For Starters

This is it, we are finally at the stage where we can take all of the principles we have now learned, the creativity we have uncovered in ourselves, and the knowledge of how things go together to make a composition, and turn it into the landscape of our dreams! This is the design phase, the phase where we will see all of our thoughts and ideas take shape on paper. The end result will be a plan that can be implemented in a structured and achievable manner.

The design phase is actually a process, a prescribed series of steps common to all landscaping projects. If you follow these basic steps and apply the landscaping knowledge that you have learned at the right times, then you will be able to arrive at the result you are hoping for. There are four basic steps; defining the existing landscape, making bubble plans, designing the new landscape, and finalizing the plan. We will look at each in detail throughout this section.

	Have the necessary drawing materials and plans on hand before starting the design process

Before you start, ensure that you have all the necessary tools easily at hand; this will prevent you from being distracted once you get immersed in the process. Following is a brief list of the major items you should obtain prior to working on the design process;

Drafting Supplies - You will need some basic drawing tools, nothing fancy, but enough to draw your landscape. Consider a good pencil, preferably a mechanical pencil, coloring pencils, an eraser, a straight-edge ruler, a “French curve” (if available), and a protractor and compass for marking angles and drawing circles.

Paper - The base plans should be drawn on graph paper, which is paper that is divided into a linear grid pattern. This helps immensely with maintaining proper scale in your plan. Concepts and ideas are built on top of the base designs, and there are two ways to accomplish this; you can run off photocopies of the base plan and mark concepts over it (be cautious that the copying process doesn’t skew the scale), or you can use very thin tracing paper over top of the base plan. Either way is acceptable.

Working Space - To make work easier and to remain neat and clean, you should try and simulate a drafting table in your home. Make sure that you have a clear table set aside solely for this purpose, leaving it available for maybe 2-3 weeks. Have lots of room to draw and have all required papers laid out in front of you.

House Plan - Obtain a copy of your house plan, which will help identify the main traffic ways and view points from your house to your yard, with accurate measurements. If you can’t find this, then use a separate piece of graph paper to draw up a simple house layout, indicating major rooms, windows and doors, with some basic outside dimensions.

Property Survey - It is very important to have the accurate dimensions of your property to transpose onto your landscape design plan. You should be able to obtain the plans from the county, city or municipal land titles or land survey office for a small fee. You can also do it the old fashioned way, and measure off your property; this is simple for relatively rectangular properties, but can get rather complicated for large, pie-shaped or oddly shaped lots.

It is also quite possible nowadays to do the drafting and drawing on computer, if you are computer literate. There are a number of landscaping software packages on the market which can be used to generate landscape designs and plans. A couple of cautions about these; while they can afford wonderful techniques such as 3-D views and walkthroughs, or views over time, they are rather difficult to work with, since you essentially have to draw your home and property into the plan. Another option is CAD (computer-aided design) software. This is very flexible, and typically how the professional landscapers develop plans, but it requires a great degree of skill and knowledge on how to use the programs, and is certainly not for the beginner.

Common landscaping symbols

You will need to establish a basic convention of symbols for your drawing. Hard structures such as buildings and fences are typically drawn from an overhead perspective as large rectangles or other simple geometric shapes. You can represent trees and shrubs with circles which approximate the widths or spread of each plant, typically with a few random lines or zigzags drawn across the circle. Contour changes are drawn as dashed or dotted lines, roughly matching the flow of the land change, or lines of equal height. Paths, sidewalks and driveways are smooth lines an equal distance apart. You may need to “fake” a few symbols for things that aren’t otherwise obvious; just keep a legend or key to the side of your drawing describing in words what these symbols represent, and most importantly, ensure that the symbols are scaled relative to the drawing.

Step 1 - The Existing Landscape

The first step in developing your landscape plan is to fully define the existing landscape on paper as it exists right now. This will form the building block for your new design, and allow you to plot your ideas against features and factors that may be beyond your control. It will also readily expose elements that you might want to change, and those that may be too difficult or costly to change.

	The existing landscape

Start by plotting your property on a piece of graph paper, using a scale that utilizes the page as much as possible. Take the property dimensions from your land survey and transfer them onto your paper. Be sure you are accurate with your property lines, as very slight errors may make some landscaping features difficult to implement. Take into account any setbacks or easements that may dictate what you can or cannot do on certain parts of your property, and mark these. Reference the drawing to true north as indicated on the survey, and mark this on the drawing; we will use it later to measure sunlight and shade patterns.

Allow approx. 50% overshoot beyond your property on your plan, to be able to mark neighboring features and views on your plan, particularly on those sides where there may be neighboring homes, forests and hedges, major trees, undesirable elements, etc.; anything that can have an effect on your property. Draw in the main street(s) and sidewalks and any other nearby off-property features that afford other people views on to your property.

Transpose your basic house plan onto this drawing. You only need to identify major interior rooms, windows, doors, and any particular features that are either highly valuable or undesirable so that they can be accounted for later on in the plan. Note well any overhangs or cantilevers. Draw any existing decks or patios attached to the house. Mark all underground and above-ground hazards and utilities, such as gas or power lines, streetlights, sewer manholes, creeks or lakes, and service boxes.

Overlay of existing visual and climatic conditions

Now mark other existing features of your property that are separate from the house. First, draw any major contour or grade changes, such as a drainage ditch, hills or mounds, or general slopes, using lines with arrows to indicate grade changes. Draw in all major trees and shrubs, indicated by a circle with lines through it, with each radius approximating the canopy of the particular tree. Note all gardens; vegetable, foundation plantings, flower and shrub gardens. Identify all existing structures such as sheds, woodpiles and storage areas, clotheslines, fences and arbors. Be sure to physically walk out into your yard once or twice during this process, to be sure you have everything accounted for.

This now becomes your base copy of the existing landscape. You must now either make photocopies or use tracing paper to overlay existing visual and climatic conditions. On a copy or the trace, use broad arrows to indicate prevailing winds, especially winds coming from exposed sides of the property. Indicate sides with particularly open exposures. Also plot the sun on this trace, indicating it’s location at mid-morning, high noon and early evening. Note features that will create deep shade, and draw in the areas of the property that will be affected. Mark views off of your property that you would like to highlight, and also those that you want to conceal. Save this copy for later, as it will be used to test your final design for these key landscape considerations.

Step 2 - Bubble Plans

The second phase of the design process is the bubble plan. In preparation for this step, take either a copy of your base existing landscape drawing, or use tracing paper over the original drawing. You should expect to make a few attempts at bubble plans, because this is where your creativity starts.

	A typical bubble plan, with bubbles for each major landscape function or zone

The idea behind bubble planning is simple. You will take the major functions you want to integrate into your landscape and represent them by roughly drawn shapes, just big blobs or bubbles. These are really without any particular definition or shape, just a way of drawing the major outdoor rooms of your landscape onto your plan. This is not the time to get specific shapes for gardens, dimensions for the new shed, or widths of the new driveway. Rough guesses are all that is important right now; the bubbles should represent the approximate sizes of each function, but accuracy is not required.

A good start is to make bubbles of the five or so major functions you identified as important to your landscape in your personal assessment, plus any that are automatically given in the existing landscape, and those which are created of necessity (e.g. utility areas). Here is a list of some common landscape functions or features that can be represented by bubbles, blobs or curves;

- sizeable structures or buildings (garages, shops, garden sheds, etc.)
- the utility/storage area for incoming services, the well, woodshed, etc.
- the public view area as visible from the street or other main public zone
- screenings, such as fences or hedges
- your private space
- entertaining area
- an open lawn or sports run
- the children’s play area
- a future deck or patio
- an orchard or vegetable garden
- flower and/or shrub gardens
- foundation plantings
- a designated park or forested area
- water gardens
- a swimming pool, spa or wading pool
- designated wildlife spaces or attractions

Don’t worry about connecting the bubbles at this stage; that is left for the final phase. For now, assume that the bubbles will be properly connected later on. You are also not worried about details, such as accents, materials or specific elements. This stage is all about major functions; the specific trees, flowers, statues, etc. will be selected later on and fitted to this plan.

Try and fit the bubbles onto your existing plan, taking note of how they interact with the existing landscape features, and how they interact with each other. Note what things may have to change to accommodate where you might want a particular function to be located. Also be realistic about the space you are allowing for each particular function, noting that in general, a guideline for the “human scale” is the size of the rooms in your house, about 20’ by 20’ for most functions, with some obvious exceptions. Can you fit everything into your plan, or will you have to remove some functions? Or, is the plan too empty, leaving room to add more functions?

A gazebo for entertaining would be one bubble in your plan

I strongly urge you to take a few different approaches to this, working with an open mind and not becoming too attached to any one particular layout at this very early stage. Try some radically different configurations; maybe by organizing things differently, you can fit more into your plan, or you can find a more appealing combination. Many of the bubble locations will be beyond your control, such as the location of the utilities or the public view. Others will be very flexible, such as the location of gardens, screenings or your private spaces. I suggest a good rule of thumb is to make 3-5 different bubble plans.

With the completion of each bubble plan attempt, you need to test it for viability. Much will become immediately apparent about which plans will work and which will not, or what should be moved to a different location. Check your sizings for realism; do they truly reflect the actual sizes that you want for each function? Ensure that you have left adequate room to pass from bubble to bubble, and that they will not infringe on each other’s space.

The most important test at this stage is for bubble compatibilities and incompatibilities. Examine all adjacent bubble pairs from the perspective of their functionality, and foresee how they would work together. For example, it may be very pleasing to have your prize flower garden bordering your entertaining area, so your guests can enjoy the sights and smells when they visit. Likewise, the vegetable garden will go well next to the utility and service area, as they both should be kept away from the main human activities. On the other hand, it may not be wise to locate the kid’s swings next to the vegetable garden, because you know at some point that they will stray onto the garden. It is also not wise to locate the service area right next to the public view gardens, as it will detract from the impact of the gardens. Look for hazards that don’t belong in or next to certain bubbles. Ensure that that the kids’ play areas are not adjacent to the driveway, or that you do not have a garden planted right over the underground utilities. Most of these compatibility tests will be intuitively obvious, but sometimes you have to focus on them to notice them for what they are.

In the end, you should find that you narrow down your various bubble plans to one or two that really seem to make sense. They pass all the tests, seem aesthetically correct, and make the best use of the space you have while affording you the pleasures you seek from your landscape. This final best plan is the one you should carry forward into the next step, where you will turn it into a formal landscape design.

Step 3 - New Landscape Plans

By now, you should have one or two bubble plans that seem like they will lead you to a finished landscape design that really works. Now, take a clean copy of the original existing landscape plan, and overlay the bubble plan onto it. You can do this by placing the trace underneath just so that it can be seen through, or by penciling in the bubbles lightly onto the existing plan. However, the bubbles shouldn’t appear on the final design plan; they are only a guideline.

	The basic landscape plan, ready for testing

We now start working on the final landscape plan. The concept behind this phase is rather simple; working from bubble to bubble, and using all of the information and knowledge you have gained from this guide, start filling in the details of each bubble. This means selecting and assigning the different plants where plants are required, from the tallest of shade trees to the hedges, garden shrubs and smallest of flowers. It also means assigning the hard materials where they are required; structures, surfacing and features. It means making some decisions; if you need a screen, do you want to put up a fence or plant a hedge? If you require a groundcover for a certain spot, will you choose a grass lawn, a groundcover shrub or perennial, or a low-maintenance mulching material? If you require an accent in a particular location, will you use a hard accent or an ornamental plant?

Examine any specific grades that may be required by certain bubbles, and plan for them. Put in any retaining walls or slope-managing structures, and note the degree of work that will be required to implement these. Note any berms, swails or other topographical features that may need to be installed.

Fit your plants to perform the functions that you need; tall and broad trees for shade or enframement, pyramidal or columnar trees for articulation, and appropriately shaped shrubs to balance the strong house and fence lines. Large open expanses which are unassigned can be converted to low maintenance groundcovers, or forest-like thickets of naturalized trees and shrubs. Make function more important than your personal preference of plant when selecting plants, although be sure that they are suited to their location. It is a good idea to make a list of the landscape functions you will require of plants based on your plan, and then identify 4 or 5 plants that are suited for each application. This way, you can still exercise personal choice when it comes time to make the selections.

In practice, it may not be quite that simple to develop each of the bubbles, but always fall back on the basic landscape design principles that we talked about earlier. Feel free to go back to review any relevant chapters that may refresh your memory about what to do in a particular situation. Remember balance, harmony, unity, and the other elements of composition. Use what is already existing in your landscape to its fullest advantage, and keep the plan as simple as possible, both to save costs and to allow for future additions or changes.

Complete the plan by adding all detail elements

Once you have fully developed each of the bubbles, it is time to connect them. Note in particular the bubbles that involve human activity, and anticipate the traffic flows. Plan for how your family and guests will get from one bubble to the next, from the house to the bubbles, and from the driveway or sidewalk to the relevant bubbles in a smooth and controlled manner. Predict the traffic volumes of each connection, and design an appropriate width and strength of material to accommodate the expected loads. Remember that clearly delineated pathways guide people both visually and literally, taking them where you want them to be, showing them what you want them to see, and keeping them away from where you don’t want them to be.

Finally, you must add the decorative touches, the detail elements. Finish up any vertical elements, such as fences, pergolas or arbors with strategic plantings. Pick your surfacing materials, balancing toughness and durability with harmony and unity to your design. Indicate where container plantings might accent your landscape, where small statues may add interest, or where you may wish to encourage people to stop and smell the flowers. Examine whether you want to put in night lighting, and where this would be most beneficial for guiding guests around at dusk. This is the time to plan for an irrigation system if you so desire, identifying the water requirements of each bubble.

Step 4 - Finalizing the Plan

You should now have a proposed final landscape plan, one that is ready to be tested against all of the design principles and for functionality and aesthetics. That is the purpose of the final design phase; to test your plan, and make the necessary revisions to prove beyond a doubt that this is the best plan for your home and yard.

The first test I like to call the “reality test”. Here, we check to see that your plan is reasonable when referenced against your existing landscape. Take your original existing landscape plan, and set it side by side or over your final design plan. Now, go from bubble to bubble, looking for features of the original landscape that are being changed. Look first for dramatic changes, those that will likely be the most expensive, particularly changes in grade or soil. Are you prepared or even able to accomplish these changes, both financially and physically? For example, if you are adding a berm or water garden to your back yard, can you physically get the soil in or out without destroying the rest of your landscape? Can you really drive a planting truck into your front yard to plant that new large tree without ruining your lawn? Be prepared to sacrifice some functions if they are too disruptive to the existing landscape.

There are numerous tests to perform on your landscape like the one above. Following is a listing of the major tests you should use to evaluate your plan;

Your Design Checklist - Go back to your original personal design checklist, where you identified your personal tastes, likes, dislikes and expectations. Check each feature of the landscape against this list, ensuring that they each meet the criteria you had indicated.

Plant Selection Analysis - Make a listing of the plants you have chosen to add to your landscape. Beside each plant in the list, note its major growth requirements; soil type, pH, moisture requirement, drainage, and light preferences. Then reference the location for each of these plants in your plan, and cross-check against the plant’s preferences to ensure that it will be happy where you are locating it, or that you are taking the appropriate steps to correct any deficiencies.

	Check the shade patterns of your proposed landscape, ensuring that plants will receive the light they require

Sun and Shade Analysis - Note the sun patterns over the day as you had indicated on your overlay for the existing landscape plan. Make a copy of your proposed landscape plan (or overlay with tracing paper) and use a dark pencil to sketch in the shade patterns across the day, represented by mid-morning, midday, and late afternoon. Using the plant list you made above, check that each plant is getting the sunlight it needs over the course of the day by examining the shade patterns. A plant that requires full sun should be in direct sunlight at least two of the three periods you analyze, while a plant that tolerates partial shade can succeed with only one period of sunlight. Also note how the shade patterns may change with the seasons, as the sun gets lower on the horizon; this is particularly important for plants that bloom in early spring or late fall.

Exposure - Again using the original overlay for the existing landscape plan, review your final plan for exposure and wind. Check to see that areas you have identified as exposed have appropriate screens or barriers to protect your landscape. Look for favorable microclimates, and check that gardens are particularly well protected. Ensure that only the hardiest of plants are being used in exposed locations, and that less hardy plants are in protected locations, well away from exposure and wind. Also be sure that entertaining and other human activity areas are properly sheltered from cold or prevailing winds.

Growth Over Time - Repeat your final landscape plan 3 times on 3 copies, representing your landscape at periods of 5, 10 and 20 years from installation. Obviously, hard materials won’t change, so this is really a test of your plants. Obtain data on the mature widths of your landscape plants, and adjust their spreads accordingly as they mature. Also note the impact of the heights you will intend to install them at, recognizing that the plants which are planted older will mature sooner. Look for how your shade patterns will change over time; a garden that might be in full sunlight right now may receive more and more shade as a nearby shade tree matures. Check to see that neighboring trees don’t start growing into each other, which can deform their ultimate shapes.

Color in your plan for each month, looking for seasonal color variation

Seasonal Color - An objective of good landscape design is to maintain interest in color throughout the seasons. Make a number of copies of your final plan, let’s say one for each month from April to October. Using coloring pencils, fill in the objects that have color one month at a time, referencing the flowering periods for plants, recognizing the permanence of hard material colors, and not forgetting about interesting foliage colors. Repeat this for each month. Once completed, stand back and compare the months. Ensure that there is adequate color interest in all months. Also ensure that the colors used within each month work well together.

Traffic Flows - Here you will study your chosen traffic ways, the paths, walkways and driveways connecting your home to the neighborhood and the functions within your landscape. First of all, recheck all the important “people” functions, and ensure that they are well connected. This may not be as important if they are adjacent, but it is quite significant if they will have to cross an area that isn’t intended to be walked on. Then, check to be sure that the main functional areas are connected to the house and to the main entranceway. Take an imaginary walk on the paths, checking to see what people will see as they walk through in real life. Finally, ensure that the widths and materials are suitable for the expected traffic volumes.

Bylaws and Ordinances - Get the list of bylaws and ordinances that you had made earlier, and read each specific item out. Reference all features or design concepts that each one may apply to, and check it in your plan. This is an important step, as missing an ordinance is no excuse for the law, and you can be obligated to change it later at a cost to you.

As a final test, you must check the cost of this particular design against your available budget. It is best to obtain actual hard costs or estimates for the materials and labor you require to implement the plan, but at this point, it should suffice to take guesses. As a rule of thumb, a complete landscape for a new home should cost about 10% of the value of the home. For renovation projects, this is much more flexible, but you can still use 5-10% of the market value of your home as a guideline. Most importantly, though, be absolutely sure that you can undertake this plan with the confidence that you can afford to finish it.

If your landscape passes these tests with flying colors, then you are ready to call this a final plan. If some tests have revealed features or design ideas that didn’t pass the muster, don’t fret; simply go back and apply the basic principles once again, and then repeat the test until you have it solved. Here’s a piece of advice from me either way; I recommend that after spending a great deal of time on the plan, you set it aside for a week or two, as difficult as that may be, and then come back to it later with a fresh mind. If the plan was finalized earlier, then this is a good way to check that you still feel that way about the plan. If you were having difficulties resolving some issues, a new look may be all that is needed to get you past the particular hang up.

And one final thing to close the process off; you always have the option to contract the services of a professional landscape architect or designer. Just remember, this design exercise will not have been in vain, as it will prepare you like nothing else to speak with the designers on their level, fully understanding what they are thinking as they work through their planning process.