While spontaneity and creativity can be vital to backyard landscapes, the best designs employ time-tested principles that structure your guests’ experience. The following yard design principles help homeowners add beauty and style to outdoor spaces.
#1: Strive for Simple Designs
Resist the impulse to add every conceivable design feature to your home landscape. Sometimes, adding fewer features helps the viewer know where to look and allows the crucial elements the space they need to shine.
#2: Shake Things Up
If the design elements are too similar, they can bore the viewer. Vary the color, explore different shapes, and use features that contrast with the overall design without undermining it.
#3: Take Advantage of Symmetries
Imagine an oval pond, a path with flanking lights, and a circular stone birdbath. Symmetrical arrangements and design features please the eye, while asymmetrical features direct the eyes and add complexity to the landscape design.
#4: Draw Attention to Important Features
A central design feature can establish a theme for a garden, front yard, pool, or other parts of the home landscape. The feature can be a gathering point, like a patio, outdoor kitchen or fire pit, or you can position eye-catching features at the edge of outdoor spaces as a defining feature of the backdrop.
#5: Guide the Viewer’s Attention
Create an immersive experience for visitors in your front yard or other outdoor spaces. For example, adding attention-getting elements to a front path welcomes visitors by leading the eye toward the front door.
#6: Consider the Size and Arrangement of Elements
An otherwise sound design can go awry if some elements are too large and overwhelm the design scheme or if too many small elements draw attention in too many directions. Keeping design features in proportion makes sure that the elements work well together.
#7: Promote a Single Design Concept
Choosing landscape design elements with similar styles helps you to reinforce an overarching design theme.
If you are new to home landscape design, it might not be clear how to employ each of these principles to your outdoor property. The professional landscape design team at TopLine Lawn Care & Landscaping can take on the task of planning and executing on your landscaping or outdoor living project. To get started, fill out our online request form today.