A strip of greenery in your backyard ? even a small space ? completes the charm of your own home. Nothing can parallel the experience of a relaxed weekend amidst the greenery of nature and the calling of the birds in your own backyard. Your enjoyment of nature will be even greater if your garden ? no matter what its size ? is neatly manicured and artfully landscaped. When it comes to landscaping the garden, many people hold the misconception that you need an expert to provide your garden with the desired shape and look. But in reality, it is possible to design your own garden according to your taste. In fact, landscaping can be all fun and easy if you are armed with proper information.

What is garden landscaping?

Landscaping is often described as a pursuit of art, backed up by scientific knowledge. The aesthetic sense in you makes the garden alluring, while the scientific knowledge will allow you to choose the right plants for the climate. Thus in order to get started in your landscaping endeavor, polish up your finer senses of aesthetics and try to acquire information about basic landscaping designs.

There are five major elements to landscape designing. They are:

  • Color
  • Texture
  • Scale
  • Line
  • Form

Color: The color is added by the selection of flowers and particular shrubs and plants. The color schemes most commonly used in landscape designing are: monochromatic, analogous and complementary. While the monochromatic color scheme consists of different shades of one color, analogous color schemes are based on the colors which stay side-by-side on the color wheel. Complementary color schemes on the other hand comprise the hues that stay directly opposite each other in the color wheel.
Line: You can create the landscape in a line that is either straight or curved. While straight line has certain force of itself, curved lines appeared to be gentle to the eyes of the beholder and they create an illusion of movement.
Form: Lines are closely associated with that of the form. The form depends on the type of the plantations and their growth habit. Form relates to the aspects of size or area of the garden.
Texture: This factor is not influenced by the plants alone; there are many other objects in the garden like bridge, path etc that add to the roughness or smoothness of the landscape.
Scale: This refers to the size or dimension of any object in terms of the total area of the garden. Good landscaping depends on the sense of the scale and symmetry.
These are the basic elements of landscape design. Add your imagination and creativity to the basic elements and create your own private retreat of peace and tranquility.