Dec 13 2007
Planning Your Yard With Landscape Drawings
When someone builds a house they start with blueprints that show where every door and window will be placed and develop a floor plan to make sure interior traffic flow is smooth. When planning the layout of the yard, landscape drawings can be every bit as useful in making sure the traffic flow outside is not interrupted by a errant shrub. In addition, detailed landscape drawings can also help determine how many flowers, shrubs, trees and hard materials will be needed to make the plan work.
Too many people walk through their yard and make snap decisions on where they would like to put a flower bed or maybe a short stone wall behind which they can plant a few bushes. By taking the time to develop landscape drawings they can get a better idea of how everything will look together. They can also give more consideration to whether or not a tree will hide windows or perhaps the roots will grow through the basement walls if it is planted too close to the home.
Knowing what the homeowner wants the exterior of their home to look like when they are done with their project can be a lot easier if they use landscape drawings to plan out where and what colors of flowers they will use to achieve a desired effect. Without good landscape drawings they may end up with a lawn that looks like an after thought.
Plan To Have All Materials On The Job
One of the most disappointing aspects of working on the yard’s design is running out of materials during the project. When the homeowner uses landscape drawings in the planning of the layout, they can also make a materials list of everything they will need to turn their dream into reality. Retaining wall, if needed, can be measured so that half way through the project they do not have to run back out to the store for more. All the while hoping the store has not run out of the ones they were using on the job.
For those homeowners that cannot draw a straight line with a ruler, there are home computer programs that allow them to make landscape drawings on their computer. From the free versions that offer some hope to the new home yard designer to the more elaborate ones that have color renditions of the most often uses botanicals that can be moved around the virtual screen, making landscape drawings with these programs can be done at any hour of the day or night.
Sipping coffee on your back deck on a beautiful fall morning, you look up and gasp — there in your suburban oasis stands a small herd of deer. For a moment you pause, enchanted. An instant later, as the deer begin to munch on your landscape, you realize they’re just not as awestruck by the [...]
Soon it will be time to leave outdoor living spaces and ride out winter’s cold indoors. But before you batten down the barbecue and stow the patio cushions, don’t forget to take care of wooden structures – like decks, pergolas and play sets – that must remain out in the elements.
Routine maintenance of these structures [...]
Leaves turn brilliant colors, evenings cool and the kids go back to school. So long summer, hello fall garden cleanup.
You may already know that composting is a better way to deal with bags of leaves and backyard waste. But if you’ve avoided composting because it seems like too much work and mess — or you [...]
As the leaves turn different colors and the weather becomes cooler, many Americans begin to engage in outdoor cleanup. Consider the number of Americans injured in yard work accidents every autumn and you may begin to suspect that “fall” is actually short for “pitfall.” Fall, it seems, is becoming the season for back injuries, tumbles [...]
Probably one of the most widely used landscaping surfaces around, bark mulch can be used for pretty much anything. I have seen it used for children’s playgrounds, and if you are trying to incorporate a swing set or mini playground into your landscaped space, then bark mulch may be the product for you, and [...]