Most yard projects stall in the same place: somewhere between a folder of saved photos and a pile of plants sitting in the driveway. The pictures are inspiring, but they don't tell you where the water goes after a storm, how wide a path has to be for two people to walk side by side, or which of the four things you want will fit in the space you actually have.
That's what the first steps of yard design are for. Before you choose a single plant, you need a definition of what landscaping is doing on your property, a measured drawing of the site, an honest read of sun, wind, and drainage, and a rough order of operations so the expensive work happens once. The sections below walk through the definition and principles first, then the eight practical steps that turn a wish list into a plan you can build in stages.
A Clearer Picture Of How To By First Understanding Landscaping, It's Methods, And Principles.
For most folks set on creating their own landscape design, the question of what is landscaping is often a good place to start to get a better understanding the "how to" of it. While understanding what it is in terms of history or definition may be helpful to some to get a grip on the how to of it, it's generally not as helpful as understanding the principles of what makes a good design appealing and functional.
For most people, it's easy to look at a great yard, get ideas and copy them, but it may never even occur to them what it is that made it so appealing or what principles are applied to create an inviting and functional design that just simply works and "pops". So along with looking at that, let's answer the real question of what is it about it.
Because landscaping addresses so many different local, geographic, environmental, and global issues, landscape design can have both a simple and an extensive definition. The history of gardens and landscapes goes back centuries and can teach you alot about how to design a garden or yard. However, it's generally not the real answer that folks are looking for who need an understanding to better create their own front yard, backyard, patio, or pool area.
While we'll take it a little further as it relates to the design process, as defined by Wikipedia, "Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including but not limited to:
If you simply want a definition, the Wikipedia Definition Of Landscaping will give you a basic explanation of the history and aspects of many methods.
While often not understood, methods and styles of landscaping are not the same thing. While a method is more of a way of doing it such as Xeriscaping, or Sustainable Gardens, a design style addresses the theme, appearance, and incorporation into the surrounding elements such as the style of home or existing surroundings.
For instance, landscaping a slope, hillside, or other problem area will require special methods that address erosion, run off, saturation, ground cover, plants, and other issues. Xeriscaping, for instance, is a low water use method used in areas where environmental issues such as drought requires special planting, watering, and grading techniques. Xeriscaping is not a design style.
In a hot, dry climate the method almost always drives the result more than the theme does, which is one reason the Phoenix-area crews that made the cut tend to talk about grading, drainage, and irrigation zoning long before they open a plant book.
However, depending on the style of home, the neighborhood, geographic location, or just your own ideas, a landscape design can be a number of styles such as Southwest, Mediterranean, Japanese, Formal, etc..
What most simple definitions will tell you is that landscaping is sculpting, forming, changing, altering, etc., etc., etc. an area of land into a different form that is useful and/or visually appealing. Simple enough, right? It could involve plants, dirt, ground cover, buildings, structures, water, man-made stuff, natural stuff, and the existing lay of the land.
Since it is an art form, the principles of landscaping folow guidelines closely related to all other forms of art. They help define what it is by giving structure to how it is applied to create often unseen effect that gives a well designed yard its appeal. Things that are often not even considered such as what makes a design balanced, makes it flow, stay in proportion, or simply what makes it so appealing. This is the art of landscaping.
As we have a better understanding of what it is and the techno-speak of applying it, an even better understanding of landscaping can be gained by seeing examples and pictures of designs and design styles. Together, the illustrations and verbal explanations will help you see the big picture and find a starting point for the framework of your own design.
Everything after this step gets easier if the drawing underneath it is accurate. Work with a 100-foot tape (a helper makes it far faster), and put the results on graph paper at a scale you can hold in your head — 1/8 inch equals 1 foot works for most suburban lots, 1/4 inch equals 1 foot for small courtyards and side yards.
Get these onto the base plan before you draw a single curve:
Then call 811 (or your local equivalent) a few business days before any digging, even for a fence post or a tree pit. Marking is free; hitting a gas line or a fiber drop is not.
A yard tells you what it wants if you spend a week paying attention. Note where shade actually falls at 9 a.m., noon, and 4 p.m., in summer and again in winter — a "full sun" bed in June can be in shadow by October, and a west-facing patio can be unusable from 3 p.m. until sunset without shade.
Walk the yard during a real rainstorm and again an hour after it stops. Standing water, silt fans, and mulch washed onto the walk all mark the low points and the paths water takes. Grade should fall away from the foundation at roughly 5 percent for the first 10 feet — about 6 inches of drop — and any planted area or lawn needs at least 1 to 2 percent of fall to move water at all.
Check your soil while you are at it. Dig a hole about 12 inches deep and fill it with water; if it still holds water 12 to 24 hours later, you have a drainage problem to solve with grading, amended raised beds, or a French drain, not a plant problem. Also note prevailing wind, the views you want to keep, the views you want to screen, and where noise comes from. These constraints are the most useful design input you will get, and they cost nothing but attention.
Before shapes and materials, lay tracing paper over the base plan and draw loose bubbles for use, not appearance. Most yards break down into three kinds of space: public areas the street sees, private areas for family and guests, and service areas for trash cans, compost, tools, and the pool equipment nobody wants to look at.
Bubbles only work if they are drawn at honest sizes. A few dimensions worth committing to memory:
Test the layout in the yard with a garden hose, spray chalk, or cardboard boxes standing in for furniture. Live with the markings for a few days and walk your normal routes. Where you cut the corner is where the path belongs.
Hardscape, not planting, drives cost. Patios, walls, steps, and drainage typically eat most of a first-phase budget, while plants and mulch are the least expensive part of the picture — and the easiest part to add later. A common planning range is 5 to 15 percent of the home's value for a complete landscape, which is exactly why phasing matters.
Sequence the work so nothing gets built twice: grading and drainage first, then irrigation mainlines and sleeves under any future paving, then hardscape, then soil prep and planting, then lighting and finish details. Trenching for a light or a drip line after a patio is finished is the single most avoidable expense in yard work.
“The cheapest thing you'll ever do is run a spare conduit and an irrigation sleeve under a patio before it's poured; the most expensive is saw-cutting that patio open two years later,” says Marco Delgado, project foreman at Desert Vine Landscaping.
Write the phases down with rough dollar figures next to them. A plan you can build over three seasons beats a perfect plan you never start.
By now the plan tells you what each plant has to do: screen a window at 8 feet, hold a slope, take reflected heat off a south wall, or stay under 30 inches so it never blocks a sight line at the driveway. That job description is the shopping list — not the label on the prettiest thing at the nursery.
Finally, run the finished plan past the principles again: is it balanced, does it repeat elements enough to feel unified, is the scale right against the height of the house, and does the eye have somewhere to go? If a bed fails one of those tests on paper, it will fail it in the ground too.
You don't need drafting software or a finished vision to begin. You need a measured drawing, a week of watching the site, and an order of operations.
Work through those steps in that order and the "what is landscaping" question answers itself. The design stops being a collection of borrowed pictures and becomes a plan built around your soil, your light, your budget, and the way your family actually uses the yard — which is the only version that holds up once it's in the ground.
