Landscape plan
Attractive landscaping welcomes family and guests to your home. Outdoor spaces designed for relaxing, entertaining, and play invite your family to make full use of your yard. In addition to adding beauty, well-planned landscaping increases your property value, reduces cooling costs and helps the environment. You can begin making plans to update your landscaping or to develop a new lot by accurately measuring your yard and drawing a landscape map.
Instructions
1. Measuring is important for good landscape design.
Measure the footprint of your house. Ask your assistant to hold one end of a 100-foot measuring tape and stretch it along the side of the house. If you do not have an assistant, stab a screwdriver into the loop at the beginning of the tape measure. Write down your measurement on a tablet of paper, rounding to the nearest half-foot. Mark exit doors and windows that look out into the landscape. Measure all sides of your home. This sketch does not need to be to scale.
2. Measure from the front corners of the house to the street and the dimensions of your driveway. Write these measurements on your tablet.
3. Transfer the house, driveway, and yard-to-street measurements onto graph paper. Use one square for every 5 or 10 feet, depending on the size of your yard. Make this drawing to scale. Leave room for the side and back yards as you draw your house on the paper. Write down the scale somewhere on the paper for reference. Keep the original sketch and measurements.
4. Place the graph paper on a clipboard or sturdy surface. Return outside to measure and draw sidewalks, air conditioners, patios, sheds and other building features.
5. Locate the property lines. Look for metal pins or wooden stakes left from previous surveys. Fences, rocks, and hedges are not accurate markers for property lines. You made need to check with your city for a plot map or search through your homeowner documents for the most current survey. Measure and draw the property lines onto your graph paper. Focus on the usable parts of your lot: ravines, wetlands, and other outlying areas do not need to be measured unless you plan to develop them.
6. Draw in large trees. Draw concentric circles for the trunk and the circumference of the canopy. Write the type of tree, identifying it as evergreen, shade or fruit tree if you do not know the exact species.
7. Mark features such as pond edges, streams, seeps or large rocks. Draw in play sets or dog kennels if you are keeping them in your plan.
8. Call 811, the national number for call before you dig, to have your underground utilities marked. Once they are marked, draw them on your landscape map.
9. Make a copy of your landscape plan at this time. Keep the original in a safe place, using the copy for drawing design ideas.
10. Lay out garden beds with a flexible hose or rope. Measure the hose or rope to estimate landscape blocks or edging if needed for your project. Create a separate garden map scaled one square per foot if more detail is desired.
11. Plan the location of new trees and shrubs considering their mature width. Cut out a scaled circle to experiment with placement before drawing onto your landscape plan. Roots of most trees are equal to the circumference of the canopy; avoid placing trees near underground utilities, foundations, or driveways and walks.
Related posts
Design a yard that is safe and enjoyable for all family members.When landscaping with four-legged family members in mind, take into consideration not only that you have dogs, but the habits of the...
Provide shady kennel areas for white-haired dogs to prevent sunburn.Creating a safe, comfortable, dog-friendly environment in your back yard requires that you understand both landscaping and canin...
Measure a Dog for the AKC Breed RingIf your dog is going into the show ring, it's important to know the dog's height. Height is crucial to many of the purebred standards; some dogs are disqualifie...
Bull mastiffs originated from English mastiffs and English bulldogs.Mastiff dogs include Bull, English, French and Tibetan breeds and have been used throughout history as military, guard, fighting...
keep snakes out of your yardIf you are not a fan of snakes and definitely do not want them in your yard, there are a few precautionary measures you can do to keep them at bay. Instru...
