Most people who own a yard will do not much more with it than mowing it now and than and making it tidy. Especially during our working life the yard usually needs to take as little time as possible. Unless gardening is your hobby or you have some extra time on your hands because you are retired for example, the yard stays a boring piece of land around your house. However this is not necessary, with some good landscaping designs you can make a real garden from this land and it does not need to take you much time at all.

Where to start with landscaping designs?

First of all you need to know where you should start with getting some good ideas for that boring piece of land around your house, the best thing you can do is take a bike and start by looking around in your own neighborhood, are there yards or gardens that you like? What did your neighbours do that catches your eye, what kind of greens did they use, what kind of flowers, do they have slopes or structures you could copy. Make notes when you move around with your bike. Looking at how your neighbors are doing it is a good way to get some ideas but you should not emulate their designs.

The next thing you need to do is to look at your own yard and see how the sun is moving through it and where the shade is during the day. Where you would like your sitting area and where you would like a pool, if you have space for a pool. And there are much more of these things you can visualize in your mind. There is however a limit to your imagination, the plants you imagine need to be able to grow in your climate and this is something you can also see in your neighbours gardens, what plants do you see that do extremely well in your climate and which ones do you like?

Let your imagination flow

There are some elements in landscaping that are popular with many people, for example in many yards you see trees with circular flowered borders under them and if you think this would be a nice element for your own yard you need to think about the place where it would be in your design, is it sunny enough, are the flowers you would like to use suitable for shade of the tree, and will they grow on the root system of the tree?

You should also think about trees and bushes, these are the most important feature points in a garden and you need to plan exactly where they need to go, you need to think about how big the trees will be and in how many years. You need to know if the trees and bushes need to be pruned and when this needs to be done. And you need to ask your self if the amount of work they require is possible for you. But bushes and trees are very important for structure, shade and privacy so they are something you should do some research about.

For more information about landscaping design and all the things you should think about before you get your hands dirty you can read about it on hour site, there are many tips about landscaping, (organic) gardening, low maintenance gardening and much more.