Landscape design basics for independent design

From dachas and homestead plots are gradually displaced beds. If there are any, they are in small quantities and somewhere in the depths. The main place is occupied by flower beds, recreation areas and other beautiful corners. All this together is called landscape design and it is taught at the institute. But if you do not intend to earn by arrangement, landscaping and decoration of yards and dachas, you can try to plan everything yourself. Landscape design with your own hands – a long and difficult, but extremely exciting: it is very pleasant to look at the beauty created by hand.

Where to start

As usual, you need to start with a plan. You can draw it on millimeter paper in scale, or you can use design programs. The most convenient are Realtime Landscaping Architect and Sierra Land Designer 3D 7.0. In them all the images will be three-dimensional and you can really appreciate how your plot will look. And let, few people adhere to the exact plan. But while you will draw, you will develop certain skills in landscape design, which will help you in the realization of plans in life.

If the plot is still empty, think through all the details: where the entrance will be, how the house, toilet, other buildings will be located on the site. Having drawn all the buildings, draw the paths. Straight make rarely – they are harder to play in the landscape. Curved, with smooth lines will help to organize interesting places and plantings. On the plan do not forget about communications – water supply, sewerage, irrigation system, etc. Then gradually add elements of landscape design, drawing their details.

If you equip will be already settled dacha or yard, apply all that already exists as accurately as possible. To do this will have to crawl around the site with a tape measure: sketch out a plan of the site and on it write down the measured distances. Then you will have to adjust the plan according to the results of measurements. Got the plan that you have. You will have to work on it.

Try to draw the changes you have planned, because you have something in mind. If you like the result, you can implement it. If not, first change the form, or think of where the conceived can be moved to look better. That’s why it is more convenient to work with programs: you see what you need to change and how these changes affect the design of the site.

Just one point. Not everything that looks good on the screen also looks good in life. And it happens and vice versa – not the plan looks “not very”, but embodied in life simply mesmerizing. In any case, you will not once again have to make adjustments.

Rules of landscape design

The main task of the design of the site – to create a harmonious landscape. Since so, then you have to take into account the basic laws and observe the proportions. One of the main laws that apply in the development of any design, including landscape design – the law of the triangle or the golden ratio.

In application to our case, it can be interpreted as follows: to plantings look beautiful, it is impossible to have the same elements in them. For example, dividing the flowerbed into zones. Often allocate three different areas, but make them the same area is not worth it: one is the largest and two smaller, but also different sizes. Also, one color should be the main, the other two – additional. And one of the additional – in small quantities. This applies to the choice of plants, both to their color and shape, size.

This rule is true not only for flower beds and flowerbeds, but also in general to the design: the number and size of zones on the site, the design of paths, etc.

Creating a landscape design with your own hands, it is necessary to adhere to the law of the circle. It defines harmonious color combinations (see photo). If you divide it in half with a vertical line, the right will be warm shades, the left – cold. The main compositions are made in one group of colors – cold or warm.

This does not mean that the colors from different parts can not be mixed. You can, but the color from the opposite group should be present as an accent, attracting attention. Such contrasting compositions are made if it is necessary to distract attention from something (fence, toilet, etc.).

There is also the law of the square. On a small dacha or yard it is difficult to adhere to it, but on the rules of arrangement of buildings and planting plants it has an impact. The essence of it is orientation on the side of the light. For example, choosing a place under the house, remember that if you put it on the south side, almost the entire plot will be in the shade. In some regions this is good, in some – bad. You decide for yourself.

Take into account the position in relation to the parts of the world and when planning recreation areas. For example, the pool is better to do just on the south side: the water should warm up. But not far away should be a shaded area, awning, pergola, where you can rest from the hot sun.

Applied to planting plants and determining the place for the garden it can be interpreted as follows: the tallest plants should be in the north (if you do not live in the south and you do not need shade). Then the rest of the space will be well lit.

Landscaping a dacha or a yard of a private house requires knowledge of what degree of light is preferred by this or that kind of plants. There are always more and less shaded places. There is always more shade on the north side of the buildings. Here you should plant shade-tolerant trees, shrubs and flowers. Already at a distance of two to three meters the zone can have good illumination, as the shadow from the house there may not reach. You will need plants that like plenty of light.

Plan the location of zones and buildings with these rules in mind. There are still a lot of them, but even if you take into account these three, you will have a competent design, and, importantly, beautiful and harmonious.

Elements of landscape design

Briefly about what you can decorate the dacha, yard, homestead plot. Elements are many, their varieties are even more. One of the favorite types of recreation – kebabs or barbecues. And under this zone is necessarily allocated a place. Immediately after determining the place for the house often decide where to put a gazebo, terrace, pergola.

And the presence of a veranda near the house has never been a reason to refuse a pergola or terrace. Veranda in this case make closed, and the gazebo – open. In one spend time in the winter, in the other – in the summer. Sometimes instead of it put a canopy and or a modern pergola. Not the one that only supports plants, although such can be, but it is the structure on which the plants are curled. After all, such a structure is one of the best decorations of the site.

No less popular element of landscape design – artificial reservoirs. They are made and at dachas, in the garden, in the courtyard of the house. Shape, size, type of organization – everything can be different: from mini ponds, to quite solid ponds in several cubes of volume and a decent water mirror.

A favorite technique of many designers is to make a stream. Ideally, if there is a key or a natural stream, but if not, it can be organized. It is not difficult if you have a pond, which will be supplied with water. From it, the stream can run to the vegetable garden or to the garden. This is both beautiful and practical: the irrigation system will be an element of your design, and not pipes that have to somehow hide. Especially easily such an idea is realized slopes. Even if it is small – just a few degrees, you can make good use of the natural relief. About how to make a waterfall on the site read here.

By the way, the vegetable garden can also be decorative, and it does not have to be hidden at all. True, greenhouses will still not become a decoration of the site, but they can be located behind the trees.

Between these and other buildings and zones are planned places for flowerbeds, flower beds, alpine slides, rockeries, alpinariums, etc. Their shape, size, type of fencing, species composition of plants and the scheme of their planting are determined. It is clear that without experience it is not easy to do this and there will be a lot of remodeling, but it is important to start somewhere. Changes in plantings are made almost constantly, so that the landscape design with your own hands to create will not be one year, and not even three: after all, you will use and perennials, and they grow slowly.

Paths should be laid between all areas and buildings. Their design is not in the last place forms the appearance of the garden, cottage. And in general, landscape design is created in many ways from the little things. Somewhere successfully stands a small bench, somewhere a garden sculpture, rocking chair, vase with flowers, rockery, pond, hanging hammock, beautiful lighting, site lighting, etc. And all this in general is the design decoration.

Plot with a slope

On the one hand, landscape design of the site with a complex relief is technically more difficult: more engineering structures, you need to take into account the relief. But on the other hand, it will look exactly non-standard, because the solutions are all individual.

If the slope is quite large, the principle of terrace design is used. The slope is divided into zones, on the low side of which retaining walls are installed. Thanks to them, the surface in some zone – up to the next wall – is leveled. This is accomplished by moving part of the soil away from the slope.

The terraces themselves are unusual, and they can also be decorated beautifully. For example, the masonry is made of rubble stone, and in the intervals plant stalked and low-growing plants, plant lawn grass. They will decorate the wall, and also bind the soil with roots.

Technical points

The height of retaining walls is usually not more than a meter, maximum – 1.2 m. They are erected from monolithic reinforced concrete, finished with stone on top, make mounds. A foundation is needed under each such wall. Usually, it is a reinforced strip foundation. If the height of the wall is up to 60 cm, a compacted rubble cushion 20 cm deep is sufficient as a support; if the wall is 70 cm high, the foundation should be at least 60 cm deep; if the height is from 1 to 1.2 meters, the foundation depth should be at least 70 cm.

Based on the requirements for foundations, the lowest costs for the construction of retaining walls with a height of up to 60 cm. If the slope is not very steep, try to divide the slope into sections with this height difference. And note that rectangular terraces, although it is easier to make, in terms of design it is the worst option, which to make harmonious is almost unrealistic. Examples of terracing and design see in the photo gallery.

Garden design of a small plot

If the yard near the house or dacha small, and even the right shape – square or rectangular – the fence is likely to be viewed from any point. The feeling is like being in a box. It can be eliminated if you close the fence plantings. But they should not grow in a line that repeats the shape of the fence, but smooth, curved curves or groups that enter the lawn. Intermingle plants can be shrubs, rosaries, you can put a corner pergola or highlight some zone that violates the correctness of the lines.

Another option to turn the fence into a decorative element: let the curly plants turn it into a green wall, and plant low plants with rounded crowns nearby. If the plants will hang on the support structures, it is better to make their tops non-linear. This way everything will look even better.

Another option is a hedge. It is growing, of course, long, although you can pick up fast-growing plants, in particular for a quick effect for several years – to use willow. From its young branches you can weave a fence, and it is rooted almost always, let the roots and green up in a few days.

When decorating a small space is categorically forbidden straight paths. They make objects optically closer, which we do not need.

Very expands the boundaries of multi-level planning. This is the case when the slope is preferable: 6 hectares look like a larger plot, if there is a height difference. If the dacha or yard is small and flat, you will have to do zoning artificially. In this will help alpine slides and raised flower beds and flowerbeds.

There are some limitations to landscaping. Do not plant trees with large crowns. Not only will they eventually shade almost all of your plot, but it will seem even smaller. Small trees, shrubs and flowers are what you should choose from. If you need some tall plantings, choose ones with a pyramidal crown or in the form of a candle. They are unusual for us, and look very good.

Landscape design with your own hands: photo and video ideas

Theoretical knowledge is great, but with a lack of experience you need to rely on something. Sometimes the impetus for the design of a wonderful corner in the yard in front of the house can become a favorite form of bench, and to it already “attach” plants. Some interesting details that you may be inspired by are collected in the photo galleries.

Flowers in the design

Design of the entrance to the house

Cozy places

And lastly ideas in video format