similar perspective illusions by varying the heights of fences, hiding the end of a curving path, or making lines of edging diverge or converge instead of running parallel.

Better Homes and Gardens

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