A well-designed backyard landscape can lower your cooling costs, provide shade, create a windbreak, add beauty to your home and attract wildlife. Studies have shown that being surrounded by nature reduces anxiety and stress levels.

A professional landscape designer will follow a design process that considers local conditions, your wants and needs, and design principles. We’ll help you achieve your ideal landscape aesthetic: Contact Landscaping Harrisburg PA now!

Plants add visual appeal and value to any landscape, residential or commercial. They also offer a variety of other benefits, including lowering the temperature in urban areas, decreasing CO2 levels and absorbing pollutants before releasing clean oxygen into the environment. They can also decrease noise pollution by absorbing and deadening unwanted sounds and act as natural water filters.

Incorporating plants into a landscape has been proven to increase property values, as well as create a more welcoming environment for residents and visitors. Additionally, plants can help reduce stress and depression by creating a sense of well-being and offering a place for people to relax. Plants can even help control erosion by reducing the amount of soil that is washed away by rainwater.

Native landscaping is a sustainable alternative to traditional turf grass lawns and requires less maintenance, fertilizers and pesticides. Because they are adapted to the local environment, native plants do not need watering as frequently as conventional lawns, as they are able to retain moisture from evapotranspiration (evaporation from plant leaves) and interception (water absorbed by the roots). In addition, a meadow or mead can be used instead of a mowed lawn to help pollinators, save money on mowing and reduce air pollution from lawn mower exhaust.

Elements

Landscape design is not just about putting plants here and there, it’s about how everything works together. This is why knowing the elements and principles of design is essential. It helps you understand how to make the most out of your space, creating attractive and functional outdoor “rooms” for a variety of purposes.

The five basic elements of landscaping are line, form, scale, color and texture. These are all used in combination to create visual attraction. These are the building blocks of landscape composition and can be found in every element, from the smallest to the largest component in a garden.

For example, varying the height of your plants can add interest to a landscape composition. Also, adding a variety of textures can create interest and create contrast in your landscape. These contrasting elements are important for your landscape to have depth. For example, a softer and more subtle texture of leaves or bark can contrast the coarser, more defined textures of twigs and branches.

Proportion and balance are also important in the landscape. For example, the size of your planters should match the size of the structures they surround. This creates harmony and a sense of balance.

Finally, adding accents like lighting and sound to your landscape can enhance the experience for your family and friends. Adding soothing fountains can provide a peaceful atmosphere to help relieve stress, while music or a pleasing scent can set a more cheerful mood.

Form

Landscape design is more than just a way to make outdoor spaces attractive; it is also an opportunity to incorporate artful composition. Incorporating elements like line, form, texture and visual weight helps to create a sense of movement and balance in a garden, establishing a visual theme and connecting different aspects of the landscape.

Form refers to the three-dimensional qualities of a landscape, and is influenced by the shape of flowerbeds, ponds, outdoor structures and facets of a home’s architecture. Plants’ forms can serve various purposes in a garden, from acting as focal points to providing privacy. Their growth habits determine spacing and layering and how light penetrates the landscape.

Shrubs come in a variety of forms, including upright, vase-shaped, rounded and cascading. Different types of shrubs serve different functions, with upright and mounded forms being preferred for ground cover and cascading and spiky shrubs used to work as focal points.

Texture is the feel of the landscape, and can be defined as coarse or fine, rough or smooth, light or heavy. A landscape with a variety of textures adds contrast and visual interest, while too much of one texture can appear harsh or boring. In landscapes, textures are most often seen in hardscape materials like pavers and walls as well as in foliage, flowers and lawn panels.

Color

Savvy use of color can elevate a landscape design. It can add a unifying element, draw attention to a focal point in the garden, or highlight an outdoor living space during different seasons. However, it can also be one of the most challenging aspects of landscape design.

Color affects our perception of space, with lighter hues visually expanding areas while darker shades shrink them. Colors also have environmental impacts, with some reflecting sunlight to keep outdoor spaces cooler and others absorbing heat to make them more comfortable.

The first step in integrating color into a landscape is to consider the environment in which it will be used, from house colors and other hardscape features to what flowers and foliage are already growing on or near your property. This information will help you to select colors that complement the existing plant material and fit the style of your home.

From there, you’ll want to consider what kind of visual impact you would like the colors in your garden to have. For example, a monochromatic color scheme uses varying shades and tints of a single color to create a simple, balanced look. Complementary colors, found next to each other on the color wheel, are another popular option for creating a unified landscape. This can be achieved by combining colors such as green and purple or yellow and blue. Some plants, such as black eyed susans and Colorado gold gazanias, naturally offer complementary colors.

Movement

Landscaping is the art of creating beautiful gardens and coordinating their growth to fit within a limited space. It also involves incorporating environmental factors to produce sustainable landscapes that benefit people and the ecosystem. Planting native species, removing alien plants and reducing water usage are just some of the ways in which landscapers help improve our surroundings.

In this study, we analyzed the movement behavior of two nectarivorous forest birds (apapane and iiwi) in a naturally fragmented Hawaiian island landscape and a nearby continuous landscape. We compared space-use, core area and home range, and a suite of behavioral movement metrics including turn radius, velocity and directional persistence across landscape configurations.

We found that bird movement patterns were strongly influenced by landscape configuration, with distinct patterning of space-use and movement behavior among species and landscape types. For example, both species in the fragmented landscape deployed a restricted use strategy, predominantly occupying a single forest patch (kipuka), with limited search behaviors in the matrix of small kipuka and low-lying fruiting shrubs. In contrast, the species in the continuous landscape were more dispersive and displayed a wider search region.

Focalization

Focalization is a landscape design concept that draws the eye into a specific point of interest. It is a great way to add definition and symmetry to an otherwise unstructured design. Focalization is often achieved with the use of unique plants or hardscape elements that stand out from the rest of your property.

A common technique is to include a focal plant, such as a tree or unique flowering bush that is set apart from the other plants on your property. Another way to create a focal point is to incorporate a water feature into your landscaping. This could be anything from a fountain to a cobblestone accent or other rock water feature. Focalization is also accomplished through the use of various plant heights, which can help create visual interest and add dimension to your landscaping.

In addition, a variety of textures, colors and movements can all be used to draw the eye to a particular point. This is especially true when these design elements are incorporated into a symmetrical balance.

As with all of the principles of landscape design, balance is the key to a beautiful and functional backyard oasis. We work with clients to achieve the best balance for their property, whether it is informal or formal, symmetrical or asymmetrical. Whatever your preferences, we can create a yard that is both welcoming and eye-catching, and we look forward to helping you make your outdoor space the centerpiece of your home!