Have you ever noticed neighboring homes with exceptional outdoor living space? Maybe you keep an eye out for your favorite yards as you drive through neighborhoods. It’s safe to say the most aesthetically pleasing places were developed on the tenets of landscape design. Applying the same methodology to your own yard, with help from professionals, will ensure that your outdoor area is one of the most enviable, comfortable, and stunning places to spend time in too.
4 Tenets of Landscape Design
The basic elements of landscape design are simple. They don’t demand any fancy tools or techniques, but they do require attention to detail and appreciation of variety. Each of the following features plays a role in any successful landscape design:
- Color: All green can be beautiful, particularly multiple shades of green. Some homeowners want a versatile range of colorful plants. Whatever your preference, whether contrasting or blending, a consistent color pattern sets the stage for the personality of your outdoor space.
- Texture: It’s important to have varying textures and these come from greenery, florals, hardscape, and décor. Soft natural elements and manmade items (like patio chairs and accessories) blend beautifully with sturdy pavers, bricks, and rocks.
- Scale: All tiny items or all big items in your backyard will make the space look a little bit like a video game village. It’s essential to mix and match size so it’s to-scale with your home, the width and breadth of the yard, and all the elements that create the final look.
- Line: Sequence is an essential principle of landscape design. Alternating plants, strategically plotted pavers of different colors but the same shape and size, symmetry or repetition – a line can take any form as long as it makes sense in its uniqueness or consistency.
There is both art and science to landscape design. Amid the forms, unity, balance, and variety, there is an interconnectedness that must exist in the development of a practical, pleasing, functional, and whimsical living space.
Addressing the Senses in Your Outdoor Space
It’s important to address nearly all the senses through landscaping to deliver a complete sensory experience every time you spend time in your backyard oasis:
- Touch: Rough pool decking under the feet or smooth pavers on the sidewalk.
- See: The whole of the backyard, from softscapes to hardscapes.
- Smell: Flowering plants or fragrant herbs and shrubs.
- Hear: The sound of trickling water or the leaves of trees or plants in the wind.
Unless you have edible plants, the best way to satisfy the sense of taste is through an outdoor kitchen or fire pit so you can roast marshallows, make a meal, or enjoy a drink in a cozy space with plenty of seating and amazing ambiance.
Digitally Design Your Outdoor Space
Thanks to digital landscaping design software, you and the professionals at Visionary Landscaping in Shelby Township, MI, can work together and put all your ideas into one place and carefully move them around or make substitutions or additions until your harmonious outdoor dreamland is right in front of you. Contact us to schedule a consultation.
