It’s tempting to jump right in to a yard redesign project, but it’s important to engage in some basic landscape planning before you begin. Good landscape design requires forethought. In fact, planning a landscape may be the most critical step in the process.

Unplanned landscapes often look chaotic, and they may require more work than their carefully executed counterparts. By engaging in planning before you begin building your new home landscape, you can achieve beautiful results without making costly mistakes.

Landscape and Planning: Steps to Take

Planning a landscape begins with evaluating your site, or the space you have to work with. As a homeowner, your site is your property.

1. As you evaluate your site, you’ll want to create a base plan. A “base plan” is a map that shows property boundaries, along with the location of major structures such as your house, the placement of utility lines and other features. You’ll also want to make sure that you have accurate measurements for the space you plan to landscape, and that your plan is drawn to scale.
2. Once you have a base plan, you can begin generating ideas for your landscape. You can do this by looking at pictures in magazines or online, walking around your neighborhood or consulting with a professional landscaper. Pick a theme or style that fits your space, and begin developing a specific plan for your landscape.
3. At this stage in the landscape design process, you may want to create what is called a “bubble graph.” A bubble graph is a rough sketch that marks the different areas of your landscape. This drawing will help you decide how to arrange the elements of your landscape.
4. As you create your bubble graph, you can experiment with different ideas for your landscape. That’s because it is easy to change things you don’t like at this stage in garden planning. You can even decide to go with an entirely different style or theme, if you find your initial idea is not satisfactory.
5. Once you’ve decided on how you will arrange the basic elements of your landscape, you can create a master plan. This plan will include the specific location of all the elements in your landscape, including walkways, patios, walls and plants. The master plan will also take into account factors such as drainage, soil conditions, available sunlight and shade and existing features you don’t plan to change.

From Plan to Reality

Once you have completed a master plan for your landscape, you can begin putting that plan into action. If you are adding major hardscape elements, such as walkways, driveways, patios or decks, these will likely need to be put in first. After major hardscape elements are complete, you can add flowers, trees and shrubs.

As you create your landscape, remember to stick to the plan you created. By following your landscape plan, you can create a beautiful and functional landscape that you can enjoy for years to come.