How to Avoid Major Errors in Taste in Your Landscape Improvements

Sure, you want your landscape to reflect your own taste and imagination. But remember that landscape improvements are expensive to remove as well as to install and that the universal appeal of your improvements may affect the value of your property. If your aim is to appeal to anyone other than yourself, consider the following suggestions.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Limit the number of elements. Most people seek a sense of order and harmony in the landscape and the more elements there are, the more difficult it is to achieve this.

2. Balance the built and natural elements in your landscape. There is an art to making this determination, but a good rule of thumb is to avoid ambiguity. Built elements in a natural setting or wild intrusions into the built realm work well, but if it is not immediately clear whether you are in a natural place or a built place, then the balance is probably off.

3. Decide on one style. If both a Moroccan-themed pleasure park and an English garden appeal to you, make the difficult choice between the two.

4. Coordinate the materials that you use. Materials look best when they are related in texture, color and degree of naturalness. Contrast can be interesting but should be done deliberately for a specific effect, not just to amass a collection of things that appeal to you.

5. Maintain a high standard for construction quality. If you can't afford a proper installation, it might be better to omit an element than to attempt a do-it-yourself solution that you're not truly ready to tackle. Likewise, insist on corrections from a contractor who has built something that looks shoddy to you.

6. Keep it clean. Consider the ease of maintenance in anything you add to your landscape. If you don't have the time to mow a lawn, weed a flower bed or clean a pool, these elements can become eyesores.

7. Enjoy your landscape. All errors in taste can be overshadowed by exuberance. Quirky choices may not appeal to everyone, but obvious enthusiasm does. At the same time, a lack of pleasure taken in the landscape can make it seem stiff and unfriendly.

on 11/22/2005 We found that by hiring a professional, we got an impartial arbitrator to resolve differences in style and design between myself and my wife. We both got what we wanted into the final design, with no hurt feelings.