Most people think landscape design is all about the plants, but that’s just one element in the mix. Professionals call planting design “soft landscaping,” but some of the best benefits of a designer garden come from “hard landscaping” which includes things like designing entertainment areas, paving, and a whole bunch of practicalities including drainage. Check out GTS Landscaping as an example of the range of design and renovation services you can expect.

How to Get a Designer Garden

Practicality First

Great landscape designers are practical souls with a penchant for problem-solving. You might think that the “blank canvas” that’s left behind when builders pack up and go just needs a bit of prettying up, but you’d be surprised to find how many problems they often leave behind in their wake.

After all, builders do buildings, and as far as they’re concerned, nothing else is particularly important. So, when it rains, you find out that your neighbor’s runoff runs merrily through your garden, creating an unwanted lake in your front yard, damming up against garden walls and threatening to undermine them.

Or perhaps you find that your sloping property is shedding soil at a rate of knots leaving you to wonder if there’ll be anything left of your yard in a year or two. Most common of all, they leave behind soil problems including those nasty patches where they mixed small batches of concrete or dumped building rubble with a scratching of soil to cover it up. These are the kind of problems that landscape designers are trained to spot and correct.

Now for Some Social Science

Before laying out paving, beds, and lawns, landscape designers will find out what kind of outdoor activities you want happening in your yard. Now’s the time to specify things like fire-pits, corners for reflection, open lawns for children’s play and so on.

Looking at the site plan, your designer tries to design all the spaces you need with a focus on how you would experience those spaces and how you and your guests would move from one to another. They’ll even think of things like lighting. Ask any landscaper of note: it’s about experiences first.

And the Finishing Touches

Having plotted out a series of “outdoor rooms” and a circulation plan, it’s time to get artistic. Paving design, focal points and features, views and vistas, colors and textures, and yes, at last, some planting design, come into play. All of these elements reinforce the function of your garden, so that you don’t end up having to entertain in full view of your washing line or find yourself wishing that the pathway was just a little broader or you had a machete to cut through the undergrowth.

A Well-Designed Garden Becomes Part of Your Home

The results you get from a designer garden make it so much more than just the outside of your house or an attempt at “curb appeal” that’s meant for passersby. It becomes part of your home and your lifestyle. Everything has a place, and that place is designed for its purpose.

If you’ve never experienced this, it’s hard to explain what a pleasure it is. But perhaps you’ve got some idea of it now, and if so, you’ll know why you absolutely do want a designer garden. How can you get one? Get in touch with a truly professional landscape designer, of course!