Outdoor space is as much of a room to your home as the inside rooms. As with inside rooms, consideration is given to floors, walls and ceilings. The same holds for outdoor rooms.

What is on the ground:

gravel walkways?
porch? wood or concrete?
grass?
groundcovers?
stepping stones?
is the ground (floor) level?

What are the walls:

hedges?
flower beds?
fences?
open space to a park, common ground or a neighbor’s yard?

What is on the ceiling:

open sky?
porch over hang?
treecanopy?

Outdoor space can be classified as public, private and service areas. Consider the curb view including the front door as public space. Everyone going by sees it. Back yards and porches are usually private space. And then there are the areas where the hose and water spigot and tool shed is.

Design Process

The deign process usually includes four phases: research and preparation, design, implementation and maintenance. Research and preparation includes identifying what you want from the space, assessing the site and preparing a plan for the site. (This step is the Landscape Design project). Design process includes actually writing down a plan for the site including all phases, preferably with scaled layout and pictures. Budgets are helpful at this stage as well. Actual implementation includes constuction of the hardscape (sidewalk, raised beds, step repair, fences etc) and installation of the softscape (soil prep and the actual plants). Maintenance, well there is always maintenance. However, with careful planning, this can be significantly reduced by planning such as planting the right plant in the right place and nearby water.

There are 6 primary design themes. They are rectangular, diagonal, circular, curvilinear, arc and tengent and angular. For example, the landscape in front of my house is curvilinear as the front yard is small. The design makes the front yard look much larger than it actually is. It also gave me enough length (run) for the sidewalk to accomodate the rise to the door for a handicapped ramp without siderails.