Develop Landscaping Plans

It is important to develop landscaping plans otherwise you may end up finding later on that you are doing your landscaping in the wrong spot. Therefore, you end up wasting both your time and money on landscaping a yard that you are going to have to do all over again. You can prevent many mistakes from costing you extra time and money by carefully developing landscaping plans in advance before you start your project. The time and effort you put into planning will be well worth it later on down the line.

Landscaping plans may sound easy, but they actually require a lot of work. You need to do a thorough site analysis and assessment to do landscaping plans, a simple rudimentary knowledge of landscaping won't help. Although landscaping plans will help you to avoid hazards, last minute changes and costly mistakes which make them well worth the effort and time you put into them. You should break your landscaping plans down into manageable tasks so that you don't make any mistake when drawing up the plans. In addition, by have landscaping plans you will be able to stick to a good timetable and stay within a specific budget.

A Base Plan

Preparing a base plan of your property is the first step in landscaping plans. This should include the position and dimensions of your house and lot including the location of all utilities, garden plants you want to keep, property lines, buildings, driveways, walks, easements, topographic features and any ground characteristics. You should make sure you draw the base plan according to scale. All other plans will be done on trace paper on top of the base plan so you want to make sure you get it right. By being correct and accurate you can start off right with your landscaping plans.

A Site Analysis

The second step in landscaping plans is to conduct a site analysis. This requires examining all existing vegetation, natural features, house orientation and utilities. Look at the condition of existing vegetation and make sure you plans protect them. You should also make sure you plan to blend new plants into the natural environment. At this point you should also look into soil characteristics, rain fall distribution, wind pattern, micro-climatic conditions and land form. This will help you to selection what plants to purchase and where to place them, what is your surface water drainage requirements, the positioning of shade and where to place activity areas.

Finalizing

Finally you are ready to construct the final plan. This is where you will determine placement of flowers and plants in the landscaping plans. You will also start setting a working budget and finding the necessary materials you will need at this stage. Once you finalizing your landscaping plans you will also be able to set up a timeline to determine how long your project will take. The finalized plans should also help you to determine what maintenance is required and how to get the optimal use from your resources.