The notion that landscaping involves only the incorporation of trees and shrubs into the setting of your front yard or backyard is wrong; landscaping also has to do with the construction of walls and fences that frame and further beautify the house.

Whether you want to layer your garden, re-do your frontyard or have a make over done for your backyard, landscaping is the perfect answer.

Having a home that is the envy of all and sundry is the ultimate goal of any home owner This is why landscaping is becoming so popular because it guarantees a home worthy of pride on the home owner’s part and provokes jealousy on the part of the neigbours.

In this information era of ours, it is very easy to find a landscape company that will garner your trust and earn your money.

If you reside in an area where there is no humidity and a lot of sun and you are interested in what type of plants will best suite your landscaping needs, you ought to consider plants or scrubs that thrive well in the sun and do not require much water to survive.

The phrase “Holiday Lighting” once pertained exclusively to Christmas lights, but now refers to what has turned into a year-round trend. The casual consumer is currently entertained by recurring displays of Halloween, St. Valentine’s Day, and 4th of July decorations which include strings of seasonally colored lights. While holiday lights are growing more popular and light bills are climbing, consumers are finding that their shiny holiday toys are growing more costly to play with. One factor could be that the majority of homeowners still decorate with incandescent C7 lights or mini-lights, which are not remotely energy-efficient; Juno Lighting is a much better option.

From a kerchief-sized city back yard to the rolling hills of a magnificent country estate, there is hardly a garden or landscape where vines can’t be used to give the scene graceful beauty and vitality. And few other plants serve so many practical purposes as well.

Vines have character and individuality. Some are modest, and attract attention to the patterned texture of a wall rather than to themselves. Some are bold and brilliant, and command the eye. All give a fluid impression of movement no other plant form provides.

Vines are adaptable, versatile, can be trained to almost any shape or line, formal or informal, horizontal or vertical, sweeping or restrained. A controllable line is one of the landscape architect’s most potent tools.

And vines have variety in size, shape, color, contour, texture. There are fast- and slow-growing, deciduous and evergreen, annual and perennial vines. Some feature foliage, flowers, or colorful fall and winter fruit; some paragons provide all three.

Practically speaking, vines can do more for a garden, yet require less space and less care, than most people realize. They are generally strong-rooted, prefer not to be pampered, are subject to relatively few diseases. They occupy a small area, yet their tops are arranged to get full benefit of all available light and sunlight.

It is easier to understand what unity does than to explain what it is. Any design – a small dish garden, cut-flower composition, living-room decor, patio planting, landscape – has unity if the whole hangs together to make one pleasing picture. Without unity a design “goes off in all directions,” has a restless, disorganized, discordant effect.

Not quite the same as unity, but an important part of it, is harmony – a restful quality created when all parts of a design or decorative effect add up to one style or mood. An extreme example may illustrate the point. Setting an urn of clean, stark contemporary lines beside an ornate, Victorian garden seat would be inharmonious; each style is foreign to and unsympathetic with the other. But a low fence is in harmony with the rose that clambers over it; vining plants can unite harmoniously the upright plants in a window box with the box itself.

There are innumerable techniques for unifying a design, of which the following five are probably basic.

This principle is less ephemeral than unity and more easily defined, and can even be set down in nearly precise mathematical terms. Essentially, the elements or areas of a design have a visual weight; and these weights achieve balance like that of the old-fashioned scale, or seesaw. If the seesaw is unbalanced, the result is distracting or disturbing. The principle of balance is usually mandatory, but the methods of achieving it are not. There are many ways to arrange elements and areas to achieve a balanced design; and here is where originality and personal taste improve the picture.

Two types of balanced composition are generally recognized – formal and informal. Formal balance calls for a focal point or center of interest in the center of the design, with areas and/or elements of equal weight on either side. You can’t go wrong with formal balance. There is no question that the geometric arrangement of classic rose gardens are of good design; or even that Colonial or Victorian settings seem suitable for formally balanced decoration.

In order to plan your landscape accurately, you should have a drawing board, ruler, tape measure, paper, and patience.

A flowering shrub costs less than an evergreen, and in my opinion can achieve equally marvelous effects.

False Cost Estimates

Once you have studied the techniques of landscaping you will be able to guard against making false cost estimates. Here is a typical example of how many people go wrong: The novice would be “professional” home landscaper says to himself, “The distance across the front of my house is 40 feet – the ten plants to plant there cost me $75. Therefore, to go all around my property would cover 300 feet and this would cost approximately $550 plus dollars.” He shakes his head and resigns himself to a half-planted garden.

You will soon learn that such a method of estimating costs is inaccurate. In the first place you must try not to enclose the entire property; secondly, plants in the back yard will be given much more space in which to develop; finally, the plants in the back yard for the most part will be or should be deciduous.

The final decision as to what type of garden you will want is not reached at the snap of a finger, but can be achieved in one of two ways. The first, and most businesslike, is to write down all pertinent facts and figures concerning yourself, your family, the size of your property, the size of your house, its exposure, etc. The other, which is just as workable but perhaps a little more confusing and likely to cause you undue worry, is simply to carry your ideas around in your head and finally try to put them on paper in the form of a plan. These are not solutions of your problem but rather helpful guides.

The more orderly method is to make a check list and to give our thought reality we shall consider the requirements of a family living in a development of identical houses in Central New Jersey. Their check list should be used as a guide in making your own.

Geographical location and climate will largely determine which plants can be used on your property. A garden in the New York City area might emphasize such plants as the Yews (Taxus) and Japanese Andromeda (Pieris japonica). A similar home located in Central Texas would have to rely on entirely different plants to achieve the same sort of effect, e.g., Junipers and Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria). Again, a third location, on the West Coast, say, would need a plant setting different from those used in the East or the South.

Topography

The topography or “lay of the land” is another factor which must be considered when planning a landscape design. It will affect not only the basic layout of your property, but also the type of plant and turf or other ground cover you will use.

Picture a home located on a hillside in any mountainous region. On such property, in order to develop a comparatively level area of any size at all, it would be necessary to construct expensive retaining walls, which might very well be beyond the means of the owner. Since it is difficult if not impossible to maintain a good lawn on a steep hillside, it will be necessary to select another type of ground cover that will be more suitable for the slopes.

Down through the ages various nations and races have developed certain styles in gardening largely because of the different climates and topographical features in their particular parts of the world. If you want to do some extra reading on the history of the landscape art, you will find good books on all phases of the subject in public libraries. The important thing concerning the evolution of the landscape art in America is the fact that there has been developed a distinct style which is admirably suited to our modem way of life. Consequently, in professional circles, it is referred to as the “American Style.”

Years ago I remember meeting the famed Brazilian landscape design visionary Roberto Burle Marx who’s style fascinated me but was of a completely different flavor than American Style.

Public Area

Basically, American Style is built around the theory that for maximum efficiency, privacy, and beauty, the property shall be divided into three distinct sections: the public area, the service area, and the private area.

Plants, like any other commodity we use, do cost money. However, unlike, say, a vacuum cleaner, they grow more valuable as they grow older.

You should expect to pay a fair price for any plants you decide to use in your landscape. But, since the price depends largely on the amount of work the nurseryman has put into the given plant, you should always buy smaller specimens. Properly cared for, they will grow into valuable shrubs, flowers and trees.

If you have enough time, patience, and skill, you might try developing your own shrubs – a difficult task but one that will stretch your gardening dollar.

Cash Outlay

Do not, confuse the fully grown plants shown many magazines, websites and books with the ones you will plant when you start to landscape. These plants are often shown mature in order to help you visualize what you will ultimately have.

Your initial cash outlay, however, will not be for mature plants or even large specimens. You will be buying plants for much less because you are going to wait for them to mature.