Yard Landscaping Ideas, 6 Principles of Balanced and Modern Garden Designs

stone garden features
Beautiful garden with potted plants

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Beautiful backyard designs reflect a few essential landscaping principles that create functional and attractive outdoor living spaces. Although there are no rules to subjective, artful, and unique designs, some landscaping ideas offer mistake-proof solutions for creating modern, comfortable, and eye-pleasing gardens. Lushome presents these principles and the photograph collection that illustrates how to apply them to beautiful yard landscaping.

Enclosures, bone lines, and the golden ratio rules create beautiful geometry, unite all design elements, and add comfort to yard landscaping. Convenient steps and multi-level planting increase the effect of effective garden designs. Also, repetition and grouping of plants add pleasant rhythm and calmness to yard landscaping.  Mixing large structures or garden furniture with small items infuses interest and captures the eye. These practical and straightforward landscaping ideas are great for designing successful gardens and patios.

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1. Baselines

Following regulating lines of existing features harmonizes backyard designs. A garden needs to enhance the geometry of existing structures, like a pool, a deck, a pergola, or a front door with a porch. Geometric shapes and lines of architectural elements prove bone lines to the garden design. Using these lines as regulating lines in garden designs unites the architecture and yard landscaping and harmonized outdoor living spaces.  The result of following the bone lines is an orderly-simple, elegant, and pleasant look.

Raised beds, garden design idea

2. The golden ratios

Since ancient times, the golden ratio of proportion is a fantastic guide to balanced and pleasant designs.  The ratio of the short side A to the long side B is equal to the ratio of the long side B to the sum of both sides A+B. The Golden Rectangle ratio is close to 1: 1.6, a proportion that is mistake-proof for designing terraces, patios, arbors, and lawns.

Beautiful garden with potted plants

3. Space dividers and cozy enclosures

An enclosure is a perfect technique for adding a sense of refuge and tranquility to outdoor living spaces. Its vertical edge needs to be 1/3 or taller than the length of the garden. A fence, a hedge, trees, a privacy screen, or climbing plant supports can play the role of the vertical edge that creates a welcoming retreat and separate outdoor living spaces.

Shrubs as space dividers, outdoor dining area

4. Walkway width

A single-person walkway requires at least 2 feet in width. Five-foot paths or more spacious spaces are comfortable for two people walking side by side.

Garden enclosure, plants along the stone path leading to the outdoor sitting area

5. Large features

Go big when deciding to make something wider or narrower, longer or shorter. Significant, prominent features look impressive and rich. Thick trunks, tall pergolas, big sofas add chic and beauty to outdoor living spaces.

Beautiful yard landscaping featuring eye-catching fence and arbor with climbing plants

6. Planting order and repetition

Planting trees first, then adding shrubs, perennials, ground covers, and annuals are the proper steps for creating beautiful compositions and successful garden designs. This plan allows designers to give more structure and order to yard landscaping.

Wood slices for garden oath designs, modern yard landscaping ideas

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Repetition is a simple and easy technique that makes a big difference in yard landscaping. Repetitions give the most striking and satisfying visual pleasure. Planting in mass is a gorgeous design trend in creating contemporary outdoor living spaces, impressive, modern, and beautiful.

Repetitions creating impressive garden designs

  by Ena Russ   
   27.05.2021

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