Simple Ways to Create a Landscape You Love

When we moved into our home five years ago, I remember looking at the rolling expanse of dirt, dotted with scruffy patches of grass and wayward thistles. Other more experienced gardeners might have seen a blank canvas, but I felt overcome with landscape anxiety. An impossibly small landscaping budget and a file full of seemingly perfect garden images only made matters worse.

From the start, I knew I had to make peace with Mother Nature. This meant creating a landscape that could bear harsh temperature swings, little rainfall, and droves of hungry deer. It also meant raising my weed tolerance if I didn’t want to institute a serious spraying regimen or commit to hand digging a thousand dandelions.

I didn’t know it at the time, but these obstacles were forming my landscaping philosophy: beauty without perfection. After I got over the idea that my yard needed to be magazine-worthy, I could think about what I really wanted my landscape to do and be.

I knew I wanted a cottage garden landscape, with an abundance of flowers and vegetables and a place to enjoy them. From here, I could decide the best way to achieve this. I haven’t followed a rigid plan, but I have relied on several ideas that have helped my landscape take shape and that have kept my landscaping budget in check.

Spend your time and money on landscaping features that will bring you pleasure. If you need to create a landscape from scratch or want to punch up what you’ve got, start by setting some priorities. What landscape element will bring you the most joy? A lawn that looks like Astroturf? The same climbing roses that grew on your grandmother’s arbor? A fountain, fire pit, or pergola? From here, you can think about the best way to reach your landscape goals.

View landscaping as a process. The best landscapes evolve over time and anticipate future wants and needs—there is no such thing as an instant landscape. I always buy as many small plants as I can afford, rather than buying more mature and expensive specimens. I also tackle one or two landscape projects each year. This year, the plan is to build a roof over a back patio for some much-needed shade and create a small playhouse for our children. Make a list of what you want to accomplish in your landscape and choose the top two or three priorities to tackle this year.

Use materials readily available to you. I am fortunate to have an abundance of natural slate rock that we used for garden beds and paths. The horses in a nearby pasture supply our compost needs. A pile of cedar milled from old power poles became a garden shed and a picket fence. Look around your home and your neighborhood. What is available to you that you can put to use in your landscape?

Enhance what you already have. Paint worn patio furniture a vivid yellow or turquoise, repeating the same colors elsewhere in your landscape. Use specialty paint to splash color on a boring cement patio. Divide plants to expand your plantings. Think of ways you can incorporate existing plantings or features into your plan. Add shutters, painted trim, and a small window to a plain garden shed, for example.

CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman