Landscaping - Guidelines for Homeowners
The Professional Approach to Landscaping.
Introduction
Landscaping is far more than simply covering up parts of your property. It is an art practiced by craftsmen and women who are trained and experienced in the many facets of the art. Do-it-yourselfers may try to design and install their own landscaping, but their efforts are severely hampered by the access to quality products, and a lack of design knowledge.
The following discussion points to the goals of landscaping. It is a professional's perspective on the possibilities, the opportunities, and the actual experience of well-designed landscaping.
The Goals of Landscaping
The goals of landscaping are both practical and aesthetic. A good landscape design addresses each of these goals.
Safety . While safety is related to security, it is not the same. Safety refers to providing landscaping that offers safe passage through the property. It especially targets steps, pools, water features, and tripping hazards. As with the strategy for landscaping, the hazards should be at a very low level - just enough to discern details, but not so as to obscure surrounding areas.
A good llandscape designer will also consider the age of occupants and the presence of disabilities. Our threshold for visual perception increases with age; the elderly require far different landscaping to safely navigate a property than do younger people. They may also be less able to see contrast in brightness, putting them at risk for missing steps or tripping on field stones.
Key Considerations
Target area's entry,sitting area's,eating and entertaining area's,kids play area,water features,privacy,noise filters,shade and home energy savings.
Maintaince low-medium-high? We go over this with you.
Lawn Area and condition. Is it in need of repairs or irrigation?
Landscape lighting for security and visual night appearance of property
Cohesion. Landscape design needs to make visual sense to the viewer. This means that the property must be landscaped in such a way that the viewer recognizes key landscape and architectural features and that these features are revealed in a sensible relationship to each other. It is not that we intend to landscape everything ; rather, we employ selective landscaping in ways indicative to reveal the inherent beauty and to create beauty where none existed. More specifically, cohesion refers to successfully landscape regions so when the viewer glances across the landscaped scene, the various areas are connected in ways that make visual sense - no black holes that disrupt the viewers experience.Depth. Depth refers to the selective landscaping of items and areas both near and far from the viewer. This brings a three-dimensional quality to the visual experience. In addition, it adds a participatory dynamism to the viewers world. When only the house is landscaped, the visual experience is flat, two-dimensional. Compare that poverty of experience to a property with landscaping along the walkway, along pathways, around the periphery; such a design invites the viewer to participate in the landscaped world, to navigate among the objects, to see shifts in perspective, changes in texture, and so on. Integrating depth into the landscaping design creates a rich and rewarding experience.
Balance. This principle also relates to creating landscaping that makes visual sense to the viewer. Human vision is primarily oriented towards color and texture. While landscaping is fairly neutral in emotional response, landscaping can elicit a wide range of responses that span from ugly to magnificent. Many factors contribute to these responses; one of them is the presence or absence of landscaping that doesn't make intuitive sense. Consider a property where the right side of the home is very open and the left side is landscaped; the viewer senses the imbalance. A good landscape design recognizes the human desire to see balance from left to right and from up to down. Symmetry. Symmetry represents equivalence on either side of a dividing line. Similar to balance, symmetry is an arrangement that makes visual sense. It is found in architecture and in various regions of the landscape. When symmetry exists in the property, the landscape designer often landscapes it in such a way to preserve its visual impact. For example, when a house has a row of columns, these columns should be landscaped in ways that preserve their symmetrical appearance. The landscaping in front of each column should be of similar appearance; failing to do so would be of detriment to the overall design.Visual Comfort. Landscaping should not be painful or uncomfortable to the viewer. Landscaping that is too vibrant, overly crowded, or presents extreme contrasts in texture not only detracts from the beauty and cleanliness of property, it also detracts from the aesthetic enjoyment. Skilled designers try to hide the ugly source and only use landscaping that adequately shield the eyesores. In addition, they control curb appeal with the viewers visual comfort in mind.
Conclusion
Landscape Design is an art that is both practical and aesthetically enjoyable. The masters of this art satisfy numerous goals simultaneously. The results greatly enhance the experience of homeowners and serve many of their functional needs. Every property needs some sort of landscaping and homeowners would be best served by hiring a professional to design and install their landscaping.
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