For homeowners around the world, a big part of owning a home is landscaping the yard. Front yard landscaping or backyard landscaping, the work must be done. While the front yard is important since it’s more visible to neighbors and others who drive by, the backyard is no less important.
Backyard Landscaping – An Important Area To Landscape
The backyard is where families and friends gather for parties and barbeques and where some homes place their swimming pools. Most backyards are landscaped with detailed thought and preparation. Special care is put into the positioning of every blade of grass, each decorative stone, and all of the species of flowers that decorate a backyard.
If you host frequent cookouts you’ll likely want to keep the yard open and plant along the borders. If you don’t require the space, you could create real drama with an island bed, walkways, solar lighting, and cutouts for comfortable furniture to relax on.
There are numerous backyard landscaping ideas that you can employ to convert an ordinary tract of real estate into something worth marveling at. With the right ideas and the right amount of effort, any backyard can be transformed for the better. Just try to keep your imagination and creativity working.
Re-Landscaping Backyard
Unfortunately, re-landscaping your entire backyard during the course of one growing season can be backbreaking, pricey, and demands significant planning.
Try this simple solution: Break up your backyard into “rooms” and renovate one room each time. This is extremely helpful if you’re on a budget. Your outcomes will be much better if you spend as much time and money as you can on one project.
Although you’re landscaping only one section of the yard at a time, you still require an overall plan. Sketch out the permanent structures on your property including the house, outbuildings, deck, and trees.
This is also a good time to consider which extant plants and shrubs will not come to the new landscape. Make copies of your sketch and experiment with various designs. Incorporate ideas you like from magazines or gardens you’ve seen.
Useful Backyard Landscaping Ideas
A good backyard landscaping idea is one that everyone can make usage of. There are many different backyard landscaping ideas and most of them are pretty good but to find the one that is suitable for you and that is just what your yard needs may take some reading. This article will enable you to find the perfect backyard landscaping idea for your home.
Here are some wonderful backyard landscaping ideas you’ll dig:
Use Evergreens
If you wish to make your home look stately, you may plant some stately trees in your backyard. Having evergreens for instance as part of your landscaping strategies can give your home that noble look that you mostly notice in elegant mansions and homes.
Evergreens have green foliage consistently. These plants don’t drop their leaves in fall and go torpid in winter like deciduous trees. You can just make that similar grace with the addition of evergreen in your backyard.
The use of these astounding trees will do o much for any yard. They will add an impressive nature to the vibe of your home while keeping it inviting and warm. Many people like to include deciduous trees in the yard and this is also a good idea however the evergreens will give the yard the structure and the stability that it needs for a decent backyard landscaping idea and plan.
The key to any great landscaping strategy is to find a backyard landscaping idea like this that will keep your yard impressive no matter what time of the year it is.
Use Hardscape
One more technique to lessen some mowing areas in your backyard is to utilize “hardscapes”. This is another landscaping idea that you can use aside from considering the use of plants or trees in your backyard. You might need to utilize rocks, fences, or walls to make alternative components of beauty in your backyard.
These can make your yard look very attractive during all the seasons. You can have climbing plants on it in the summer and spring and pretty trees around it that will look great in the winter. When looking for a good backyard landscaping idea you must look for other options besides just plants. There is much more to landscaping than just plants and trees.
Walls and fences can frame your property beautifully. They will frame your yard as a picture frame frames a gorgeous painting. Look at this sort of backyard landscaping idea as well in your quest for the one.
Hardscapes may not need as much maintenance as you would when you make use of plants. That would be one of the good backyard landscaping ideas that you may want to use someday.
Quaint yard with basic backyard landscaping
If you would rather keep your backyard to yourself, then maybe you don’t require to bother about the huge, green lawn. Possibly you’d rather have a quaint yard with basic backyard landscaping.
You can set in some grass, strategically place some shade trees and grow some of your favorite flowers. Include some bigger bushes if the area allows as they will add some gorgeous green to your colorful backyard.
This type of backyard may need the same maintenance as a large backyard, but not nearly the time commitment. No matter what your personality tells about your backyard landscaping, one thing’s for sure—homeowners everywhere will tell you to create your backyard just the way you like to.
Use of Themes
Flowers, stones, and grass are just a few ways to backyard landscaping. Large shade trees, waterfalls, and herbal gardens are some other methods. The theme of your landscape will rely on your hobbies, interests, and goals for your backyard. Backyard landscaping can be a lot of fun, especially when you consider it personal.
Landscape your yard to reflect your and your home’s personality. If you and your family like to entertain, add a bar to your rear patio. Clean up the barbeque grill and don’t forget the citronella candles to keep the bugs away.
Perhaps you’ll want to construct a croquet course, mini-golf course, or put in a sandlot for some sand volleyball. Whatever your choice, create backyard landscaping fun for the entire family.
Use of Plants
The most effective method of converting any ordinary backyard is with the use of plants for landscaping. Making a garden full of plants can aid make any backyard spring to life.
There are numerous ways in which you can make various plants work to the advantage of your backyard. Choosing the plants that you wish to have in your backyard would deliver a distinct feel to your entire home later on.
If you wish to add some color to your backyard, add some flowering plants here in there to give a touch of distinction to your surroundings. For instance, you can have lovely red roses lining up a pathway or bunched up together in a garden to make that bouquet of color on a chosen spot.
You may even choose several flowering plants of various colors to keep your backyard even more colorful.
Vegetable Garden
Bear in mind that putting up a vegetable garden may take a lot of patience since it may take usually a couple of months before you notice their growth.
And much above that, vegetable plants need the right amount of water, sunlight, nutrients, and care to flourish and obviously require some bit of your time.
Before you buy any vegetation, visit a real garden center for guidance on drainage and soil preparation.
Use of Wildflowers
If you wish to add some color but may not have the time to care for the plants regularly, you may choose to make use of wildflowers that usually require little maintenance to thrive. Using them may even give your backyard that rugged and unpolished look that you may prefer over manicured lawns and seemingly artificial backyard landscapes.
Using plants can even help in making your own backyard easier to maintain. If it is your usual problem trying to mow an extensive area of your backyard, setting up a garden can easily reduce the lawn area that may need mowing.
Screening with Plants
If your yard doesn’t have a fence, you might want to consider planting a row of hawthorn, arborvitae, juniper, or a combination of these bushes to create privacy and provide a backdrop for future flower beds.
A strategically placed evergreen screen will also provide a windbreak from winter winds and drifting snow.
Planning a Border Flower Bed
The most challenging part of designing a border is selecting flowers that complement each other both in color and height. The list of perennials I suggest here is for a six-foot-wide bed in a mainly sunny situation. Wide, in this case, indicates outward from the plant screen or fence, not the length of the bed.
Use 3 or 5 plants for each kind of flower and allow 16”–18” between each plant. Allow 20”–22” between the different plant groups. Planting an odd number of plants is more attractive than an even number.
Allow adequate space at the rear of the bed for access. This will also control choking off necessary air and light from the plants in the back.
These are my tips for a perennial border. They were selected to give a long display, with the first flowers appearing in April and the last in October.
Tall plants for the back row: SEDUM ‘Autumn Joy’; PHLOX White; RUDBECKIA Goldsturm; SOLIDAGO ‘Golden Shower’; IRIS light blue or yellow; VERONICA Blue; and HOSTA fortunei ‘Picta’.
Shorter plants for the front row: GERANIUM grandiflorum; ASTER Dwarf Blue; POTENTILLA ‘Firedance’; HUECHERA Pink; ACHILLEA ‘Moonshine’; SEDUM Dragons Blood; and ERIGERON ‘Prosperity’.
Obviously, these plants are not the best choice for every climate. A practical book to help you choose plants native to your climate zone is The Comfortable Lazy Garden. It is also an excellent reference for beginning gardeners.
Island Bed
An island bed, as the name indicates, is planted in the middle of the yard wrapped by a sea of grass. It can differ in shape and size according to your creativity and available space. Scale the plants from tallest in the middle to shortest at the edges.
Preplanned Gardens
All of this Latin mumbo jumbo can be daunting for first-time gardeners. If you like a ready-made solution, Direct Gardening offers a wide selection of preplanned gardens planned to take all the guesswork out of plant selection and arrangement.
Water Feature
Imagine the reflective magnificence of a pond or the gentle splashing of a man-made waterfall. How about a 100-foot high waterslide? Maybe next time.
Maintenance
Keep your family too in mind, when it comes time to maintain the backyard landscaping. Large yards will need a lot more maintenance and grooming. Taking care of the yard can be a nice family activity. You can mow the lawn, pull the weeds and get the kids involved in watering the plants.
If you like to get some backyard landscaping done you should only do it yourself if it is going to be an easy and straightforward job. If you require irrigation things dealt with and planes and elevations leave it to the professionals that do it for a living.
These things may be over your head completely. You need to manage how you go about your backyard landscaping or you could end up with quite a mess on your hands.
Backyard landscaping is about many different things
Your backyard landscaping may have various things but the most important one of these is your well-being. Most people get into backyard landscaping because they want to change the look and feel of their home. They want to make it a fantastic place where their family can feel safe and comfortable all time.
Backyard landscaping is a wonderful way to add some more peace to your life whether you are alone or you have a large family and kids. You will be able to make a sanctuary with your backyard landscaping that you have never had before in your life.
If you have a fruit tree in your backyard, you’ll probably be spending some time picking up the fallen fruits. And of course, you’ll also need to reserve time to tend to your herbal garden. It can be surprisingly rewarding to grow your own herbs and use them in special recipes that you cook when you’re entertaining friends and neighbors.
There are a couple of great places for you to learn some more about backyard landscaping such as the local public library and the internet. You can get many backyard landscaping books out of the library and these will help you to make the best decisions as to your landscaping needs. You can also get many do-it-yourself tips online.
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