Landscaping Design Ideas - For Your Perfect Retreat   by Jon Cole

in Home / Gardening    (submitted 2010-08-25)

Landscaping design ideas can be taken from inspiration achieved by the landscape movement in England of the 18th century, when formal gardens were swept away in favor of encompassing great houses in an idyllic if largely artificial countryside.


While no gardener on today's modest plots could begin gardening on such a grand scale, a small corner can often be found and improvised to capture the vision of such pioneers as 'Capability Brown'.




The Natural Garden


Landscaping design ideas can be in the form of a natural garden. Nature needs your help if your ecological corner is to look attractive instead of merely abandoned. Plant a rough hedge of hawthorn, hazel and beech to attract birds and small mammals and put in a buddleia, evening primrose, scabious, thyme and Valerian to attract butterflies. Establish an apple tree whose blossom will bring in bees and whose fruit will feed all manner of other creatures.




The Cottage Garden


Great landscaping design ideas must always include the traditional cottage garden. Though early cottage gardens were created mostly for food production. The style today has come to mean a colorful riot of old fashioned plants that reaches it's full glory between May and July. Roses trailing over rustic poles are essential to the plot, as are crown imperials, delphiniums, hollyhocks and lupins, with chrysanthemums to follow for autumn color. A place should also be found for a few fruit bushes and vegetables. Don't forget also to include some garden statues to complete the design.




The Leisure Garden


Your lifestyle may be such that, though you enjoy the garden, you have little time or no inclination to work in it. In that your landscaping design ideas should include paved or graveled areas for sitting out and paths that lead to paddling pools and sandpits for the children. A built in BBQ is of course a must with a water tap and a brick cupboard for all your utensils. Color will be provided by big flowering shrubs and trees, which also cut down on weeding and mowing. Other good labor saving space fillers are clumps of bamboos.

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