Landscaping Ideas

A well-designed landscape can be inspiring. It can provide a sense of calm, a sense of awe, and a sense of balance. It can boost your spirits and give you solace. A beautiful landscape can also improve the curb appeal of your home and inspire other people in your neighborhood to turn their own yards into inspiring landscapes.

Landscaping and gardening are also ideal outlets for your creativity. Nature gives you an expansive palette of colors, textures, scents, and structural compositions to choose from. In a home garden, you can take these gifts from nature and combine them in any style you desire. But with so many landscaping options at your disposal, where do you begin?

Whether you want to create a sanctuary, a retreat, an entertainment area or any other environment, you'll get ideas here on how to do it. The photographs, expert insights, and troubleshooting advice in this section can help you create a landscape that suits your unique tastes and appeals to all your senses.

Get these tipsIn this section, you'll find tips from landscaping professionals on:

• How to plan the perfect backyard, including ideas for layouts, design styles, outdoor rooms, patios, water features and hardscaping.
• Ways to boost the curb appeal of your front yard, including design ideas for driveways, sidewalks, front porches and courtyard gardens.
• Designing the perfect patio, with advice on sizing and placement, materials, patio styles, and patio layouts.
• Design ideas, planning tips and appliance options for outdoor kitchens.
• The most popular garden styles and themes, including modern, traditional, country, Mediterranean, tropical and desert.
• A look at award-winning projects from landscaping professionals across the country.
• Ideas for regional landscape designs suitable to the climates, available materials and plant types characteristic of different areas of the country, from San Diego to New York.
• Solutions for solving typical yard and landscape challenges.
• Advice on planting bountiful vegetable and container gardens.
• Ways to simplify your landscaping plan by choosing hardy low-maintenance plants, sticking with basic materials, minimizing complex details, and choosing straightforward uncomplicated layouts.
• The latest landscaping trends, including meadow gardens with native plantings, growing your own food, going lawn-free, landscaping as an art form, and planting gardens that attract butterflies, birds and bees.

Mother Nature gives you a bounty of beauty to work with to create the landscape of your dreams. A landscape designer can help you make the most of this bounty by steering you to the best plants, materials and garden layouts for achieving your goals.

Garden House in Spanish

Spanish architect Joaquin Alvado Banon has recently realized the ‘Garden House‘, a project that research the relation between nature and architecture. It is a rethinking, in a sustainable way of life, to transform the way of promoting the east side of Spain. The ground floor occupies the entire plot. The vertical elements of the structure merge with the tree trunks. Glass separates the interior from the exterior, limestone paving entering and leaving. An uncertain relationship is established between what is happening inside and outside, between the edges. Radiant floor heating makes this design condition comfortable.

The design establishes the natural/artificial relationship at every level. The distribution of the house descends to level 0 while the garden climbs to the upper storeys. The aim of this condition was that the blend of architecture and landscape should be present in every sphere of the project. Walk on earth and damp grass at every level of the house, breathe in its Mediterranean nature. Three generations in one place led to suggesting three life options. The ground floor is a shared environment but the upper storeys, dismembered by their entrances, allow more privacy. The idea sprang from seeing three ways to live in the same surroundings, three objects related to a single context. Private and public are part of the dwelling brief and as such are included as a working condition.

YOU DREAM OF A WINTER GARDEN WHERE YOU WILL NEVER GET BORED AND SPEND THE COLD DAYS? IF YES, LET’S GET TO WORK!

It is enjoyable to spend time in glass shelters, which are called “winter gardens”, in cold days. Even if there is a freezing cold outside, you can live the spring in a winter garden. A winter garden is usually made of glass and is as a separate building in the garden. If you do not have such a big area, you can cover a room stretching towards the garden with glass and turn it into a winter garden.

BEFORE YOU START WORK!

Do not forget that there are a lot to do in the garden even in winter! Remove the dry leaves and branches away from the grass area. Clean the moss from the hiking trail. You can brush the area with a moss-cleaning brush. How about decorating the entrance path to the house with pots full of colorful flowers? Plant the purple, red, white or pink bloomed primroses without delay. You can enhance the sides of the hiking trail with these pots. Cover the soils of the sensitive plants in the garden with barks of the trees. This will both give a decorative look and also will help to protect your plants. A last item is for the care of fence plants: You should prune the extra parts that stretch to the road without deforming them. And you can also give shape to the other plants which lose their shapes in your garden.

HIDDEN HEROES WILL MAKE YOUR WORK EASIER

You should give the same importance that you give to the heating system to the sound and lighting systems as well. You should accept that this area is a living area outside your home. A widescreen TV and a quality sound system will add to the value of the area. Lighting has also a specific importance in this point. Apart from watching TV, if we consider that you will spend long hours in this area, you should have a system that has full performance. You will need a tall lighting system and a system that will be enough for both reading books and welcoming a crowd of guests. A lighting system that will not cast a shade to each other will make the area look perfect! If you light the area with yellow light, the details will show themselves better. Curtains that are in agreement with glass system will add to the beauty of the area. For a modern view, you can prefer cotton cloth. Light brown colors will give a refreshing air. You can also use carpets that are in accordance with the texture of the area.

DEFINE YOUR STYLE, CHOOSE YOUR FURNITURE!

You should firstly define your style before you start decorating your garden. Do not forget that you can revise your existing materials. However, if you say “I want to prepare this area for the spring and obtain a completely different view”, here are our recommendations: If your style is romantic, the bloomy designs in provance or country will be right for you! You can complete a worn-out but colorful armchair with leather bergere. You can also use rattan products and create a beautiful effect. You can also turn the area into a warm atmosphere with reeds accessories. Wrought iron table set or wooden teak products will attract attention in these areas. You can also add a wooden bookcase to your winter garden. You should not forget colorful flowers in earthen pots in such a winter garden. If you are in favor of modern lines, you should not stay away from a minimalist style and plain colors. For example, you can combine a leather sofa in a plain color with a velvet bergere.

HOW SHOULD WE TAKE CARE OF THE PLANTS?

You can carry the plants from the winter garden to the garden in spring time. The plants you have grown like lemon in a warm environment, kumquat and mandarin will adapt themselves to the outside conditions in spring. This means that the plants you have grown inside will not leave you alone in summer. You should wait for the warm weather for this. Depending on the climate you are in, usually the month of May will be ideal for this. Support your garden with organic-rich fertilizers in spring time. You should give importance to the irrigation and pruning.

TIME TO PAINT GREEN!

Never forget that the most important detail of the winter garden is the plants! In our opinion, the necessary plants in a winter garden are the lemon, mandarin and kumquat. These plants with their orange and yellow fruits are as bright as gold, and they will add warmth to your winter garden. Gardenia with its white blooms, azaleas with their pink blooms should definitely be in your list! Cycas, bamboo and banana trees will cause a summer air in four seasons. While choosing these plants, you should take the size of your garden into consideration. You can cause confusion by adding too many plants in your winter garden. Do not let this happen! Ensure the feeling of completeness by putting the plants in the pots that are in agreement with each other. Earthen, galvanized or reed flower pots will be suitable for winter garden in provance or country style. You can use bright flower pots for a modern view. Do not forget that all of these plants need air, water and light in different amounts. Azaleas like acidic soil and therefore this soil should not be used for a banana tree. If you take the demands of these plants into consideration, you will have them present their most beautiful sides in all four seasons.