Garden Landscape Design

The first thing we do in developing a garden landscape design is select the best location for a garden. We look for an area that will appear complimentary to the home from multiple points of view, so that regardless of whether you are looking at the garden from your living room window, or admiring it from the patio of your custom swimming pool, the garden will add a unique and special vitality to the moment. Such locations often include the bases of fountains, areas around outdoor buildings, patios, fences, and masonry. Many of the larger, more formal garden designs like Parterre gardens can even center an entire landscape, serving as organic focal point around which all other landscape design features are designed.

The actual style chosen for a particular garden landscape design is based on two factors: geometry and intended theme. Because any house occupies the position of central importance on the property, it is necessary to begin every residential landscape project with a systematic architectural analysis. No matter how eclectic a house looks, its architecture is based on the same basic geometric forms seen in every other structure. It is only the manner in how these forms are combined that determines uniqueness. Our garden landscape design professionals pinpoint these forms and plant vegetation in corresponding patterns. These forms will either directly reflect architectural geometry, or they will compliment it with correlative counterpunctual designs.

Another consideration that weighs heavily in our choice of style is the theme of the landscape master plan. If we are looking to create an abstract, conceptual aesthetic, we will plant a contemporary or modern garden. If we want to create a sense of meditative repose, we can build a Zen garden or Japanese water garden. Formalism is best developed through traditional garden designs, such as French, Italian, and English Gardens. Mediterranean and Tropical gardens can be planted if we want to create an atmosphere of the romantic or the exotic. Custom gardens that are comprised of blended elements from all styles can work to establish a strong eclectic tone in the landscape.

The heart and soul of garden landscape design are the plants and flowers growing within the garden. Every design, regardless of origin, depends upon a blended presentation of greenery and color. Different shades of green must be used in order to avoid looking flat and two dimensional. A layering of lighter shades of green with darker tones creates a much deeper, more multi-dimensional perspective. Different shrub species, ground cover plants, and special types of grass our use to create these layers of shade and tone that range from an almost lime-green to a dark green that almost looks black in certain light levels.

Once this foundation of green is laid, color is then be added in appropriate amounts, depending on the style of garden we are developing. There are a few designs, such as the Parterre Garden, that use practically no flowering plants at all. Others styles like knot gardens feature a plethora of herbs that flower seasonally and add a different spectrum to the yard every 3-6 months. Still other forms like French, Italian, and especially tropical gardens, allow for a much more creative and liberal use of color.