Jeff Halper asked:


A Memorial-area art collector residing in a chic modern home wanted his house to be more visible from the street. His yard was full of trees, and he asked us to consider removing them and developing a more modern landscape design that would fully complement the exterior of his home. He was a personal friend of ours as well, and he understood that our policy is to preserve as many trees as possible whenever we undertake a project. However, we decided to make an exception in his case for two reasons. For one thing, he was a very close friend to many people in our company. Secondly, large trees simply would not work with a landscape reflective of the modern architecture that his house featured.

The house had been built as story structure that was formed around a blend of unique curves and angles very reminiscent of the geometric patterns common in modern sculpture and art. The windows had been built deliberately large, so that visitors driving up to the house could have a lighted glimpse into the interior, where many sculptures and works of modern art were showcased. The entire residence, in fact, was meant to showcase the eclectic diversity of his artistic tastes, and provide a glimpse at the elegant contents within the home.

He asked us to create more modern look to the landscape that would complement the residence with patterns in vegetation, ornamentation, and a new lighted water fountain that would act like a mirror-image of the home. He also wanted us to sculpt the features we created in such a way as to center the eye of the viewer and draw it up and over the landscape to focus on the house itself.

The challenge was to develop a truly sophisticated modern landscaping design that would compliment, but in no way overpower the façade of the home. In order to do this, we had to focus very carefully on the geometric appearance of the planting areas first. Since the vegetation would be surrounding a very large, circular stone drive, we took advantage of the contours and created a sense of flowing perspective. We were then very careful to plant vegetation that could be maintained at a very low growth height. This was to prevent vegetation from behaving like the previous trees which had blocked the view of the house. Small hedges, ferns, and flowers were planted in winding rows that followed the course of the circular stone driveway that surrounded the fountain.

We then centered this new modern landscape plan with a very sophisticated contemporary fountain. We chose a circular shape for the fountain both to center the eye and to work as a compliment to the curved elements in the home’s exterior design. We selected black granite as the building material, partly because granite speaks to the monumental, and partly because it is a very common material for modern architecture and outdoor contemporary sculpture. We placed the fountain in the very center of the driveway as well, which had the effect of making the entire landscape appear to converge toward the middle of the home’s façade. To add a sense of eclectic refinement to the fountain, we then polished the granite so that anyone driving or walking up to the fountain would see a reflection of the home in the base. To maintain consistency of the circular shape, we radius cut all of the coping around the fountain was all radius cut from polished limestone. The lighter color of the limestone created an archetypal contrast of light and darkness, further contributing to the modern theme of the landscape design, and providing a surface for illumination so the fountain would remain an established keynote on the landscape during the night.

All equipment for the fountain was hidden behind the home so that it would operate silently. For lighting, we used fiber optic cables that wrapped around the circumference of the fountain’s interior. This created the appearance of light rising in a perfect circle out of the black granite base, and illuminated the water with a sparkling effect that naturally focused the landscape and all of its surrounding features onto the modern architecture of the home.

The home itself now looks almost like a modern art gallery, with the landscaping forms that surround it giving it just enough of a natural touch to create a sense of organic fluidity, and with the lit fountain as the focal point that unites curvature and angles in a sense of geometric unity, grounding, and centeredness.



Lydia

Jeff Halper asked:


The fascination with tropical landscaping makes sense in Houston because of its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, cultural influences of the tropics, subtropics of Spain and Latin America which provide plenty of local inspiration for creating the tropical landscape design. Houston’s architectural styles now popular including New Orleans plantation, Spanish, and Mediterranean all lend themselves well to tropical landscaping. The tropics diverse palate of lush plantings and bright colors inspire the most beautiful and prehistoric spaces echoing vacation or leisure. Often, because of budgetary concerns or lack of horticultural knowledge tropical landscaping is poorly executed because it is treated as just another landscape i.e. substitute oaks for palms and you’re finished. When done well the tropical landscape is lush, beautiful, private, refreshing and becomes a paradise for retreat.

Landscape Design for the Tropical

The tropical landscape can adapt to any style of home. As in all good design the form and function of outdoor spaces needs to be sympathetic to the homes architecture and definitely include spaces for entertainment. Is the tropical garden formal or informal? Informal modern landscape design works well with the tropical because of all the exotic and funky plant forms available. Tropical landscaping done well comes about through the knowledgeable layering of tropical plant materials and the fun use of varying hardscape materials such as wood, concrete, water and stone.

Tropical Plants

Many landscape designs in Houston intended to hint at the tropical usually contain some palm trees, variegated gingers and some lolly pop shrubs and white rock. A sparse and haphazard approach to tropical falls somewhere between desert sparse, uninspired and just plain poorly done. In designing tropical plantings think lush green multi-layer forms from the tinniest ground cover up to the tallest palm tree:

? Palms-Mediterranean fan palms, pygmy date palms, medjoles, canary palms, and bamboos.

? Shrub Layer-gingers, philodendrons, bottle brushes, camellia specimen, cannas, caste iron plant.

? Accent Plants-Australian tree Fern, century plant, flax, alocasias, saw palmetto.

? Ground Cover Layer-alocasias, clematis vine, star jasmine, xanado, ardisia, liriope, monkey grass.

Tropical Hardscapes

Tropical patios and walks can also be infused with layering, color and alternate materials to play upon various planting layers. By creating multiple deck layers or steps that slow the viewer down enabling for more viewing of the lush planting layers and creating greater interest. Built elements that add creativity, color and fun to outdoor compositions include:

? Outdoor kitchens-in stucco with back walls of Spanish tile

? Palapas-kitchens that are separate from the house w. or without a thatch roof

? Wood Decks-stacked with rounded or curved edges.

? Waterfalls-a water element creates the sound of privacy drowning out urban noises.

? Tile Mosaics-with bright colors of the tropics-aqua blues, reds, and yellows turning a pool into a tropical piece of art.

? Garden art to include lamps, torches, ceramic pieces, funky benches and furniture.

Tropical Landscaping Fun and Retreat

Ultimately one is only limited by their creativity, design knowledge and tropical horticulture experience in creating dramatic tropical landscapes. Multiple layering of lush green plant materials, walks, variety in materials, and garden art to include; colored concretes, stone, metal, and tile bringing about the fun of retreat in the tropics. Approach the tropical landscape as a multicolorful journey-don’t just have a mojito, throw in pinnacola’s and dacaries and you too can create a tropical paradise.



Lauren

David Dunlap asked:


How much have you thought about landscaping? Do you know that a beautiful and well put together lawn has many benefits? Landscaping is lawn art and, like any other art form, it takes time, patience, and research to get your methods just right. So, what other benefits does landscaping provide besides just being “pretty”?

To begin with, landscaping can add value to your home and surrounding property. People will pay more for a home that looks nice and well maintained on the outside, as well as in, and home property values reflect that. The more your home is worth, the more equity it will have. We all strive to add value to our assets and this is an easy, enjoyable way to do a favor for yourself, your home, and your neighbors.

Landscaping can also be a good source of exercise, that is not vigorous or straining on your muscles. This is an additional aspect that becomes more important the older that you get. This may not be the case if you choose to lift heavy landscaping items, but there are many activities to keep you busy which are easy and manageable for anyone at almost any age.

Finally, the exercise you get from landscaping can also burn calories which may be important to you if you are trying to watch your weight or improve your cardiovascular performance.

As you can see, landscaping can offer many benefits both physically and financially. If you are new to landscaping, a simple search on the internet will give you many design ideas and techniques that you can start with today.



Nicholas

Susan asked:


Botanical Traditions – Landcape Architecture (Melbourne, Australia) At Botanical Traditions we strive to capture the imagination with landscape design that enhances the constructed environment. The goal of all our garden design is to maximise the quality of indoor and outdoor living while at the same time providing cost effective sustainable returns for our clients.

Professional Landscape and Horticultural Design Our landscape design team consists of designers, horticulturists and strategic thinkers committed to mixing art with design and technology. We pride ourselves on having a strong partnership with our clients and other related professionals, such as landscapers and paving firms, to create beautiful, functional landscape and horticultural designs that really are an asset to their surroundings and the garden and lifestyle of their owners.

The Roman Landscape [750 BMA - 400MA]

The Romans carried out landscape design on a scale not seen again until recently. They left a strong imprint on the land. The Romans designed large urban open spaces with perforated edges. These public open spaces were designed to keep the masses entertained – a point highlighted in the movie Gladiator. They combined garden and lifestyle ideas from the Greeks, Etruscans, Persians and Egyptians. In comparison to their public environments their residential site developments were typically inward looking.

The Greek Landscape [3000BMA - 31BMA]

Stretching over many centuries the Greek design style still has an impact on garden design today. Buildings were generally simple and symmetrical but many exhibited optical corrections. They also created optimum viewing points and used the proportions of the ‘Golden Section’. Typically a house was built around 1 or 2 garden rooms called a ‘peristyle’.

The Gardens of Islam [600BMA - 1700]

The Koran states that individuals should try to create paradise on earth and it defines paradise as a garden with shade and water. All Islamic gardens are enclosed and provide privacy. The gardens are typically square in plan and are entered through an impressive gate. There is usually a main axis which is often a body of water which can be crossed by other axis. The gardens never have any depiction of the human form but will use elaborate patterns instead.

The Gardens of China [1700BMA - today]

Chinese gardens typically have a strong natural character in many cases influenced by the natural countryside, painters and poets, mythology, philosophy and social background of the time. Chinese landscape design represents the longest period of continuous development of any garden style.

The Landscape of Japan [650 - 1870]

Japanese gardens are designed for repose. They do not try to copy nature but to idealise and abstract it. Typically they have no geometric order. They is carefull attention given to the transition between the inside and outside areas.

The Landscape of Renaissanc Italy [1400 - 1700]

During this period of time there were two distinct periods – the Mannerist and the Baroque. In Mannerist designs the aim was not to create harmony but to use tricks to create astonishing affects. Baroque design originated in Rome and was chiefly interested in creating spectacular displays.

The Renaissance Landscape of France

Many medieval built forms such as moats, corner towers and steep roofs were retained in France long after they had been abandoned in other countries. There were three distinct periods during the French Renaissance. In the early 16th century there was a strong Italian influence, followed by a brief period of transition and experimentation which resulted in a distinctive Baroque French Grand Style.

The Landscape of England

The English landscape has been influenced by the many different groups of people that have inhabited the land. Medieval developments in England were typically centred around the residential environment. During the 17th century ideas from Italy and France were incorporated into the English landscape on a small scale. It was not until the early 18th century and the emergence of the English Landscape School that landscape design was applied on a large scale. It was also at this time that the artistic ideas of unity, harmony, contrast, balance and focus began to be explored in landscape design.

The 19th Century English Garden

This period was one of rapid social change with the industrial revolution. The urban areas expanded and the provision of public recreational spaces became important. Botanical Gardens were established in most major towns and many royal estates were opened to the public. In the 1830’s gardening magazines emerged as did a wider selection of plants. There were many notable designers from this period and they include Joseph Paxton, William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll. Some designers through this period searched for a local style which used indigenous plants to create a national character rather than relying on the many new introduced plants at the time.

The American Colonial Landscape

The English, French, Dutch and Spanish all had an influence on early American landscape design. There were three distinct phases in colonial site developments. The early colonial period was characterised by a strongly utilitarian style. This was followed by the Jefferson period which was characterised by eclecticism and palladianism such as Monticello. The last period lasted from 1800 – 1860 and was characterised by eclecticism and neo-classicism. Public open space was provided in towns.

The 19th Century American Landscape

This was a period of great change and expansion in the United States. There was a period of great social change and after the civil war there was a greater focus on providing public parks in cities. Two major designers at the time were Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmstead. There was a strong belief that the environment could influence human behaviour and the first state parks were formed during this period.

The 20th Century American Landscape

After WWII there was a change in the type of landscape projects that occurred. There was a large increase in the numbers of houses, schools and universities as well as the large scale adoption of the car. This meant that an increasing amount of work was carried out in the outer suburbs. This also coincided with the establishment of large scale firms with international offices and a turn away from the traditional approach of an individual offering a personal service to clients.

The Landscape Design Revolution

It was not until the 1930’s that there was a significant change in the design philosophies of the previous 100 years. This was the beginning of modernism. Modernism in landscape design was influenced by Modern Art (Cubist Garden, Hyeres, Gabrial Guevrekian), Science and the relationship between natural systems and human needs, Asian design and the technology and teaching of the Bauhaus. Fletcher Steele and Thomas Chruch followed by Garrett Eckbo, James rose and Dan Kiley practiced during this period.



Marjorie

Paul Zayer asked:


Shaping the landscape or landscaping if you prefer signify any activity or process that changes the features of a portion of land in a observable way, such as living elements of flora and fauna, landforms, such as terrain shape and elevation or bodies of water, human elements, such as structures and fences, and abstract factors such as elements to somewhat control the lighting and /or weather conditions.

Landscaping is a highly aesthetic landscape art form that needs a quantity of useful knowledge having to do with plant knowledge, practical applications and operating with various equipments. It could be stated that the earliest landscaper was the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who spent a lot of time pondering the nature and various scopes of landscaping.

Where a lot of early landscapers said that true landscaping alters plants or fields directly, such as in the activities of farming of food crops, Thales rejected this definition of landscaping or shaping the landscape, arguing that any aspect of the physical world affecting someone’s visual perception of an area of land was a correct application of landscaping. Landscape and landscaping are all around us each and everyone of us.

Both Aristotle and Plato had nothing but praise for Thales philosophical modeling related to landscape and landscaping, as well as how his theories can be applied somewhere else in philosophical exploration. G.E. Moore also mentioned Thales in several of his own philosophical works explaining how philosophical inquiry and discourse has led to the truest forms of human progress and understanding.

Then in the 1800s many philosophers debated if visual beauty should even be accepted as a required goal of landscaping or controlling landscape, though by the years 2000 a lot of western philosophical thinkers had grown to reject the idea of an objective aesthetic standard for any type of art, whether architecture or landscaping

Since the later half of the 20th century, landscaping professionals and practitioners have experimented with stunning visual landscape panoramas that since became widely accepted as being a category of landscaping, at least in the occident.

More often than not we do not appreciate the quiet beauty of great landscaping plans. In our busy life the time to look around and enjoy the beauty around us has become a luxury. Next time you go out of your work place on a nice sunny day, why don’t you sit silently on a park bench and enjoy the landscape around you.



Joan

Jeff Halper asked:


Modernism, in the context of landscape design, is a result of forms and functions that reflect the need for outdoor living spaces that enhance contemporary lifestyles. As Garrett Eckbo, one of the central figures in modern landscape architecture, said, landscape design is the “arrangement of environments for people.”

Contemporary garden design tends to focus on scale as opposed to formal landscape designs that are based on axial relationships. It also foregoes the more classic landscape design forms and larger scale from Greek, Roman, and classical architecture traditions. This design motif became popular in the 1950’s baby boom, particularly in California where weather and lifestyle was very conducive to this innovative style.

In modern landscape design, boundaries between areas of color, textures and shapes are undefined-or conversely, sharply defined. Color and composition create the emotional response. Combining freshness and flair, these designs use dramatic geometric shapes to create a point of view that is fluid and natural. Water and light are often used, as in artfully-lit outdoor water fountains, to enhance the sensual loveliness and liveliness. The designs are arresting, both close up and far away.

Form and Function in Modern Landscape Design

As the maxim says, form follows function. Modern landscape design is an aesthetic that shows only what is necessary while often leaving surfaces exposed. The simplicity of modern design reveals itself in that every form has a function, even when that function is merely to engage the senses.

It is possible, sometimes desirable, to use modern design techniques without creating a high-tech look. That is, to make use of horizontal and vertical planes that manufacture a modern sculpture effect-and let colors and plantings evoke a warm, welcoming feel. It is that juxtaposition-hard and soft, linear and non-linear, energetic and restrained-that is the essence of modern landscape design. “Less is more” is the modern landscape design mantra. A huge plant palette is not necessary. Rather, it is how plants, materials, and textures are used and mass them together that create the contemporary effect.

The architecture of the house needs to be carefully considered when using a contemporary garden design. If the house is bold, the grounds need to be strong also.

The home and landscape can be tied together through selective use of plantings or the intelligent placement of a hardscape feature, such as an organic approach to the front door.

Using Today’s Technology in Your Modern Landscape

Naturally new technologies in building materials are a big component of modern landscape design, which can mean a new approach using old materials or a new approach using new materials. Often, it is the contrast of material usage that suggests modernism.

Concrete, with its sturdiness and malleability, has won a firm place in contemporary garden design. Its cool, gray color alone establishes its credibility. Its uses run the gamut from flooring to columns to stark, amorphous benches. In addition to concrete, advances in steel and glass technologies, plus construction methods, can be even further exploited within the modern landscape design.

Often materials, such as stone, metal, plastics, steel and glass, are left in an exposed or raw state. Part of the beauty of these materials derives from their interplay with nature-the way steel rusts to a warm, burnt look, for instance.

The Spaces of Modern Landscape Design

Landscape themes such as English, Asian, Zen gardens, natural, Japanese or modern identify not only your property but also your tastes and style. Color, form, line, scale, and texture are your means of expressing those landscape design preferences.

Your choices can be demonstrated in the plants and hardscapes you choose. Beauty can be a maple imported from Japan. It can also be the wild grass native to the Texas coastal plains. You may have outdoor works of art to display in your landscape. Or you might use a stream that ends in a waterfall as an ever-changing sculpture of sound and movement. Landscape lighting is another crucial tool of contemporary garden design as it creates ambiance and lets you enjoy your landscape night and day.

Other uses of space in contemporary designs include:

? Outdoor rooms for living. These living areas, in effect, make your home bigger. They also serve to create transition areas that connect the indoor and outdoor spaces. In this regard, this style is similar to a Mediterranean landscape design with its underlying principle that the outdoor living area should be just as enjoyable and functional as the home’s interior.

? Outdoor kitchens. The center of outdoor entertainment, outdoor kitchens provide a natural gathering place. Their design should complement both the house and the landscape. Above all, their design should be functional.

? Luxury swimming pools. When designed from a modern viewpoint, luxury swimming pools are anything but a boring rectangle or kidney-shaped pool. They become sophisticated and exciting, eye-catching and mesmerizing. Often, you can combine them with an outdoor water fountain that eliminates some redundancies while adding vitality to your overall design.

Thoroughly Modern

Modern landscape design is even more appropriate today than it was 50 years ago. Jeff Halper with Exterior Worlds says, “Contemporary garden design has gotten only better with time. With today’s busy lifestyles, there is less time for gardening. Also, we need to use our gardens for multiple functions these days-sanctuary, entertainment, a place for children to play safely. Modern landscape design addresses all these wants and needs.”

Robert Irwin, the landscape architect of the Getty Center in Los Angeles, puts it this way: “…maybe the world is an art form [and] the gardening of our universe” reveals our participation in that work of art.



Lucy

Steve Boulden asked:


Simplicity as a landscaping principle. Most home landscapers don’t realize that simplicity is actually one of the principles of landscaping. Not only is it a principle of design, but also of all forms of art. And while it may seem unimportant to most, it’s actually one of the most important guidelines to follow.

Simplicity doesn’t just suggest that your landscape design should be bland or totally simplistic. It just means to stick with the other dominant principles related to contrast, form, and repetition.

A usual mistake that most people make is in trying to add an excessive amount of varied objects and elements in their design to begin with. This can bring about confusion and distortion of the final design plan. Keeping your ideas really simple at first will keep things clear and in perspective. You can always add more later.

The clearest illustration is in plant selection and color schemes. Selecting plants is often a huge obstacle for a lot of folks usually because they don’t have any idea of the countless varieties of plants to choose from. And even still, so many people will go and purchase several different varieties of badly matched plants to place in their landscaping. And just doing this can cause the whole garden design to be out of balance.

So just how to keep things simple?

While the majority of people don’t have much knowledge of landscaping plants, most people are somewhat familiar with a variety or two or can see what stands out in their neighbors yards. And observing what works is where you should start. You can get a lot more impact from a simple selection of a couple of good varieties and then repeating them throughout the garden than you will from an unrelated mix of plantings.

In simpler terms, pick a few different kinds of plants and repeat them throughout the garden. Repetition is also a principle of landscape design.

Here’s a pretty cool design “trick” to try:

If you’d like to create some impact in your design, try building a few beds or borders using different shades of the same color. Do this using two, three, or more species of plants and you’ll also create some interesting contrast of texture. And the same as other elements, contrast and variables in texture are also principles of design and art.

This basic design principle can be applied to all of the many different areas and elements of your design. It’s not just limited to your plants.

Keep your landscape design simple in the beginning stages. It will make it easier to design and you can always add more elements later. Every good landscaping or garden project should express the principle of simplicity.



Marcia

Jeff Halper asked:


A local Houston art collector hired us to create a low maintenance, sophisticated, contemporary landscape design. She wanted her property to compliment her eclectic taste in architecture, outdoor sculpture, and modern art. Her house was built with a minimalist approach to decoration, emphasizing right angles and windows instead of architectural keynotes. The west wing of the house was only one story, while the east wing was two-story. The windows in both wings were larger than usual, so that visitors could see her art collection from the home’s exterior. Near one of the large rear windows, there was an abstract metal sculpture designed in the form of a spiral.

When she initially contacted us, the surrounding property had only a few trees and indigenous grass as vegetation. This was actually a good beginning point with us, because it allowed us to develop a contemporary landscape design that featured a very linear, crisp look supportive of the home and its contents. We began by planting a garden around the large contemporary sculpture near the window. Landscape designers planted horsetail reed under windows, along the sides of the home, and around the corners. This vegetation is very resilient and hardy, and requires little trimming, weeding, or mulching. This helped unite the diverse elements of sculpture, contemporary architecture, and landscape design into a more fluid harmony that preserved the proportions of each unique element, but eliminated any tendency for the elements to clash with one another.

We then added two stonework designs to the landscape surrounding the contemporary art collection and home. The first was a linear walkway we build from concrete pads purchased through a retail vendor as a cost-saving benefit to our client. We created this walkway to follow the perimeter of the home so that visitors could walk around the entire property and admire the outdoor sculptures and the collections of modern art visible through the windows. This was especially enjoyable at night, when the entire home was brightly lit from within.

To add a touch of tranquility and quite repose to the stark right angles of the home and surrounding contemporary landscape, we designed a special seating area toward the northwest corner of the property. We wanted to create a sense of contemplation in this area, so we departed from the linear and angular designs of the surrounding landscape and established a theme of circular geometry. We laid down gravel as ground cover, then placed large, circular pads arranged like giant stepping stones that led up to a stone patio filled with chairs. The shape of the granite pads and the contours of the graveled area further complimented the spirals and turns in the outdoor metal sculpture, and balanced the entire contemporary landscape design with proportional geometric forms of lines, angles, and curves.

This particular contemporary landscape design also has a sense of movement attached to it. All stonework leads to a destination of some sort. The linear pathway provides a guided tour around the home, garden, and modern art collection. The granite pathway stones create movement toward separate space where the entire experience of art, vegetation, and architecture can be viewed and experienced as a unity.

Contemporary landscaping designs like create form out of feeling by using basic geometric forms and variations of forms. Sometimes very stark forms are used to create a sense of absolutism or contrast. At other times, forms are blended, or even distorted to suggest a sense of complex emotion, or a sense of multi-dimensional reality. The exact nature of the design is always highly subjective, and developed on a case-by-case basis with the client.



Duane

Abhishek Agarwal asked:


This article will enlighten readers on the landscape gardening concept and its principal objectives. It will spell out how landscape gardening entails manifold choices.

Designing a Garden

Almost everybody is aware that landscape gardening consists of growing plants and perhaps making a pathway. However, what no one realizes that it is a kind of designer art. In fact, landscape gardening is the fashioning of the garden area and the back yard in ways that beautifully complement the house as well as your distinctive style. It is a well-crafted work of art, which begets a sense of awe when one gazes at it.

As one looks intently at a Rembrandt, looking over a completed and a well-planned landscape gardening project too is eloquent and heartwarming. Your body, mind, and soul revel in it.

Inspired by Intention

Careful planning is a key factor in any strategic project. For instance, a painter should establish as to why he is sketching the picture, since the intention inspires the way of thinking. Similarly, landscape gardening necessitates the same foresight. The practicality of the project should be well thought-out when landscape gardening. Landscape designing for private reasons would generate a noticeably distinct plan than a plan devised for just admiring the splendor.

The main intention of the project needs to be established and planning takes place around this intention. In the first instance, the question regarding the intention of the project – whether for official or private reasons – has to be laid down. Is the key intention chiefly for beholding it, as a leisure pursuit, to enhance the appearance of the home or to bestow shade? The answers to these queries will greatly influence and inspire the planning of a landscape gardening project.

Styles Involved

Fixing on the right style to be displayed in a plan for landscape gardening is the most important factor. There is a multitude of options. The styles used in landscape gardening embrace various kinds of personality, dwelling place, the local area or business. These are the elementary styles that should primarily be taken into account. The end result may be a blend of the different styles.

1. Customary and systematic silhouettes and models, like straight sidewalks and square garden plots, distinguish a formal garden setting.

2. A casual style is typified by circular flowerbeds, winding pathways and an assortment of flowers and plants not in fact, characteristic of a conventional garden.

3. An English garden has a very formal appearance and has some distinct features like elevated flowerbeds and the prospects of particular plants like roses. This style of landscaping gardening revolves around the kind of face-lift you wish to give the dwelling place or other structures on the grounds.

4. The Oriental garden too is quite formal and proper, but in a totally dissimilar manner. It contains flowers and plants commonly spotted in countries like Japan. It has an arrangement of plain lines and a severe form, but conveys a loveliness that is unusual to its origins.

5. The Woodland garden adopts a natural style and subtly blends into the background. Usually, this kind of a garden contains flowers and plants that are native to the region where a landscape project is to be executed.

Feng Shui

The term ‘Feng Shui’ refers to the positioning and laying out of objects in order to draw and augment the life giving energy. Landscape gardening in fact is a method of Feng Shui. By recognizing the intention of a project on landscape gardening and then by tallying the style with the intention, Feng Shui comes into being. The outcome is a lovely panorama that you can gaze upon and which invigorates, calms, or enlivens you, based on the ambiance you have created.



Megan

Peter Finch asked:


If you have a garden, yard or walkway that you intend to light up you may consider landscape lighting.

It enhances the beauty of your house and landscape around it, be it a garden or a yard or a walkway. This innovative art of lighting adds an elegance that usually compliments the natural look of the landscape.

Often it is used to produce an array of brilliant effects by highlighting a unique aspect of the house, be it the entryways, shrubs or other features. It is in the process of developing into an art, much like interior designing and gardening.

What are the benefits of landscape lighting?

- Beautification of the house and surroundings – Brightening up of outdoor leisure areas like swimming pools, gazebos and patios – Provides a sense of security by lighting up walkways – Provides you a sense of gratification and peace of mind.

What are the various kinds?

You have a variety of options to choose from:

- Low voltage. If you are really interested in conserving energy, you may opt for low voltage landscape lighting. It will enhance the beauty of the house and the yard without exhausting energy resources.

- Solar. This is a natural method of conserving energy. Solar stores energy from the sun during the day. At night, when it is dark this saved energy is used for lighting.

- Outdoor. You also have the regular options lighting the outdoor as well.

Do all the lights and equipments look the same?

Well, variety is the keyword again. Most landscape lighting equipments are intended to compliment the natural look of the yard. You have the option of choosing from a tulip light, a bell light, a pineapple light (our Hawaiian friends believe in welcoming people this way) or a mini lantern light. You can have a path lighter that can enhance the look of the walkway as well.

How do I acquire it?

Designing an elegantly lit yard may not be a very easy task. Soliciting professional advice would ensure an elegant and safe solution. The Internet can lead you to a large number of professionals who are experts in this field.

What should I be aware of?

Safety is very important. It is always wise to seek the advice of a professional and ensure that you use safe and energy efficient landscape lighting.

You also need to be aware of light pollution and the havoc that it may cause to your surroundings and the environment. Misused or misdirected light as a result of inappropriate application of outdoor lighting usually causes Light pollution. Light pollution wastes natural resources and pollutes the environment by generating needless electricity. It harms nocturnal wildlife. Moreover, it can cause accidents as misdirected lights can perilously glare in the eyes of people walking by or driving past.

Smart and conscious application will add that much desired dramatic effect to your house and surroundings. So if you would like to compliment the beauty of your natural landscape or draw attention to the designs in your landscape, opt for landscape lighting and enhance the beauty of your home.



Claudia