subject: Landscaping Design Elements: How To Make Your Own Designs [print this page] Wondering what new and interesting hobby you can take up? Why not try landscaping and garden design? If you are really good with plants and think that you have the knack for coming up with unique design ideas for the home, you can even have a potential career as a landscape contractor in OR or do landscape design in Beaverton. In Beaverton, OR, landscape contractors and designers do a lot of creative work for private individuals who want a renovation for their gardens or businesses and buildings incorporating landscape artistry into their commercial spaces. Other services that landscapers offer may be fence and deck installation in Beaverton and landscape installation in Portland, OR.
If you think landscaping is something that you want to get your hands dirty with, then here are some beginner tips and ideas that may help you towards a new hobby. You do not have to be a learned pro in design or the arts to start making new landscaping projects right at your backyard.
In landscape design, you first need to know about the five elements involved in creating the designs. These are color, form, line, scale, and texture. These terms might be a bit confusing because their meanings somehow intertwine, but you will slowly have a better understanding as you read along.
Concerning color, you should choose colors for the garden that go beyond the expected greens. You should incorporate some variety with shades that you choose and be aware of the color spectrum to guide you in your choices. The color spectrum are: Primary: red, yellow, blue; Secondary: green, violet, orange; Tertiary: blends of the primary and secondary colors; and Neutral: white, gray, and silver. Be sure to take a little from each spectrum to achieve a balance in the colors appearing in your landscape design.
Form in landscaping is all about the shape of the plant. If you observe carefully, all plants have a form. They can be upright, oval, spreading, columnar, or arching. Besides the overall form of the plant, its individual components, such as leaves, should also be considered when making your design. If you have a small garden space, tall, upright plants might feel and look too gigantic, therefore making your garden space look even smaller for the eyes.
As for the line, this refers to the eye movement of the viewer and the flow to which it gazes at the plants arrangement in your garden. Keep in mind that the way plants unconsciously influence our eyes movement is through arrangement or grouping on the garden.
Scale in landscaping is simply the sizes of the different elements you put side by side with each other. So make sure you dont put super huge stone statues besides small plant pots since the huge stone can take away attention from the plant just because of its mere size.
Finally, texture in landscaping is the perceived surface quality of the plant or object you want to include in your design. Textures of leaves can be coarse, fine or smooth, and if you put different textured plants together, you can actually create interesting contrasts between the different foliage.
