Landscape Design Skills

ADVERTISEMENT

The landscape design profession combines art and science for the purpose of planning and shaping the land that surrounds a structure. Ecological landscape design focuses on meeting a customer’s needs while also planting trees and plants, gardens and ponds, and other features that create a relationship between the building and the environment. Landscape designers must understand many of the same principles as environmental engineers, that is, hydrology, geography, topography, and climatology. The landscape designer, however, emphasizes the artistic use of plants, water, and land. The following table summarizes the basic skills that landscape designers call upon when they develop a new but natural look for a parcel of land.

Environmental landscaping begins with a plan agreed upon between a house’s architect and the property’s landscaper. A landscape designer also gives input to this process in order to create a visual meaning to an entire property. For instance, a country cottage would look out of place nestled among large rock formations and towering pines, and the property would be further confused by a modernistic landscape design including sculpted shrubbery and enormous fountains. Landscaping in harmony with nature eliminates most of these pitfalls: Nature always produces the best balance between art and design.

The landscape design process entails the following six steps:

1. Develop a design for a given parcel of land.
2. Conduct a site analysis to assess existing tree and plant life and physical features.
3. Assess the house design, landscaping objectives, and the residents’ desires.
4. Locate areas of the property that will be designed.
5. Create design plans for those individual areas.
6. Select the plants to be used and plant them in the designated areas.

 In order to carry out the tasks listed here, landscape designers depend on strong skills in horticulture. In this way they help eco-landscapers select plant life that blends with the following factors: local climate and any microclimates; soil conditions; wind and storm incidence; and potential freezing or drought. Landscape designers today also design biodiversity gardens and edible gardens.