5 Impactful Landscape Design Tips We Recommend

Landscaping is an exciting prospect for any homeowner, allowing you to plant lush vegetation and beautiful flowers to complement your home. With well-planned landscaping, you can even expand your home’s usable space and curb appeal. However, it’s important to remember that landscaping requires considerable forethought, and it can be difficult for novices to figure out where to begin.

These five landscape design tips will give you the confidence you need to take action and build the outdoor space of your dreams.

1. Find Your Focal Point

Starting with a focal point can make planning the rest of your landscape design much simpler. The focal point can be anything from a tree to a firepit; go with whatever speaks to you and whatever you feel you can use as a jumping-off point. Consider an eye-catching element that you can arrange other things around. This will allow you to create unique perspectives that mesh with your focal point without feeling too loud or distracting.

2. Devise a Master Plan

A master plan makes landscaping easier to execute for everyone involved. While landscape design is an excellent way to flex your creative side, poor planning leads to poor execution — regardless of how exciting or beautiful your concepts are.

Develop a master plan before tearing up the landscape or spending too much money. Pre-planning will also make it easier to create a more homogenous look. And when it comes time to hire professional landscapers, you will have a clearer idea of your desired outcome.

3. Build a Covered Outdoor Space

Adding a covered outdoor space can help you enjoy the fruits of your labor when you finish. You’re investing a lot of time and money into your landscape, and it would be a shame if poor weather meant you couldn’t enjoy it whenever you wanted.

Rain, excessive sun, and pests can bring your time outdoors to a screeching halt. A covered outdoor space negates these issues, ensuring that not even rain can keep you from enjoying special moments spent outside in your beautiful landscape.

4. Construct a Strategic Lighting Scheme

One of the more critical elements of your master plan is your lighting scheme. Lighting plays a significant role in your landscape’s nighttime display. It can enhance shapes and textures, highlight trees and walls, and enhance visibility for anyone walking around at night.

Light also casts shadows, which means if you don’t illuminate specific areas, your land’s hard work and beauty can be lost when the sun goes down. It is also crucial that you strategize your lighting to avoid causing problems with neighbors. Improperly placed lighting could disturb others and even yourself if you aren’t careful. It’s not enough to light a pathway; consider uplighting, downlighting, backlighting, and floodlights. You’ll want to think about what you need to see and how and where to best highlight those areas.

5. Consider Vertical Gardening Elements

Building up is as essential as building out. This advice benefits those with smaller spaces or those living in an urban area. Going vertical can add dimension to any outdoor space, transforming its look and function. For these reasons it might be worth researching to determine whether you can incorporate a vertical element into your design.

Vertical gardening elements can also be sculptural. A trellis or an arch can help beautifully break up areas of the landscape, while wall gardens can help adorn a more sparsely covered outdoor space and give you a lush wall full of beautiful flowers. If you plan to go with an herb or vegetable garden, designing a vertical garden can make harvesting and tending your crops much more effortless. If you plan on dining outside, you can even use a wall garden as a herb garden, making it easy to pick and plate.

Making Impact with Your Ideas

Whether you already have a plan or are in need of one, these tips will guide you toward creating a landscape design you can be proud of. To make even more of an impact, though, consider hiring a professional landscaper to help execute your vision.

Our team has spent 23+ years working with a variety of design elements and styles. Get in touch with us today to discuss your project!