Tips for Amateur Landscaping

Literally speaking, the term ‘landscaping’ refers to the alteration and enhancement of one’s surroundings, the object being beautification. To achieve this, the physical characteristics of these surroundings are manipulated in various ways. Effective amateur landscaping doesn’t exactly have to be on the same level as those with experience, amateurs with an artistic temperament, an eye for beauty, and a basic sense of geology and symmetry can get the job done.

Once you have decided to undertake some basic amateur landscaping around your house, you will need to take a closer look at what you hope to achieve. Is your objective to make a pleasant little retreat for yourself, or to turn your front yard into a spectacular showpiece that the neighbors will be envious of? If all you really want is to please yourself and your family, you should ask for input from them, too. If your objective is to impress others than your own immediate family, you will need to study a few manuals on landscaping to better understand what designs are currently popular. However, following these tips for amateur landscaping should help.

Here are a few tips for amateur landscaping:

You will have to set aside a certain budget for the project, the idea being to operate within this budget and not overshoot it. Once these fundamentals are established, you can proceed. There are some general rules to amateur landscaping that you should understand.

� For small areas, symmetric patterns and rounded lines are best. This means that flowerbeds, hedges and garden accessories should be located at regular intervals form each other. Avoid sharp angles to the pattern, as these are harder to maintain.

� While planning the flowerbeds, remember that certain flowers grow around the year while others are seasonal. In other words, there may be certain months of the year in which you will have small barren pockets in your landscaped area. You should therefore choose round-the-year plants. Alternatively, plan a regular rotation of seasonal flowers.

� No landscaping is complete without some kind of hedging. Grown to adequate height, these can afford a unique degree of privacy to your house as well. Hedges are shrubs and grow more or less on their own if watered regularly. They also serve to give aesthetic definition to the landscaping of your house and its surroundings.

âÂ?¢ Lawn grass is definitely a mandatory factor – no landscaped house is complete without an eye-pleasing groundwork of green. But lawn grass should be chosen according to the physical characteristics of the soil – certain types will not grow will on rocky soil or with excessive shade.

� If you intend to use accessories (statues, birth-baths, park benches, etc.) do not go on a haphazard shopping spree. Whatever you include within your landscaped surroundings should match the overall pattern and design. For instance, avoid ornate marble birth-baths and imitation Greek statuary if the rest of the area does not support it.

These tips for amateur landscaping should be enough for anyone to get started and do the job right. Amateur landscaping is not necessarily difficult but if one doesn’t follow the basic tips mentioned above, landscaping could be cumbersome especially for amateurs.