Landscaping

What is landscaping? It is an activity where science and art meet and blend together creating a harmony between nature and construction. It can modify or beautify visible features of land and adapt it to natural (landforms), living (flora or fauna), human (structures) and abstract (weather) elements.

Landscaping has historically evolved into formal and informal garden designs. Formal gardens incorporate geometric designs. The English garden is synonymous with a formal garden design. This design makes use of plants as ‘guinea pigs’ to showcase your artistic talent in designing your garden. The plants play supporting roles to your creations. One plant that conforms well to its creator’s geometric designs is the boxwood. It is easily molded to whatever form you may wish it to have - be it a circle, a straight line and other shapes you’d like to imagine. This shrub can be maintained as hedges and can be your whole garden. There is no variety and no display of colorful blooms. Green is the dominant color. The Greeks and Romans used these hedges to partition off segments of the landscape. They were also sculpted into topiaries to form animal figures. Imagine a plant trimmed to depict a horse. Remember Edward Scissorhands, the movie? The pinnacle of this kind of design was the classical French garden. Knot garden style, a geometrically designed garden used in formal landscaping using plants as edgings, was adopted in medieval monastery gardens.

Informal garden design’s predecessor was the English cottage garden. It was ‘life imitating art’. It was a ‘back to nature’ style of gardens. Rose bushes, perennial flowers, vine covered arbors and tumbling plants on gravel paths and walkways dominated the scene. This is the kind of garden design preferred by most people nowadays. The plant is the center of attention. Colors bloom everywhere. The landscaped arrangement evokes of nature. It gives you a feeling of solitude, quietness and peace when you are surrounded by the informality of this garden. Explore the possibility of an eco-friendly landscaping idea. You can contribute to earth’s green revolution by implementing ideas for green living to save energy and money, too. Plants in strategic places can play a role in energy conservation. There are also a variety of plants ideal for water conservation to choose from. Nursery gardens, garden exhibitions and stores will give you ideas on what plants to buy, how and where to plant them.

Remaking your landscape is a lot of work and expensive. Before you begin, make sure that the design you want will truly reflect your personality and convictions, and at the same time make sense on practicality. To put it simply, landscaping is making improvements on your home grounds. Everything that stands outside your house is part of your landscape, and any object affecting the overall aesthetics of your grounds is landscaping. Your house and ground should be in harmony with each other. Once achieved, you can enjoy nature anytime of the day and even at night. What are you waiting for?

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