The Basics of Landscaping Design

This article was writen and given to me by Mike Garcia of Enviro Ponds.com. I know this will be a helpful tool for those wanting to get some advice on where to start with their lanscaping project.

A homes landscape design starts with a vision. Every vision begins with a goal in mind. Regardless of the style or theme you choose for your home’s landscape, you must begin with a goal. Questions are a great way to set your goal. For example, do you dream of a paradise setting with a spacious lawn and majestic trees? Perhaps you are in the southwest and are perhaps limited to a majority of succulents. Would you be after a flowery succulent look? Or do you dream of a tropical landscape, complete with large palm trees and aromatic vines? No one can decide for you.

Landscape design is somewhat like choosing a color for your car, you may not know the exact name of the color you want, but you know the color you want when you see it! A good reference of types of landscape designs can be found on the internet. If you do a search on most search engines, you will be directed to the Wikipedia.org website under the heading “landscape architecture” since landscape design is really a branch of Landscape architecture.

You may want to read up on the history of landscape design to get an overview of what people throughout time considered “good landscaping”. For those who want to get right down to business, let’s go back to the business at hand, namely, choosing a style of landscaping for your home with which you can be happy. Some examples of modern landscape styles are Tropical Landscapes, Southwest Landscapes, English Cottage Garden Landscapes, and Modern Contemporary Landscapes. Due to space constraints, only a few are mentioned here, however, there are dozens more.

Once a particular landscape style or theme is decided (your goal), you may next proceed to developing your vision. After landscaping for many years, the author has come up with a workable vision that may feel right to you. The vision is that you want to come up with a landscape that will “Dazzle the eyes and nurture the soul”.

That’s right. After the project is completed, you want to be able to come home after a hard day at work and be able to find refreshment for your essence as a result of sitting in your garden. Upon arriving home, you want your garden to have the effect of “eye candy”, which dazzles the eyes. As you can see, landscape design goes much deeper than planting a pretty flower. Landscape design is intended to reach down to the deepest core of the human psyche and achieve a healthy effect like nothing else can.

The basics of landscape design include practices such as planting taller plants toward the back and smaller plants toward the front. The reason for this is obvious, since planting taller plants in front of smaller ones would block your view of the smaller plants. Also, knowing a little about the plants such as, plant names and cultural requirements, do they require sun or shade, how much water do they need? You want to plant water lovers in groups together. Landscaping doesn’t work when you plant a cactus in water loving lawn.

Nor would you group together plants that require full sun with plants that require shade. We’ve merely touched on some common sense ideas to getting started with your landscape design. As you can see, more is involved; therefore, we will discuss in greater detail the distinctions of landscape design for your home in a follow up article.

By Mike Garcia of Enviroscapes & Enviroponds.com. You can learn more about Mike and the work he does by visiting his website, http://www.enviroponds.com