Backyard Landscaping: Three Things to Know Before You Start
If youre a natural green thumb, the chance to work on backyard landscaping project can spark more ideas than you’ll ever be able to fit in one home landscape. After all, unlike the more conservative front yard, the backyard gives you the freedom to design the garden of your dreams without worrying what the neighbors will think. Even so, if you want to steer clear of potentially costly and time-consuming mistakes, there are a few things youll want to consider before you break out that trowel.
A plan is important
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 demand attention
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 backyard landscaping project will literally live or die based on your plant choice. Choose the right plants and you’ll have a gorgeous, trouble-free backyard all year round (yes, even in winter). Choose wrong and you could end up spending the summer on maintenance hassles and the autumn pulling up your mistakes.
Youll need to know not only what climate the plant prefers, but also care requirements, lifespan, growth pattern (straight up or straggly?), lifespan, bad habits (Does it drop messy berries or attract bees?), what other plants it should and shouldn’t be near. To avoid problems in the future, thoroughly review every growing thing you involve in your backyard landscaping ideas to make sure its a good fit.
