Residential Landscape Design

Residential landscape designs can provide maximum enjoyment, provided careful planning goes into the design. Good design merges functionality and aesthetics, combining symmetry, harmony, proportion, and unity in the design. The end result is increased property value, and a much more appealing livable space.

Good residential landscape design also combines elements of art. These are color, lines, form, texture and scale. This applies to selecting both plants and non plant materials.  Choosing plant materials with other design components require attention to detail, and consideration on the effects of the changing seasons on design. Certain types of plants bloom on different seasons, while some evergreens are fresh and blooming throughout the year. Successful residential landscape design merges these details together to form a simple yet unifying design that is appealing to the eye.

Here is a guide to help you plan a residential landscape design through its basic principles:

1.    Unity should be seen in the residential landscape design, and is achieved through repetitiveness and consistency of materials used. Having a residential landscape design theme, whether it is a color scheme or deciding to have an overall theme inspired by the Victorian era for example, produces unity through its elements.

Both plant and non-plant elements in the design can achieve unity by combining texture, colors, height, and size to achieve natural blending. Plant grouping is an easy way to achieve unity, by selecting plant materials that are consistent throughout the physical landscape, possess equal shape and have the same distance from each other.

2.    Balance refers to the symmetry in the residential landscape design. There should be equality in the elements of design. Another simple way to put it is that one side of the landscape should be a mirror image of the other side, in all forms, materials, and elements used.

Flower beds for example, can be planned through imaginary division lines, where one side is a direct reflection of the other side. This means that the color, texture, type of flower, shape and height reflect that of the other side.

3.    Color is the life of the whole landscape design. The colors you choose dictate the overarching theme, mood or atmosphere. Warm colors in the garden such as red, yellow, and orange stand out more, while cooler colors such as blue, green, and purple tend to blend with the background. You can play with depth in the landscape by mixing colors and textures. Dominant colors in certain areas can also help highlight areas you may want to draw the eye to.

4.    Lines provide direction for flow or movement throughout the entire landscape. Circular or curved lines give a more graceful, smooth feel. Straight lines give a more forceful structure of elements in the landscape.

Lines can be created by non plant elements in the design such as walkways. Selecting the direction of plants can also determine lines in the garden. You can use shrubs or thick plants with a lot of texture to soften up sharp edges around the landscape.

5.    Proportion is also an important element of good residential landscape design. This aspect of design is concerned with the relation of elements to each other in terms of size, length, and height. This entails careful planning although proportion can be changed by adding elements of different proportions.

Proportions of both plant and non plant materials can be changed over time. For example you may decide that you want to make a certain shrub grow larger instead of always cutting it, so this can become the focal point of your garden or placing equally large furniture in the garden such as statues to complement the proportion.

Remember that your landscape designs should be open to change, as you may see some changes are necessary over the course of a few months or years. Do not worry; feel free to experiment with various landscape designs. An open mind and creativity are all you need.