Outdoor Landscape Planning & Design -- A Well Thought-out Design Translates To A Better Landscape

Landscape design for your property can come in several "flavors"

. Concept Landscape Design or Schematic Landscape Design Studies are excellent, creative tools to let your designer "get ideas on paper" for you. My landscape design firm is located in Minnetonka, Minnesota and we serve the greater Minneapolis area. Quite often, a landscape design client will tell me "I know exactly what I want". In actuality, they may have an idea or two from a garden magazine photo, but they may not have any sense at all, of the shape-and-form of their landscape setting, or of configuration options, or of how the various components of their project will finally come together as a cohesive, whole project. (Not to mention, what their ideas will cost, when completed!)

Concept designs (studies) let us compare different schematic layouts (configurations) and make decisions together about different material choices -- and, of course, different cost estimates. Concept studies are an efficient and inexpensive way to bring creativity to your landscape setting. Perhaps thirty percent, or so, of my projects are built for our clients, using this level of landscape design. And all of my large-scale, comprehensive design-build landscape projects begin with concept studies.

I think of concept design as working with puzzle pieces with the client. The property owner's wish list of landscape goals is the starting point. The shapes-and-forms of the setting (the components) become the pieces. The "fit" of those pieces into the final, beautiful landscape setting becomes the assembly of that puzzle.

From concept design thinking, we often develop the comprehensive plan. On larger-scale, more complex projects, you'll need comprehensive planning and design -- it's a must. The Landscape Master Plan or Landscape Development Plan is the design tool to achieve this complexity. After a series of concept design studies and preliminary budgeting, we normally begin the Master Plan layout for our clients, which then serves you as an invaluable guide to the construction of your project -- whether you're completing it in year-by-year phases, or as one consolidated project.

Through the Master Plan, we can coordinate and "fit" many differing elements -- driveways, walkways, patios, terraces, retaining walls, pool areas, deck settings, gazebos or porches, water features, plantings -- all brought together in a balanced composition, to achieve your total landscape. Hand-in-hand with the Master Plan layout, are landscape work agreements (the translation of the graphic plan into the written "instructions" to build your project). On large projects, working drawings and detail drawings will supplement the development plan, with specific layout and material information. On some projects, this might include numerous hardscape details and planting details.

The value and benefit of good design is in coordination. In the early stages, the concept design helps you coordinate "what I want for my setting". In the more developed design stages, it helps you coordinate "what I'm getting for my money". In the final stages, it coordinates the layout and real-world construction of your project and helps deliver the finished setting, the way it was envisioned.

Think about creative landscape design services, the next time you're contemplating a new landscape setting for your property. You'll enjoy your new landscape more, in the end.

by: Tad Anderson (Minnetonka, MN Web: www.andersonlandscape.info)

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