Landscaping Design: Create a Pleasing Environment

The first step in Landscape Design involves analyzing your yard, the climate conditions and the amount of maintenance you are willing to do. Study the size and shape of your property, slopes and drainage, type of soil, amount of sun and shade, rainfall and snow,  the style of your home and existing plants. Based on your findings, you have a solid foundation on which to plan a design using appropriate plants and inorganic elements.

The Basic Principles of Landscaping Design

Well designed landscaping is important, not only to make the lawn and plantings look nice, but to improve the appearance of your home as well. A house with a great landscaping design looks more appealing and is more valuable. Although it may seem that a professional with a great eye is necessary, you can do the landscaping design yourself if you keep the basics in mind. The basic principles of landscaping design are similar to those in used in any type of design art.

There are four basic concepts when combined together will bring about good design. In the end your gardens' design should be a reflection your own personality and style.

Scale

When creating your landscape design, it is important to have a sense of proportion. For instance, you wouldn't want to place a large fountain in a small backyard; it would dominate and overwhelm the design. Likewise, if you have a very large house, you will want plantings and other elements that are in scale. Be sure to choose plants and other design elements that fit the size of your home and yard, and are in scale with each other.

Transition

Transition is a principle of landscaping design that is related to proportion. You can have small plants and large trees in your landscaping design, but there should be a natural progression from large to small. Paying attention to this transition will help the design flow. Design elements such as color and texture should also have natural transitions. 

Balance

One of the keys to good landscape design is balance. If your design has many plants on one side of the yard with little on the other side, it will not be pleasing. But balance doesn't necessarily mean symmetry. Several smaller elements can balance one larger element.

Harmony

One of the most important principles of landscaping design is unity and harmony, which means having plants, colors, textures and other elements that work well as a whole. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have a theme when you create your landscaping design. Whether you plan to have your yard look like a English country garden or want a more exotic look, plan ahead. By keeping harmony in mind, you will choose plants that work well together. At the same time you want to create enough variation within your theme so that it has interest. As with all the principles of landscaping design, if you keep harmony in mind without overdoing it, you will have a beautiful, natural yard that will make your home look and sell better.