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Lacamas Life Magazine
Turn Your "Yard" Into a LANDSCAPE!
So you’ve had with that ugly shrub, the misplaced trees, the oddly colored grass and the deck that you keep having to re-stain every couple of years. You really want to turn your yard into a landscape.
But what to do?
First, you need an idea of what you want from your yard. It’s your outside space. Says John Lawrence from Keystone Earthworks, “You have to ask yourself how do you want this space used, and you have to consider your property an extension of your home – and ultimately it’s an expression of who you are and what you like.”
One needs to ask the following questions: What are your needs? Your spouse’s needs? Your children’s needs? What do you want from your yard – your property?
You need to ask yourself – what types of entertainment do you prefer? Do you want space for large parties or intimate gatherings? Do you need a place to relax, or just play? Or both? How big of a patio do you need? What do you want to do with that space?
John says the core value of the landscape lies within its design. “For a landscape to be a landscape and not a yard, you need professional advice,” he says.
Once you have an idea, John says, then you need to start talking to professionals who can design a plan.
That’s where people like Krista Lawrence come in. Krista, owner of Eden’s Gate Landscape Design provides customers with their own “Garden of Eden,” as she likes to call it.
A good landscape design will add tremendous value to your home, she says.
“You have to look at the resale value, and ask what will you get back?” she says. “It will add up to 20 percent of the resale value, if it’s done correctly. And the true value of a good landscape design professional is that he or she will create a vision and a plan to achieve that vision.”
She says a design is drawn to scale based on one’s property and a family’s preferences. The design is done piece by piece and will culminate in a final product. Like interior design, a good landscape design plan allows you to add things over time. A good designer, she says, will look at functionality.
“The landscape should be beautiful and functional,” she says. “You want to be able to play with your kids and enjoy the precious time we have outdoors.”
One of the questions she asks clients is if they like camping. Why?
“If a family likes to camp, we try to create a landscape that accommodates that interest,” says Krista. “We like to bring in fire pits, flat terraces of lawn, and the whole camping experience close to home.”
It’s really about bringing the “inside out” concept to life, says John.
“We build and design fire pits, sandboxes, outdoor kitchens, and garden boxes,” says Krista. “There is so much more that can be done.”
The four general areas a landscape designer looks include the following: 1. Hardscape – patios, decks, walkways, irrigation, etc. 2. Softscape – plants, bark, color, and texture. 3. Lightscape – good lighting in the appropriate places. 4. Waterscape – ponds, streams, water features.
The landscape designer will meet for about a two-hour consultation to assess a family’s property and what they like. You’re encouraged to bring photos and all of your ideas so that designer can begin assembling the plan for your new landscape.
Once the plan is drawn to scale and accepted by the client, then the plan springs into action.
“Then we get bids on plants,
stone, lighting, and water features,” says Krista.
Krista says professionals help homeowners ask the questions they may not even know to ask.
Overall, a good landscape design can be phased in over time, so you don’t break your budget.
Oh, and a few tips: 1) wait until it gets warmer to fertilize your lawn. It needs to be over 50 degrees for several days, and wait until the grass actually starts growing; 2) Spring and Fall are the best times to plant, depending on the type of plants; and 3) Now is a great time to focus on phase one of most landscape designs – the hardscape (patios, decks, walkways and irrigation, etc.)
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