5 Things to Consider When Planning Your Landscape Design
Are you more the Spring greening than the Spring cleaning type? We can totally relate. If you're eager to escape the house, put on your gardening gloves, and get out in the yard, there's no better moment than the warm-ish days of early spring that we're starting to feel today.
Don't put those gloves on quite yet! Before digging in, there are some important factors to consider before you start planting.
While many people head straight to their local gardening supply store to browse the selections, creating a plan beforehand will help you choose plants that will best fit your needs and thrive in your landscape.
To help prevent any wasteful spending on plants that won't work, these 5 tips will help you develop a plan placing you on the right path to creating a beautiful, cohesive, and thriving landscape.
1. Get familiar with your yard.
A good place to start when getting familiar with your yard is to think about your regional climate and your soil type. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/) is a great place to start. Keep in mind that different conditions throughout your property can create microclimates based on the amount and length of sun and shade exposure the area receives.
Microclimates are usually broken into one of four categories:
Full sun
Partial shade
Shade
Deep shade
Take note of your landscape's microclimates when selecting plants for your landscape.
2. Think about who will be using your yard.
One question you must answer is, "who will be using your yard and how will they be using it?" Will children be using your yard? Do you have pets? Are you hoping to use your yard for outdoor entertaining? Remember you can create different spaces for different uses in your landscape using strategic plantings and hardscapes. Walkways can be used to move people from one area to another.
Something else worth considering is, "How much time will you truly have to put into your landscape care and maintenance?" Or, if you don't have the appropriate time to care for the space, do you have a budget to pay someone else to do so?
Determining the answer to these questions will help ensure the success of your landscape for years to come.
3. Think about themes.
A theme can tie your landscape together and help guide your plant and material selections. Themes can be as simple as using low-maintenance plants throughout your landscape, or as complex as creating a Zen garden with fish ponds, bridges, and curving pathways.
When deciding on a theme for your landscape, a good place to start is with the architecture of your home. Try to complement the lines and style of your home's architecture in your outdoor spaces; after all, your landscape is an extension of your home.
Deciding on an appropriate theme for your individual climate and style can help guide how you place and select trees, plants, and hardscape elements.
4. Create and link spaces.
If you truly want to get the most out of your outdoor space, it helps to think about it as another room or rooms, in your home. Just as a home has well defined and carefully planned rooms, so should your landscape; using your materials wisely allows you to create different "rooms" in your landscape.
It also helps to think about how you will link your different spaces. Assuming that you'll want people to easily move from one space of your yard to another, creating openings to encourage exploration in your outdoor space must be part of your planning.
5. Make your plants work for you.
Ultimately, every well-planned landscape should have a purpose. Plants can be used in a number of ways. They can provide beautiful scenery, lovely aromas, interesting architecture and much more.
They can also be used as barriers to define areas within your landscape as well as identify where your landscape ends. You can use plants to create physical barriers in your landscape by blocking both views and access to an area. If you want to keep your views open, but maintain some barriers, low growing plants can be used to create implied barriers, restrictinging access but not the view.
Also, the sounds in your landscape can be affected by what you utilize in your design such as water features, bird baths, and any barriers such as fencing or dense tree lines that keep your yard insulated from noises beyond your property.
So, what's next?
Whether you are wanting to freshen up your current landscape, are needing help with designing something completely new, or are looking for the right landscaping company to execute a plan you already have, Snow Creek Landscaping is here to help.
To begin a conversation with one of our experienced team members, please take a moment to fill out this brief questionnaire, and someone from our staff will follow up with you promptly.