Landscaping Springdale AR adds beauty and value to your property, but it also helps keep your yard healthy and functional. Understanding landscaping rules like proportion, simplicity and unity can help you create a well-planned, attractive outdoor space.
Sustainable landscapes cut down on chemical inputs and watering needs and support local pollinators, wildlife and ecosystems. They also look more resilient to summer droughts and heavy rains.
Lawns make a beautiful backdrop for herbaceous borders and offer a place for outdoor play and relaxation. A lush lawn nourishes the environment, improves property value and is a foraging ground for birds and wildlife. A well-maintained lawn creates a healthy environment by trapping pollutants, reducing erosion and sediment runoff, and cooling the air. It also produces oxygen (a 50 foot by 50 foot lawn provides enough for a family of four).
A healthy, properly cared-for landscape starts with the lawn. Regular mowing, watering, fertilization and weed control are essential for maintaining a beautiful lawn. It’s important to know your soil type and the best methods of organic matter application. A soil test helps you determine the type and amount of organic material to add to the soil. Aerating the soil relieves compaction and allows nutrients, light and air to reach grass roots more easily.
Weeds compete with lawns for light, nutrients and water. When weeds are allowed to grow, they can choke out the grass. Effective weed management strategies, including hand pulling or use of selective herbicides and mulching, are necessary components of good lawn care. Proper pest control is also important to ensure that only desired plants are growing and that harmful insects and diseases are controlled. When chemical treatments are used, they should be judiciously applied to minimize harm to beneficial organisms. Integrated Pest Management offers ecologically friendly alternatives to conventional pesticides.
Trees
Trees are one of the most important and fascinating plants on earth. They provide oxygen for us and habitats for animals, while enhancing the beauty of our landscapes. They also contribute to the economy by providing timber, fruits, wood pulp for paper, and other natural resources. The ecological value of trees is even more important, as their vast trunks and roots store carbon and move water, which helps maintain our planet’s delicate balance of temperature, moisture, and nutrients.
Landscape trees are a major investment, adding shade and beauty to your property. They can also increase the value of your home, as prospective buyers are often attracted to properties with healthy trees. However, maintaining the health of your trees requires regular care and attention. Trees are constantly under stress as they battle disease, harsh weather conditions, and invasive pests.
Trees need to be surrounded by a wide circle of soil, which prevents grass and other plants from competing with the roots for moisture. A layer of mulch is especially important, as it reflects the sunlight and keeps the soil hydrated. It is also an effective deterrent against weeds, which can compete with the tree’s root system for water and nutrients.
Flower Beds
Flower beds add color to your landscape and are a key component of lawn care. They are also a great way to highlight your landscape features, such as a pond or trellis. Whether you choose to plant one type of flower or incorporate multiple colors, plants should be arranged in a manner that reflects the mood and purpose of your garden.
Besides color, texture is another important aspect of flower bed design. Using a variety of textures creates depth and visual interest to a flower bed. You can use small shrubs, ornamental grasses and even ground cover to add a sense of layered depth to your flower garden.
When it comes to choosing the right flowers for your landscape, natives are a great option. These plants are bred by nature to thrive in your area and can handle everything from sizzling summers to rain-soaked autumns and bone-chilling winters. They also help support local pollinators like butterflies, bees and birds.
To make the most of your flower garden, prepare the soil before planting by amending it with compost or aged manure. Be sure to water the bed afterward and mulch to retain moisture. Keeping weeds under control is also essential. Weeds steal valuable nutrients from your flowers and block airflow, which can lead to disease and pest problems. Regular weeding will ensure that your flowers get all the sunlight and nutrients they need to flourish.
Texture
While color is usually the most recognized aspect of landscape aesthetics, texture plays an equally important role. The way a planting looks depends on how fine or coarse, smooth or rough, light or heavy it is. The most successful designs utilize contrasting textures to produce an eye-catching arrangement. However, too much of any one texture can become visually inharmonious.
The texture of a plant is determined by its size, the pattern of its leaves and branches, and its branching structure. In general, small-leaved plants with tightly branched patterns (such as honey locust and Japanese yew) tend to appear dense and solid from close range, while large-leaved plants with open branching (like red salvia and silver lace dusty miller) are often perceived as airy and light.
Another aspect of texture is the way a planting moves and sounds in the wind. This is especially true of ornamental grasses, which can rustle and whisper in the breeze, adding movement to an otherwise static landscape. This sense of life is important for creating a garden that feels alive and inviting to visitors, demonstrating the care you put into your lawn. In turn, this helps increase your property’s curb appeal, an essential aspect of attracting and maintaining a buyer.
Form
The shapes of plants and hardscapes are important to consider when planning the landscape. Forms can be seen in the outline of a tree, the shape of a bed or walkway or the way that a shrub grows. Forms are important because they are enduring characteristics that remain beyond a single growing season. Forms are important in the landscape because they can provide rhythm, scale and a sense of continuity.
Forms are the defining characteristic of a landscape and can be used to create a variety of emotional responses from the viewer. Rectilinear forms feel structured and formal while curved lines are more natural and relaxed. Form is also important because it is what gives a garden its character and ambiance.
Another important aspect of form is texture, which is the roughness or smoothness of a surface. Texture is perceived through touch but can also be experienced visually. The texture of the ground can range from fine sand or silt to coarse clods and gravel; plant coverage may be from fine grasses to brush, ivy or cactus. Wall surfaces can vary from the smoothness of glass or plaster to the roughness of brick or stone.
In a garden, repetition of line, form, color and texture is important to achieving balance and unity. This can be accomplished by studying other designs that appeal to you and learning how they use these elements to create harmony.
Focalization
Focalization is a term that has been used in narratology to describe the ways in which a reader’s perception of events are limited by the perspective of a particular character. Focalization is sometimes confused with point of view, but the two concepts are quite different. Focalization is more restrictive than point of view in terms of the amount and kinds of information that a character can tell a reader about a scene. For example, a writer might use third-person omniscience to allow readers to explore the thoughts of several characters, but they could not use that technique to focus on one character’s point of view because that would break the reader’s immersion into the story.
Moreover, while many advocates of focalization have tried to separate focalization from point of view by stressing that it is distinct from the question “who sees?”, they often confuse the terms “who sees” and “who speaks.” As a result, their arguments tend to be circular rather than helpful. In fact, there is a fairly good case for the peaceful coexistence of both points of view and focalization, because they address the same kind of problem in very different ways.