Landscaping Ideas for your Backyard
It doesn’t matter where you live, there’s nothing better than relaxing outdoors on a warm summer night and watching your backyard landscaping ideas come to life. Though you may not be thinking about landscaping this time of year it is the perfect time to start to plan for next spring.
Though re-landscaping your entire backyard during the course of one growing season can be back breaking, expensive there are some solutions. Break up your backyard into “rooms” and redo one room each year. This will allow you to spend the maximum amount of time and money on each area of your yard. Your results will be much better this way instead of trying to revamp the entire backyard all at once, for the same amount of money. This works really well especially if you’re on a budget.
Even though you’re landscaping only one section of the yard at a time, you still need an overall plan. By using some graph paper, sketch out all the permanent structures on your property including the house, out buildings, deck and trees. Now you know how much yard you have to work with. Make copies of your sketch and experiment with different designs. Try to incorporate ideas you like from gardens you’ve visited or seen in magazines. This is also a good point when you should consider which of your existing plants or shrubs you don’t want to be a part of the new landscape.
Think of how you use your yard or want to. Maybe you have frequent BBQ’s. If so you’ll probably want to keep the yard open and plant along the borders. Maybe you looking for a quiet garden get away. For this you could create that oasis by adding an island bed, walkways, solar lighting and cutouts for comfortable furniture to relax on. Then again your yard may be big enough for both.
Here are some ideas:
Screening with Plants
If your yard doesn’t have a fence, you might want to add some privacy by planting a row of bushes like hawthorn, juniper, arborvitae or a combination of them to create privacy and provide a backdrop for future flower beds. A strategically placed evergreen screen can also provide a windbreak from winter winds and drifting snow.
Planning a Border Flower Bed
Sometimes the hardest part of designing a border is choosing flowers that complement each other both in color and height. Here are some ideas for perennials for a six foot wide bed in a mainly sunny situation.
Planting an odd number of plants is more visually appealing than an even number so use 3 or 5 plants for each kind of flower. Allow 16”–18” between each plant and approximately 20”–22” between the different groups of plants. Also be sure to allow sufficient space at the rear of the bed for access.
Try this grouping with tall plants for the back row: Rudbeckia; Phlox; Iris; Veronica; and Hosta. With shorter plants like: Geranium; Potentilla; Huechera; Aster; Sedum for the front row.
You will need to make sure these plants grow well in your area as obviously, these plants won’t be the best choice for every climate.
Island Bed
An island bed, as the name implies, is planted in the middle of the yard surrounded by a sea of grass. It can vary in shape (I prefer a very natural irregular look) and size according to your imagination and available space. Here the plants need to be planted from tallest in the center to shortest at the edges.
Preplanned Gardens
I understand if you’re a first time gardener this all can be overwhelming. So if you would like a ready made solution, Direct Gardening offers a wide selection of preplanned gardens designed to take all the guess work out of plant selection and placement.
Do Yourself a Favor. Before you buy any vegetation, visit a garden center near you for advice on drainage and soil preparation.
Continually developing “ideas for outdoor living”
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