Beautiful landscaping can transform a home. Even simple landscaping can make a dramatic difference in a home’s curb appeal and increase the home’s value by tens of thousands of dollars. Adding some natural landscaping touches to your home’s outdoor space can help bring out architectural details, distract from eyesores, and define your home’s style. If you’re new to landscaping, you may find the task of designing or implementing landscaping changes daunting, but there are plenty of steps you can take that will change your home’s appearance without overwhelming you. If you think that there’s a project too big for you to handle then that’s fine, just look on a site like LegionLandscaping.com and see if they can do it for you. Starting off small is always for the best.
Here are five tips for landscape design for beginners:
1.Choose a focal point to base your design around. Whether it’s landscaping or home decor, any good design is based around a focal point. A focal
point will permit you to create a visual idea that anchors on one, big item. Whether it’s a tree, a large flowering bush, or a hardscape item like a sculpture or wall, allowing your design to hinge on one thing will let the rest of the design flow more smoothly. A focal point also permits your plan to be more streamlined, since you won’t have to focus so much on all the little areas, which can end up making your design look disjointed or confused.
2.Budget carefully
When you’re planning to do some residential landscaping , careful and thorough budgeting is essential. People are often blindsided by the cost of landscaping and don’t budget enough to cover their design or to cover any issues that might come up. When you’re putting together your plan, try to do some preliminary research into what different shrubs and trees cost and at what growth stage they’re at. A mature tree will cost you hundreds of dollars to purchase, but you will still need to tack on transportation, the actual planting process, and the recommended arborist so that you don’t accidentally kill your pricey tree while you’re planting it.
3. Keep watering in mind
While it’s easy to get caught up in the vision of your grand landscaping plan, where you only see the finished product lush and waving in the breeze, one hard fact you should consider is how you plan to water everything. Young or newly transplanted trees, shrubs, and sods require an incredible amount of water to survive and thrive. Be prepared for your water bill to increase by quite a bit initially, and to plane to spend plenty of time outside with the hose.
4. Don’t forget edging
Edging can be one the thing that takes your design from passable to perfect. Edging, which is often bricks or stone, is used around flower beds and paths to delineate the space. Edging will help your landscape design look clean and well thought out, and it works in every design! Even the overgrown, English cottage look will benefit from craggy edging done in stone. It also prevents you from running over any flowers or shrubs with your lawnmower!
5. Don’t forget the rest of your home
When people are designing their landscaping plan, they put much of their focus on the front of their house. This makes sense since it’s the first thing people see, but it means that you might overlook some eyesores. From electrical boxes to garbage cans, to well covers, there are lots of little things hanging out in your yard that will detract from your landscaping. So when you’re making your plan, have a walk around your home and try to look at it as a stranger would to see any eyesores you may have missed that you should plan to cover up in your landscape design.
