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Landscape Gardening: The Beginner's Guide

Creating your own garden is not a project that will be accomplished in a day or two, unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money to pay for landscape designers and a landscape crew. Of course, if that was the case, you wouldn't be here at garden global to learn how to do it yourself! Lanscape gardener's do beautiful work, but in my mind the finished product will only reflect their own landscape ideas, concepts and personality. It will be their dream garden, residing on your property. This is not successful landscape gardening.

The self satisfaction of landscape gardening is a resulting reward of a gardener's own imagination, planning, and hard work that it takes to create this personal work of art. Gardening is a lot of hard work, but it is enjoyable work... and a labor of love. Each hour of effort you put forth in your garden when landscape gardening will reward you, your family, and your neighbors with many hours of enjoyment.

Every year you will benefit from the efforts you put out during the previous one. Each year your plants and flowers will be a little larger and more beautiful. Each year you will come closer to your goal of creating your own "perfect garden" through landscape gardening. Yes... gardening is a lot of work, but when you stand back and take a look at what you built with your own hands, the sense of accomplishment is great.

To obtain an effective landscape, you must know your family's and your yard's needs. Some landscaping ideas are born full-grown. New homeowners have been known to put in a pool before they unpack their boxes. But most plans take longer to gain shape. And so they should, because the process of assessing your family's and your yard's needs -- and figuring out the best solutions - is essential to creating an effective landscape.

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: 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.

A year of surveying your situation may seem excessively long for landscape gardening, but taking your time has a built-in advantage: If you move too fast, you could destroy one of your yard's present pluses before you are even aware of it. During the year also compile a list of dislikes about your setting: lack of privacy or outdoor living space, for instance, or too much wind or too little light. Good landscaping can solve most, if not all, of your yard's shortcomings.

Weigh your home and family's needs. All landscape improvements - from the planting of a single shrub to the building of a deck and patio system - should add to the ease, comfort, and delight of your everyday living.

Add nothing to your landscape without having a specific purpose in mind - whether it's to solve one of your yard's problems or to accent one of its best features. garden global would like to offer ready-made, detailed plans to solve each reader's landscaping needs. But the combination of site, climate, and family desires makes each yard one of a kind. And even the best-planned yard will change slightly in landscape from season to season and year to year as family wants and hobbies change. No one knows as well as you what your family might require or enjoy. And you will know that much more clearly and completely after some exciting and interesting consideration of the many possibilities.

To get started gathering ideas, observe the good and bad points of other landscape gardens. You soon will notice details: colors and textures of flowers and foliage, moods of promise and mystery evoked by a winding path or a charming gate, or the way an entrance planting distinguishes one house from the others around it. Move your search for landscaping ideas indoors by browsing through books, magazines, and Internet sites. Skim over the pictures and plans the way a clever clothes maker looks at a pattern book, ruling out the completed look of many outfits as unfit, but choosing a collar here, a sleeve there.

Similarly, you can combine a front entry from one plan with a back patio from another; add a certain curve or zigzag border or walk from still another; and choose a grouping of trees for spring bloom, fall fruit, or a woodland feeling from yet another. You will do much of your initial landscape planning in your head. But to put all that power to work most efficiently, write down your observations, ideas, and expectations as they come to you.

Check the building codes, deed restrictions, and setback and easement regulations early in your planning so you can keep them in mind. Otherwise, don't worry if your landscaping ideas seem muddled at first. The details emerge in time. Don't let expense and labor stifle your dreams, either. Planning often makes the impossible possible. Perhaps you won't wind up with a forest, but you can have a corner where a path and some trees, shrubs, ground covers, and wildflowers make you feel as if you do. And though you can't stretch a small lot into a wide plain, a section of fence along the rim of a slope can visually extend your backyard.

If you have any other questions about landscape gardening, contact garden global at webmaster@gardenglobal.com.