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Garden Landscape Features and Garden Design

Once plans have been prepared for your garden, you must move to executing the plan and actually landscaping your garden. Implementing garden landscape features involves several steps.

Grading Your Garden

The first step in landscaping is grading the land. Since cost can be an issue (grading services can be expensive), this landscaping step should be kept to a minimum. Still, you want your garden to have a contour that is pleasing to the eye. The best time to grade is in the fall before precipitation saturates the ground. The ground can settle until spring, reducing the need to tamp the ground as grading proceeds.

You should avoid the temptation to make your lawn perfectly flat. Undulations in the lawn can often have very pleasing effects. Broad lawns that are flat and level tend to have a hollow look. Lawns with borders higher than the centers do not bring out the best in garden landscape features.

Novice gardeners have a tendency to want to terrace the lawn, especially in places where the natural slope is perceptible. This is the wrong thing to do in most cases because it segments the lawn, making it appear smaller. The terrace draws attention to itself rather than the landscape. A gradually sloping bank is almost always preferable to a terrace. Where terraces are necessary, they should consist of a retaining wall near the street, for example, or should be placed next to a building.

A continuous contour is not always necessary in grading to the borders of your landscape garden. A slightly irregular grade line will appear natural and make for effective planting.

Garden Walkways and Driveways

Your garden design should incorporate walkways and driveways since they are essential elements in the space. If you plan to construct a walkway as part of your landscape garden, make it as straight and direct as possible. No meaningless crooks or curves should exist.

When possible, the garden design should call for walks and drives to lay in a direction so that they drain themselves. If gutters are necessary, they should be deep and sharp. This allows water to come together and clean the gutter. Cement and stone make the best walks. Gravel and cinder do not. They become loose in dry weather, sticky in wet weather.

Landscaping Garden Borders

Once the lawn has been set, landscaping moves to the creation of borders. After border areas are marked (usually with stakes or rope), the lawn can be seeded and rolled if necessary. Planting of the borders can be done simultaneously. Planting should be done in the fall if the plants and the land are ready; otherwise planting can be done in spring.

Bushes should be planted thick—roughly two to three feet apart. At this distance, it's always easier to thin plantings if they grow thicker than you want them.

Landscaping Your Lawn

Once the lawn is graded for your landscape garden, the ground should be prepared. Soil that is deep and porous allows roots to grow deeply, enabling plants to endure winter. Bare lawns can be tilled (or larger lawns can be plowed) before seeding. Loose or porous soil benefits from the addition of humus (so water does not drain as quickly). All soils benefit from annual applications of chemical fertilizer.

Kentucky Bluegrass or June-grass grows well in the North. In the South, the best-growing grass is Bermuda grass. Seeding should take place when the ground is moist. The temperature should be relatively cool. Generally, early spring works best. You can even sow after a late, light spring snow. The melt will carry the seed into the ground. Ordinarily, grass seed is applied at a ratio of three to five bushels per acre.

As your biggest garden landscape feature, the lawn requires the most maintenance. Bare spots do occur. They can be sown again in the fall or spring until the lawn fills out.

You should be prepared for weeds during the first year. They need not be pulled unless aggressive perennials start to overtake the lawn. Annual weeds die when the weather turns cold. They can be kept in check with frequent mowing. If the lawn is mowed once or twice a week, then clippings can remain in the lawn to serve as mulch. Grass should be kept longer for the winter.

Lawn Tips

Some other lawn notes:

When raking leaves, feel free to leave some on the lawn. They make for outstanding mulch. Pile some on herbaceous borders, roses and other plants.
Use a roller every spring to firm your lawn.
Lawn sprinklers don't do an effective job watering lawns. Instead, turn on the hose and soak the ground, moving the hose as areas get saturated. Soaking the ground like this a few days during the summer will do more good than daily sprinkling.
If you choose to sod your lawn, make sure the sod is cut very thin (one-and-a-half inches). Make sure it is firmly tamped into the ground. Otherwise, you risk the sod settling unevenly.

Beneath trees and in other shade-covered areas, you might have to cover the ground with plants such as periwinkle or moneywort that grow in dark, shady spots.

Resources

Bailey, L.H. (2005). Project Gutenberg eBook of Manual of Gardening (Second Edition). Retrieved March 6, 2008, from the Project Gutenberg Web Site: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8mgrd10h.htm.

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