Landscape design is powerful. It grabs the attention of people passing by, and it elevates the façade of any home. Whether you’re revamping your current landscaping or starting from scratch, you need to know some design basics. Read on to learn what makes a great landscape design.
Landscaping Features That Match Your Maintenance Goals
Before you start selecting plants you love, think about what you want to maintain. Do you want plants that mostly take care of themselves? Are you OK with fussy plants that may require constant upkeep?
A beautiful landscape design means nothing if you cannot maintain it. All the work and money you spend will go to waste if the landscaping dies in a few months. Moreover, you may end up with an overgrown mess if you select thriving plants that need frequent pruning. Consider how much you personally want to maintain or how much you’re willing to spend on professional landscape maintenance before designing your landscape.
Strategic Plant Placement Based on Soil, Lighting, and Environmental Factors
Not every plant is meant for every property. This is particularly true when you start incorporating non-native plants into your design. The lighting, rain exposure, and soil content may vary throughout your property. You need plants that work well in each area.
This is why Berns Landscaping uses the right plant, right place approach to landscape design. We assess each of these factors to thoughtfully choose plant material. The last thing we want is for you to spend money on plants destined for death. With the right strategy, you can see a great return on investment from your landscape design.
Variations in Height, Shape, Texture, and Color
Great landscape design is diverse and layered. This involves a mixture of textures, colors, shapes, and heights. The goal is to draw a person’s eye all around the property, creating new experiences with every glance. Flat landscape design looks like a sea of green. You want a dynamic landscape design that complements your home or business’s exterior features.
Note that there is such a thing as too much variety. Landscape design needs to breathe. If the plants are stacked next to each other with no breaking point, the design may look cluttered and confusing. Think of empty space as a plant shape/height and include it within the design.
Adaptive Landscape Design That Can Change over Time
Your design taste may change with time, as will trends in landscape designs and the environmental factors in your area. Create a foundation of design features that you can adjust as needed in the future.
For instance, you may have annuals in the front of your garden beds for a pop of color. You can swap those for completely new colors next year, or you could even do a color swap for each season! This is what makes landscape design so fun. The possibilities are endless, and you can always challenge yourself to try something new.
Hardscaping Features That Enhance the Landscaping
Hardscaping can amplify your landscape design. This includes retaining walls, brick paver patios, walkways, stone garden bed edging, and much more. Stones beautifully contrast natural elements, and they can draw attention to specific areas.
Hardscaping breaks up the ‘sea of green’ we referred to above and adds the finishing touch to a good landscape design. If you think back on any landscape design that you’ve loved from the past, chances are it had hardscaping features within.
Coordinating Landscape Design throughout the Property
Each area of the property acts as its own vignette, but the vignettes should tie together in some way. There may be repeating plants or colors throughout the landscaping, combined with coordinating pavers and mulch. The sections don’t need to be identical, but they should complement each other. This is a sign of truly thoughtful landscape design.
Proportional Plants with Symmetry and Balance
Make sure the plants you select are in proportion with the building exterior and other plants in the area. For instance, you may want tall bushes next to two-story columns on the façade. Those tall bushes may look strange near the shortest portion of the building.
In addition to building proportions, you must consider how the plants look near each other. Does the design feel heavy in one area, or is there a good balance throughout? Most homeowners and business owners like the appearance of symmetrical landscape designs, but that isn’t always an option. As long as you create balance, you can get the feel of symmetry regardless of the layout.
Get a Custom Landscape Design from Berns Landscaping
Now that you know what makes a great landscape design, you may feel a bit overwhelmed. There are a variety of factors that go into designing a beautiful landscape. Sometimes, it’s best just to trust the pros.
Here at Berns Landscaping, we have decades of experience creating eye-catching landscape designs. We take into account each property’s unique needs, and we can work with existing plants on the property. Best of all, we have a crew of specialists who can maintain your new landscaping for years to come. Contact us at(586) 756-1145 to schedule a landscape design consultation.
Check out these vibrant landscape designs from Berns Landscaping.