Start a garden from scratch

The biggest landscape mistake new homeowners make is in timing - contacting a landscape professional or planning their own design too late. Landscaping needs to be an integral part of the house design process, incorporating the trees and plantings with the outdoor structures such as patios and decks, and the house itself.

 

Landscape designers work with the architect or builder to achieve a desired effect, forgoing the rigidity of a traditional shrub-bordered lawn in favour of plants and grasses that are low maintenance and functional.

For example:
• Ground covers such as ivy, pachysandra, and spreading plants can readily replace a grass lawn and are especially good for awkward slopes that defy mowing.

• Ornamental grasses - clump-forming relatives of lawn grass - provide ever-evolving beauty in places where the lawn is dormant for the winter.

Aesthetic basics

Conventional landscape theory suggests dividing the property into three categories - foreground, service space, and private areas - each of which serves a specific purpose, but as a whole fits neatly together.

Sometimes called the streetscape, the foreground usually comprises the lawn, walkway, foundation plants, and some trees. The service space includes the house itself, plus outdoor structures or screens that usually hide rubbish bins, play equipment for the kids, or that rake that never quite gets put away.

Private areas include the garden and courtyards, and such secondary structures as gazebos.

Whether you plan traditional - or natural - landscaping on your own or will oversee a contractor, take a look at your stand objectively - remember that landscaping is created in pencil, not in dirt. Outline diagrams showing sun angles during the day and throughout the year, direction of winter winds and summer breezes, privacy, good and bad views, slope, and the closeness of the boundary line.

Once you've spotted the good and bad points of your garden, get to know its dimensions and boundaries. If the house is in a development, the builder or architect may have a detailed site plan for your home that shows the house and stand in scale. An alternative is the loan plan or survey plan, which shows lines drawn to scale, locations of all structures, and easements on the property, if applicable.

Creating a sense of unity

The simplest and most commonly-used method of unifying the different environments is through hedges, fences, or walls for privacy or boundaries. These elements set the landscape apart and attract attention. They will also separate special areas such as planting beds or vegetable gardens. Unity is also created by using plants that are similar in form, texture, colour, and growth habits. Nature provides its own guide: Group plants that thrive together in the wild.

Natural plant forms

Except for what's done through shearing or clipping, as with hedges, the form of all plants depends on the habitat. Basic forms may be vertical, rounded, horizontal, or weeping or trailing. Vertical plants such as arborvitae, some cedars, and conifers are important in plant composition because their height creates a strong contrast when they're placed among spreading or lower-growing plants.

The drooping lines of such plants as weeping bottlebrush, flowering cherries, forsythia, and jasmine can be used to create softer lines. These plants are most useful as accents in front of or among the stiffer, upright plant varieties.
Globular or rounded forms, the category in which most plants fall, are useful for creating large masses or borders.