One of the benefits of having a yard is the fun you can have landscaping it. Imagine your yard with a garden pond enhanced by a pond bridge, wooden “playscapes” for children, walkthrough gardens, and a selection of trees, shrubs, and other flora to balance the yard and enhance visual appeal. Whether your yard is big enough to include all those items or not, any yard, big or small, can be made to look appealing. Here are some basic ideas.

Areas

Repeating like elements such as plants or rocks throughout the landscape will help unify different areas to each other. Perennials and summer bulbs can be used to fill in areas that need color.

If you have children or grandchildren, a play area is needed. Wooden play sets can be attractive and a lot of fun. A gravel walkway around the yard provides a path for a tricycle or small bike and saves the grass from being trampled down. A large tree provides a place for a tree house. The possibilities are endless. There are landscaping books especially for designing child-friendly yards.

Lawn

The lawn is usually the largest area of any yard. A lawn is beautiful, but if you surround your lawn with beds of flowers and shrubs and with a number of trees for shade, it turns a lawn into a Garden of Eden.

Shrubs

Place shrubs around the perimeter of the lawn. In the foreground, flowering shrubs are a good choice, with the bigger shrubs behind. To add beauty to your shrubs use spread lighting which creates a spherical pattern of light to highlight groups of shrubs and flowers.

Shrubs can complement the color of your house. For example, forest green trim on a house is complimented by shrubs with yellow leaves, and homes with neutral features can always use a few splashes of dramatic color in their landscaping.

Plant a few annuals near the mailbox and an odd number of shrubs or hedges in front of the house to create depth. As you drive around notice how that adds a touch of class to a house.

Flowers

Some people also like to place flowers in strategic places as part of the overall design to give the yard even more attitude. With some well placed shrubs and wonderfully colorful flowers you can transform your home from a run of the mill house to a showplace of style and grace. It is easy.

Pond

Building a garden pond can be a very satisfying project, and if done right will be the first thing people notice. Just about every yard has grass, shrubs and tress, but a pond adds something special, especially if there is a waterfall going into it.

Building a garden pond is not just a matter of digging a hole, lining it with plastic and filling it with water. You need a filter system to keep it clean and to aerate it, and you need a way to keep algae from taking over.

Rock

Rock can add drama to any landscaped yard. Rock also reduces the amount of water required to keep the yard looking green. If you live in an area that receives little rainfall decorating a yard with rock, whether it is in spots around the yard or the entire landscape, is a desired alternative.

Rock gardens really can be breathtaking when done right. Adding drought-resistant plants compliments dry rock landscaping well. This is a popular alternative to the vast areas of lawn traditionally found around houses in some parts of the world.

Rock can be used in several areas of the yard. Walkways, groundcover, walls, ponds and waterfalls are a few ideas where rock can be used with stunning results.

When using rock for groundcover and path work, it’s necessary to have a separator between the soil and groundcover. Rock walkways provide an attractive substitute for expensive and unsightly pavement, and will go with the rest of the landscaping.

Rock walls make an excellent alternative to white picket fences that may seem out of place depending on your surrounding environment and neighborhood. Water features can be as simplistic as a statue acting as a fountain to highly complex designs that mimic natural features with multiple terraces and water cascading over a rock bed.

Conclusion

Landscaping a yard is one of the pleasures of life. It’s a chance to add beauty to your surroundings for the benefit of yourself, your family and your neighbors. With some planning and research, and maybe some advice from a professional, anyone can design and create a yard that is stunning.

My husband loves outdoor fish ponds. I love the idea of a Japanese garden. When we decided to build our own pond in our backyard, we considered several options.

I suggested a Japanese garden and my husband was less than excited about it. I drew up a sketch of the oriental landscape with a pond full of Koi fish. He reluctantly agreed to the design and we got to work.

The first task was to dig a ditch for the pond for our Japanese garden. After we weeded the area and made a good sized ditch, we visited our local home and garden store and purchased a plastic pond mold. These are black in color and aid in protecting the fish from being subjected to the soil and cement materials that are often used.

We took our pond mold home and began to dig out the shape of the mold in our ditch. We completed the dig and inserted the pond mold. We were well on our way to having a fishpond with a Japanese garden theme. I began to gather the desired plants to give an oriental style.

I was able to find several types of reeds and short filler plants for the Japanese garden. I chose stones that were a brownish-orange in color for the landscaping project. We placed the flat rock around the rim of the pond and took care that we had them hang over the pond mold.

I decided to limit myself to one more plant and two statues. I chose a small Dojo house and an oriental statue that symbolizes tranquility. I found these online. I made sure to leave a lot of space between the various decorative elements.

After looking over our efforts I felt there was something missing. I needed a bonsai tree but I knew that one would never thrive in my climate. I found a fake bonsai tree that was remarkably realistic.

The bonsai tree was the perfect addition to the scene and it really tied everything together. We filled the pond with water and let it set up for a week. We finally added a few small Koi fish. The fish pond made an absolutely beautiful Japanese garden.

We live in a neighborhood where everyone takes pride in their yards. As a result there are many landscaping ideas that people use to enhance the look of their yard.

One of our neighbor’s has great landscaping ideas and talents and is willing to share them with others. He is a banker so he spends many hours behind a desk each day. When he arrives home he likes to spend as much time as possible outdoors.

One day I was working in our backyard area trying to develop a new flower garden. To do this I needed to remove a small amount of sod. The banker saw me working and came over to see what landscaping ideas I had for the area. I explained that I was going to develop a rock garden with annuals to add some color to this area of the yard.

He suggested putting in a small pond with a water fountain. I thought that this landscaping idea sounded a bit more involved than I wanted to get. I explained that I did not want to start a project that would take a great deal of time and maintenance.

He told me that he had several magazines that featured landscaping ideas and water features were easy to do. He offered to bring over the magazines for me to look through and also offered to help with the project.

After looking through the magazines I did get several good landscaping ideas for the area. One did include a small water feature. The area that I was concentrating on was close to the side of the house.

There was a water spigot close that could be used in the water feature. I showed the design to my husband and he thought it was very attractive.

We bought the supplies listed in the magazine and started work on the project. We needed to dig a small hole for the water feature and line it with a heavy plastic to create a pond.

We had several large rocks that we arranged at the top of the pond so that water could run down the rocks to pool in the pond area. We used spot lights to reflect off the water feature at night.

Both the water feature and the lights were on timers to run for several hours each evening, but we did not have to remember to shut it off. The landscaping ideas added a beautiful resting spot in the backyard.

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