| |
| |
Landscape Design - Creating
Balance in Home Landscaping
A sense of balance is necessary in
creating a professional looking landscape
design. Creating balance and unity is
simple and can actually make designing
easier but it is often overlooked. Use
these guidelines to simplify your design
and to ensure that your garden or
landscape has a professional finished
look.
Balance is a principle of all art forms,
design, and even landscape design. It
implies a sense of equality. And while
there may be just a little more to it,
this is how I explain it to make it
easier for first timers and do it
yourselfers to understand.
A garden, landscape, or any form of equal
proportions would naturally feel and look
balanced. However, most gardens and
landscapes are not exact or symmetrical
in shape and form. They’re
asymmetrical and abstract in form and are
often without any natural balance of
their own. So landscaping often relies on
other elements to create balance and
harmony through unity.
Many times, a lack of balance is directly
related to a lack of repetition.
Repeating alike elements such as plants
or rocks throughout the landscape will
help unify different areas to each other.
As little as one repeated matching plant
group, color, piece of decor, or
hardscape can accomplish this.
A lack of balance is also created by
placing too many or all non matching
elements throughout a landscape design.
This can sometimes seem cluttered and
unkept when it grows in. In the beginning
of your design, plan for less, place just
a few matching plant groups throughout
the garden, and keep decor matching and
to a minimum. You can add more later.
So many of the questions that I receive
about landscape design deal with the
shape of a design . Shape is unique to
each design and will ultimately follow
all necessary paths and your visions.
However, any shape or form can be filled
with elements and still be either dull,
void, loud, cluttered, and unbalanced.
Balance isn’t necessarily dependant
on shape. It can be but generally
it’s not. So don’t get too hung
up on trying to even things out entirely
by shape.
Landscape design is an art form and so it
deals with "all" the same
principles that other art forms use.
Repetition, unity, and balance are all
principles of art that go hand in hand
with each other.
Architects use repetition in design by
making doors, windows, fixtures, trims,
etc. the same sizes, shapes, and styles.
Imagine how your home would feel if every
door, door frame, window, and fixture
were of different sizes, shapes, colors,
and types. It would be uncomfortable and
chaotic.
And so it’s the same with landscape
design.
In order to create balance, appeal, and
even comfort in a landscape that is
lacking, we need to create some form of
consistent repetition. As little as one
matching element placed on opposites can
create a sense of unity and consistency.
It's easiest and most often created in
the softscape (plants, ornaments, lawn,
decor, etc.). However, it should be
considered in the hardscape (walks,
driveways, necessities, fences, walls,
raised beds, boundaries, etc.) of your
drawn design plan.
|
|
|
| |
|
