Monday, January 12, 2009

Help To Spruce Up Your Home and Increase It's Value Using Design Landscaping

Landscaping Ideas and Tips : Adding Mosaic Stone Interest Pieces to your Landscape Design

Design landscaping is meant to create a setting for your home and garden areas that reflect your personality and make people feel welcomed into your world. Whatever landscape design you choose will create a sense of style for the grounds that surround your home and will set the overall tone for your visitors. Landscaping that is well-done can also significantly raise the value of your property.

There are many ways that you can improve the landscaping around your home. Some people worry that to improve their landscape design properly, they need to hire landscape architects or landscape contractors. This can be wonderful if you can afford it, but many people very successfully undertake the landscaping design for their homes on their own.

If you are interested in tackling the project of improving the design landscaping around your home, then you should first learn some of the essential design principles that are specific to landscaping. There are four primary principles that govern a good landscape design plan. With these principles, you can add your own preferences and sense of style and you can easily create the landscaping around your home that reflects your personality.

The first element of landscaping is the concept of balance. If you concentrate most of your new plants in one area, then the rest of your garden landscaping area will look rather neglected. Distribute the plants around the yard or the garden at least somewhat evenly and with a sense of flow. This will help draw the eye though the entire landscape design and engage your visitors.

The second aspect of great landscaping is proportion. The idea here is to make sure that any landscape design feature you choose fits in appropriately, in terms of size, to the surrounding areas, fixtures and structures. Trying to wedge an huge gazebo into a tiny back yard will end up looking almost comical, and will not provide a great effect. At the same time, if you have an enormous front lawn, then you will need to add larger elements in plantings or features that will be noticed and not overwhelmed.

Transition is the third principle you need to know for your landscaping project and is closely related to proportion. Even though your landscape design can include flowers, plants, large shrubs, bushes and even trees, the way to make them really work together in a beautiful way is with the use of transition. It is the smooth flow from one type and size of plant to another. You want to lead the eye from delicate plants to larger ones with some in-between sizes. Color transitions can also be a very effective aspect of your overall landscaping design plan.

The last of the four concepts of landscaping is unity and it is the ultimate sense that you are trying to express with your design. All of the choices that you make in how you balance, proportion, and transition the various colors, sizes and textures of your landscape elements should be governed by a unifying theme. This is what brings the landscape design together to work in harmony and create a spectacular home and garden.

It is helpful to select a theme for your design landscaping and utilize that theme throughout your entire design plan. Just be sure to stick to your chosen theme all the way through and only use elements that fit into that theme. If you started out to create the feel of an English cottage garden, then you do not want to add accent pieces that have an oriental flair.

No realestate is finished without some type of grass, as well as some forms of shruberry to help enhance the overall quality of the building. The added value of curb appeal can make the difference when selling a house or increasing the value of a home. Any small amounts help and you don't have to always use a professional to complete the landscaping for you. There is no downside to get some advice from professionals or some knowledge prior to you beginning tearing up your front yard. A few trees, some nice green grass and you will have it down pat before you know it. Who knows? Possibly you will consider it as a line of work that you might be curious in following. The following are some of the frequently asked question people have for landscaping so that you can have an idea of how landscaping is done and how it can be easier than you might think.


When should I hire a landscaper?

You should employ a landscaper if you do not have a "green thumb" and you are not going to have the necessary time to commit to getting rid of the prior planting as well as landscaping the new. There are specific steps that must be put into place to prevent soil erosion so it will need at least a weekend of challenging work. Landscaper's are not cheap but you can find one at a reasonable cost contingent upon on how large the area is and how much labor you mean to complete yourself. If you are going to upkeep the area, you will spend less money as well.

Perennials and annuals - What makes them different?

Both are, certainly, plants although the variation is in how long they last and how often you are required to plant them again. Annuals must be replanted eash year. Examples of annuals are any type of vegetable, sunflowers and flowers for instance violets. Perennials are plants that will renew themselves. Some examples would be trees, bulb plants such as lilies, tulips and include roses and other sturdy plants that become inactive in the winter months. The majority of grasses which are ornamental are considered to be perennials.

Whats the best way to decide on the kind of plant to use?

The kind of plant you choose will depend on your climate and the amount of water you want to use. It will also be dependent on how much sun that your gets throughout the day. Some plants flourush in the shade while others will wilt. For those individuals who reside in drought prone areas, they should think about planting plants that are hardy which require little water and really help preserve the soil from process of erosion. Numerous people elect to have rock gardens and cactus if they live in desert environments.

When is the ideal planting season?

The ideal planting season is dependent upon what variation of plant you want to grow. The best time to plany bulbs is in the fall so that they have the necessary time to root within the soil. Other types of plants are more suitable to planting during the spring months. Some plants will not produce flowers or fruits until one or two seasons later so you have to prepare for this. Trees will have to go through several years before they become large enough to give adequate shade or produce fruit.

What will be the cost be to have my home landscaped?

It would be virtually impossible to get an accurate estimate without knowing how big your yard is, what the overall condition of the soil is and finally what kind of plants that you are looking to plant in your yard. You can take a general guess that it will be at least five hundred dollars and can quickly go upwards of several thousand dollars for exotic plants and intricate features. A landscaper can give you an estimate for the cost.

To find out additional information head on over to Landscape Plants and more information at Landscape Designs For The Southwest also click here How To Choose The Right Landscaping Trees

No comments: