Home Landscaping
Home landscaping is as important as the home design and construction. The landscaping makes the spaces outside of the house more livable. In fact, a well-designed home landscape does a number of things: it is a pleasure to the family, it enhances a community and adds to the property's resale value. The last is very important. While the initial attraction to houses are the amenities, such as bedroom and bathroom numbers, the landscaping can be a real clincher as to whether or not the house sells for asking price, above, or below.
When it comes to your home landscaping, do not underestimate it. Home landscaping design involves much more than placing trees, shrubs and other plants on the property. Many times this helps, but landscaping is an art which deals with conscious arrangement or organization of outdoor space. This arrangement should be done is such a way as to provide the maximum human satisfaction and enjoyment.
So, when you plan your home landscaping make these three points your major goals:
Organizing and developing the site for maximum use and pleasure.
Creating a visual relationship between the house and the site.
Reducing landscape maintenance to a practical level.
Organizing for maximum use and pleasure: While you may love plants, if you fill every foot of the lot with plants, you leave no room for human interaction, use, and enjoyment. So, when you plan, consider what you like in landscaping, and what your goals are for the use of the house. This will result in the best landscaping design for your needs. It will mean that you will enjoy a beautiful selection of plants and design that are thought out to fit your lifestyle.
The next step, making it have a visual relationship is not as difficult. Basically utilize the concepts of putting shade trees in areas where you want shade. Planting flowers in colors that compliment your home color, and make pathways and sidewalks, etc that lead to the house and away from entry and exit points are great starter points. Basically it is important to remember that good landscape design can significantly improve the building's appearance by adding warmth, liveability and personality. It can also relate a building to its site and environment and give it the desired degree of dominance. Bad landscaping can distract from the home and the qualities it has to offer.
Last but not least, you want to make sure that the home landscaping design you choose is practical. If you choose a design that will require four or five hours of maintence a day to keep up, you will likely never do it, where as four or five hours a week may be more likely, and for some, four or five hours a month the more practical approach. Design automatic sprinkler systems, foliage that lives well in your climate and location etc.
Most importantly, when it comes to home landscaping, you want the space to be it useful, beautiful, meaningful and functional. So what are some things you can do to make it so? Well start out by observing and analyzing the habits of the people who will be using the space, including their needs, desires and how much space each of their activities requires.
Then, once you determine current habits, studying past methods will aid in your planning.
Also, to make the maintenance as hassle free as possible, analyze the environment of the site including the view in and around the site. The ecology of the site should be carefully analyzed since it is an important design determinant.
Have fun with your home landscaping, and enjoy the changes that come with each season.
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Tags: landscaping home_landscaping decorating
