Landscape Gardening » Yard & Garden Planning
Landscape Gardening Designs
When landscape gardening, begin by looking critically at what you've got. As you live in your house through the next cycle of seasons, compile a list of small and large blessings already in place of your design: the shade, bloom, or fruit of a special tree, or the view at sunset or when the winter trees are bare.
At the end of 12 months you may be pleasantly surprised at just how long your list is.
After nearly 4,000 years, many of the design precepts of the earliest gardens are still valid. Perhaps the most enduring is the use of hedges, fences, and walls to surround and define our gardens.
Although in this day and age we aren't threatened by marauding tribes or packs of wild dogs, the walls still provide a sense of safety and sanctuary-we feel safer and more secure in our gardens if there is a sense of separation from the world at large.
Design can imitate nature on many levels: from structure and process to landscapes. We can imitate the structure of mature forests by planting on every level of the forest hierarchy, from canopy to below ground.
We can use native species. We can imitate the process of forests by allowing birds, bats, and other animals opportunity to distribute seeds and energy to other areas or prey on "pests". We can create microclimates within the landscape that may shift the landscape in new directions.
Planting trees, for instance, allows new species to become established in their protection, form soil, etc.