Questions To Ask Yourself When Designing A Landscape

By taking the time and care to answer thoughtfully and honestly a few basic questions, you'll discover that your landscape design plan will be more efficiently carried out with regard to effort, time, and cost. Your design will be improved and your answers will help you better plan how to use the space around your home. When you think carefully about what you are doing and create a plan, you're much more likely to experience a successful landscape design for your home.

The Landscape Budget

First off is can you afford to implement your entire design at once? Or do you need to create a plan in stages, reaching your ambitions one at a time? You need to determine how much money you have available for each phase of your design, and what you'll do if you come in under budget. Will you purchase more plants? Add a more ornamental retaining wall? The bottom line is you need to set a target amount for your landscape project and then stay within the budget.

Here's a helpful budget rule-of-thumb: The cost of landscaping should come in at about 10 percent of the value of your home. This includes irrigation, fencing, decks, patios, ponds, and other components you want to include in the yard. There is no need to complete everything all at once. It's much more realistic to gradually make improvements over the years with ready money than leave yourself debt burdened.

How Will You Use the Space?

Think about the activities that will take place, and how you would like to use the open space. Visualize how you and your family will move through the landscape. This will help you determine where you walkways and traffic flow.

Consider how you will incorporate trees, fences, flowerbeds, and other elements into the space without harming its usefulness.

Where Does the Sun Shine Through?

How the sunlight covers your property is a very important consideration, as it will help determine where to plant different vegetation. You need to know whether certain locations receive full light (a minimum of 6 hours a day), partial shade (4 to 6 hours), also called partial light, or full shade (less than 4 hours). Your goal is to place plants according to the amount of sunlight they need to thrive.

What Grows Well in Your Area?

Do you know what kinds of plants grow well in your area? You need to know what plants are native to your region, and what plants are native to areas with a similar climate. You might really enjoy succulents, for instance, but if you live in a very wet area they might drown in all the extra water.

Along that line, you must learn about your soil's composition. It is very important that you know whether plants will survive in your soil or whether you'll need to improve the soil with amendments such as crushed shells or organic compost.

Lastly, ask yourself, "What do I think would be appealing?" Take a picture of your yard and then mentally start adding plants. You can also make a sketch of what you think would work well, and then decide whether it really accomplishes the appearance you're looking for. You also want to ensure that the new landscape design is convenient and doable, especially if you're going to be creating it yourself.

There are numerous considerations when designing a new landscape for your property. While it can be a very gratifying experience, it is important to carefully consider your design plans before putting them into action. Lanscaping is a large investment in resources and time, and something you'll have to live with for many years to come.