Are you thinking about designing your yard or just a garden?

First of all, to create a pleasing picture of the yard or garden it will be helpful to understand a few simple principles of design: unity, proportion, balance and variety. Unity will give the feeling that everything belongs together, balance will focus attention on a center of interest and proportion will add restfulness, then variety will prevent monotony.

  
Naturally your home will be the center of interest on your property and landscaping will enhance the good points and distract attention from the weak points. You will be creating an entire pattern that will be composed of your home, your lawn, trees, shrubs and flowers that will extend the entire property from the center to the edges.

Have your home and the grounds around the home reflect your personality, not someone else's thoughts or personality. Observe other homes in the area, get ideas and then consider working out a design, colors, forms and lines that will be pleasing for your home and the area surrounding it. Take into consideration your own individual likes and dislikes before making those definite plans. Take into consideration your finanical capabilites and don't get in debt over this designing plan or not enough debt that you may not be able to handle.

Now let's apply some principles of design as we don't want to have heavy planting on one side and very little planting on the other side: then the planting would look incomplete. Symmetry exits where the design is the same on one side as on the other, but naturally balance in landscape is often attained in other ways. You can balance a tall tree with smaller but denser trees or shrubs.

You can achieve variety by the use of different plants. These can also vary in shape, size, texture, density, line and color, and, yes, these will all add interest to the planting, and you'll want all of the landscaping to blend.

Plan your approach to the front door, let a path run straight to your house, check drainage, and be sure each plant will grow best in the area of your property you plan to plant it.

Think also about boundary planting for perhaps the front lawn, or the entrance area to your home, and treat these simple, don't overdo. You can make the area you have on your property appear very small with too many trees, shrubs or plants. Rememember above all, attractive views of your home will enhance it, you don't want to hide the beauty of your home at all.

Sit down and get out your paper and design the landscaping of your property, slowly and carefully, and I know that you will have wonderful and beautiful results and enjoy the plantings for many years to come.