If you feel like your landscape is too big and unruly, here are some ideas for taking your landscape from chaotic to orderly without sacrificing natural beauty, and giving yourself plenty of attractive elbow room. Take inspiration from these 3 landscape construction ideas to bring order to large landscapes in Somers NY.
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Balance
The secret to an appealing landscape is balance. Balance doesn’t mean two of everything on opposite ends of the landscape in mirror images. It means looking at a visually dense and heavy area of your landscape, and balancing it with lighter, softer, and more airy spaces.
Every element within the landscape has its own unique mass, density, and color. Each of these characteristics contribute to its visual weight. The more “heavy” an element is, the more it draws your eye. An outdoor fireplace is visually heavy, so it needs to be balanced with lower elements such as seating walls that allow the eye to move past the fireplace to the landscape beyond.
Begin by using your home as the anchor since it is the biggest object in your landscape; and take your landscape design cues from it. Make a tall home (for example, a two-story home with a tall, peaked roof) look like it belongs in its surroundings by incorporating taller trees in the landscape; not right up against the house, but further out. Keep a ranch-style home from feeling like it’s drowning by giving it plenty of breathing room (avoid tall, dense evergreens right up against the foundation) and planting shorter trees such as Japanese Maples, apple trees, cherry trees, or any ornamental tree that tends to spread outward rather than upward.
On the ground level, balance the weight of dense shrubs with softer elements like ornamental grasses. Balance the expanse of lawn with retaining walls, ornamental boulders, a pond, or a colorful plant bed.
Layers
A great way to create a pleasing landscape - no matter its size - is to work with layers. Wherever you stand in the landscape, you want the landscape elements in the foreground to be shorter and “lighter” to give you a sense of spaciousness; and keep the taller, “heavier” elements to be in the background to provide a sense of enclosure that isn’t stifling.
In a large landscape, don’t be afraid to go big. Choose plants that, when mature, have a real presence. Avoid delicate, tiny flowers and anything that would get lost.
Trees provide visual interest and break up vast expanses of lawn and provide wonderful dappled shade, which further breaks up the expanse.
Focal Points
Focal points give your eye places to rest; they also break the landscape up visually. Use this to your advantage by creating staggered focal points: some in the foreground (for example, a fire pit surrounded by colorful Adirondack chairs); some in the midground (a masonry wall that creates a lovely and practical boundary to the patio and serves as a backdrop to colorful annuals and perennials); and some in the background (a small pergola just big enough to shelter a bench for two). A few key focal points will give you plenty of eye-catching areas without creating a sense of chaos.
Focal points can combine function with beauty, or they can be purely aesthetic. Keep in mind the concept of balance and layers when deciding where to place focal points, and your landscape will be a beautiful and enjoyable place to relax.
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