Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Three Things That Make or Break Your Backyard Landscaping Design

By Michael Aral

If youre a regular putterer in the garden, the chance to work on your own backyard landscaping design sound may sound like the ultimate initiation to let your creative self roam free. Unlike in the front yard, there's no need to feel constrained by worries about what the neighbors will say. That said, unless you're up for headaches and wasted money designing an attractive backyard landscape isn't something you want to jump into unprepared.

A little planning is worth it

An attractively landscaped yard almost never happens by chance. Even those seemingly free-roaming English perennial gardens are planned down to the last pot of thyme. Go in without a plan and you're likely to come out with more than a few regrets. To make sure that doesn't happen, take the time to look at a wide variety of backyard landscaping designs first.

Once you have a good idea of the possibilities, start collecting some ideas that will suit your tastes and your backyard. At the very least, draw up a quite sketch of your yard to make sure the features you want will fit the way you hope. It makes take a few revisions to come up with a design you're truly happy with, but the end result will be worth it. To make re-working your plan easier, download a landscaping software program.

Permanent features: the place to start

Lets be honest here, unless you're up for a major overhaul of your backyard, things like big old trees, stone walls, and utilitarian objects like the clothes line and propane tank are going to stay right where they are.

Whatever it is, if it cant be moved, youll need to decide how you're going to landscape around it before you move on to your other plans. Often these large features are the focal points of your backyard landscaping design, so its worth investing some time in making sure they stand out in a good way. In other cases, they're more eyesores than anything else, which means looking for creative ways to make them a little more attractive.

Plant choice matters

You dont have to be a green thumb to know tropical hibiscus probably wont fair too well in Alaska, but unfortunately (or fortunately, if youre botany fan) most of the decisions youll need to make about which plants, trees, shrubs, vines and other green things to incorporate into your backyard arent so straight forward.

To save yourself headaches, read up on every perennial, vine, shrub, and tree youre considering adding to your backyard landscaping design. Learn about its care requirements, growth pattern, and any unpleasant characteristics it may have such as the tendency to attract bugs or grow roots through septic tanks.

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