Garden landscaping design

What is the purpose of garden landscaping design?
The intent of garden design is to provide peace of mind and aesthetic unity between the landscape and the architecture of the home. Gardens tie all things together, from hardscapes, trees, outdoor water features, and swimming pool design.

How should garden landscaping design make a person feel?
The most important thing is to make you and those you invite over feel a sense of warmth and invitation. Because vegetation is alive, it carries with it the very warmth of life itself. Sculpting vegetation into forms and patterns that magnify this warmth is the heart and soul of all garden landscaping design. Objects placed within the vegetation should add vertical impact and provide focal points so people will focus their attention on the rich sensory experience the garden has to offer.

Are focal points important to garden landscaping design?
Yes, because they give the eye something to rest on. This allows you to slow down and explore the rest of the garden. When you have company over, this is vital to the creation of a sublime and beautiful moment when your guests see your garden for the first time. The size, shape, or color of the focal point can attract their attention or help them navigate to other points of interest.

In the case of navigation, garden entryways are extremely important because they establish the mood of the entire garden experience. An entry can be something as simple as a wrought iron fence, or it can be much more complex, such as a masonry wall with an arched entrance. Sometimes pergolas and arbors are also used as entryways to very large and formal gardens to create a sense of drama and scale.

Is it true that a garden should have many different kinds of plants and flowers?
Generally speaking, Houston gardens do better when they consist of carefully selected plant materials that are arranged with appropriate designs. Too many different plants and colors of flowers hits the mind with more of a patchwork explosion of sense rather than a controlled, deliberate, unified field of aesthetic. This is the mistake most commonly made by do-it-yourselfers and cheap garden and lawn companies. They think more is better, and the more the merrier and better.

In reality, repetition of key elements is the secret to professional garden landscaping design. Just a few plant species interspersed with the right hardscape materials can them be used to generate repeating themes that reflect and compliment the architecture of the home and blend the garden with other features on the landscape.

Is repetition really all that importation in garden landscaping design?
Yes. It is extremely important. You see repetition in Nature itself, everywhere you look. Go to any valley, beach, mountain, forest, or desert, and you will see repeating shrubs, flowers, and tree growth with a symmetry that looks as though it has arranged itself. Nature’s beauty has been attributed by many to a simplicity that seems wise beyond human logic. In landscape design, we work to duplicate this simplicity by emphasizing geometry, pattern, and style with a less-is-more approach that is more subtle and suggesting than it is strong and overpowering.