Flower Gardens and the Landscape

The landscape of your property is the natural decor surrounding your home.  It's the process of tying all the natural elements - trees, flowers, rocks and water - into a pleasing whole. 

Your flower garden should be an important element in the overall landscape.  It should be peaceful and restful, a beautiful addition that reflects your personality.  Whether that means elegant and stylish, or smart and fun, you create the space that most appeals to you.

Design your garden to fit in with the rest of the landscape, creating a flow and harmony that is pleasing not only to you, but to your guests as well.  Let it be a place of enjoyment for all who venture into it.

The same design elements that help to structure your landscape, such as form, line, scale and texture, are  important in the design of your flower garden, as well.  These elements all play their role in achieving a pleasing design that complements your home.

More so, perhaps, than in the overall landscape, color plays a very important role in designing the flower garden.  Choose flowers in complementary colors, that work well with each other and flow from one color to the next.  Contrasting colors will clash, disrupting the peacefulness and beauty you're striving for.

In much the same way as you choose trees of different heights, and bushes below them in the larger landscape, in the flower garden you should choose flowers of different heights, shape and fullness.  Varying forms are pleasing to the eye, while uniformity can be boring and look institutional.

You'll want the eye to flow naturally throughout your garden, and fences are very useful in creating the lines of your garden and directing the viewers eye.  Use fences to create both horizontal and vertical flow, striving for as natural a pattern as possible.

Keep the height of the mature plant in mind when considering the layout of your garden.  Plantings along walls or other barriers should always flow from tallest in the back to shortest along the outer edge.

If you have the room and the inclination, a water feature can make a stunning addition to the garden and surrounding landscape.  Anything from a simple splashing fountain, to a pond or waterfall can add a touch of serenity to garden.  Just the sound of splashing water relaxes us and lessens stress.

Don't forget walkways in your design.  Not only will you and your guests get closer to the flowers, but the different types of walkways are a design element themselves.  Match your walkway to the structure and feel of your garden, and tie the entire garden together.

And, finally, choose flowers that work with your landscape.  You might be able to grow orchids outside in you area, but if you have a traditional garden they may not blend in.  Harmony and balance are the keys to a pleasing garden design that will give you years of pleasure.