Understanding the Language of Landscape Design

Whenever you put something together yourself, you are engaged in designing. Sometimes we take our designing skills for granted, because what we're putting together is so commonplace for us that we are no longer conscious of the designing process. For instance, you are employing designing techniques when you compose a letter to send to somebody. Your basic "elements" to accomplish such a task include vocabulary, spelling and grammar. Some more complex elements, or "principles," are built directly on the basic elements. Letter-writing principles include conveying your ideas clearly and coming across as a courteous, intelligent individual. Your success with these principles will largely determine whether your letter achieves its ultimate objective or not.

And so it is with landscape design. Do-it-yourselfers must first learn the basic designing elements that underlie the discipline of landscape design. These fundamental elements will then serve as building blocks for learning and implementing the more advanced principles for designing a garden in the backyard. These tried and true principles are the cornerstones of the world's picture-perfect gardens.

The basic elements of landscape design are:

· Colour, as defined by colour theory.

· Form

· Line

· Scale.

· Texture

These five elements must be considered in designing both the hardscape and softscape of your property, the latter consisting mainly of gardens, lawns, shrubs and trees. As for scale, it is simply the size of one component relative to adjacent components.

Colour, along with form, line, texture and scale, is one of the basic elements of landscape design, while proportion, transition and unity are some of the principles that rely on those elements. Your choice of colours to be used in the yard should not be considered in isolation. Rather, always keep in mind how colour interplays with the other basic elements, with the principles of landscape design, and with the overall objectives of your plan.