When you begin planning your landscaping needs you need to consider the style or styles that you’d like to integrate into your design.

First of all, make sure you look at plenty of pictures of various landscaping styles so you have a good idea of what you like and what you want to combine into your own unique style. Having photos also helps you decide if the end result will be aesthetically pleasing.

Questions to consider:

• Do you want a formal style or informal style? Perhaps you’d like areas of both aspects blending together if you have a large area to work with.

• Do you want a consistent and elegant design or something completely unique and varied? Unity works great in landscaping but you can also blend many styles together or create many sections into your design if you plan properly.

• Always think through it and decide which elements will bring different styles together in an eye-pleasing manner.

Try considering having an elegant look close to your home and a wilder, more natural environment on the edge of your property. You can divide the two with fencing, have an arbor walkway or a covered bridge so you truly get the feeling of leaving one area and entering another.

• Will you use geometric shapes? Create soft-lines or hard-lines? Can these enhance each other without seeming out of place or being an eye-sore.

• Will you use symmetry like straight lines, square angles or plan some curvy areas in the design?

• Will you use structures in some areas and not in other areas? Will these styles blend well?

Also take into consideration that the style of the landscaping itself works best when created and suited to the style of architecture of your home. A formal garden does not fit well with a small white house. An informal garden takes away from and does not fit well with a large Tudor home.

However, you can blend some elements and pull it off nicely if you plan ahead and have the majority of the landscaping fit the style and structure of your home as well as your neighborhood.

Looking at existing styles in your own neighborhood can give you a good indication of what works well for the area too. Plus you’ll also want to consider your city and even the region of the country you live in as this will help you specify which plants and trees grow best in your location. This is information you need to know so that your plantings are suitable to the environment.

No matter which style or styles you go with, they must be pleasing to you. You may want to “wow” your guests, but you’ll spend more time in your yard than anyone else. It should be designed for your personal style and needs and make you happy.

Using local or native plants in your yard is an excellent way to spruce things up and attract local wildlife with very little maintenance. In this article, by Barmekin Groundcare – a firm of leading Aberdeen landscape gardeners you will find the reason why it’s best to have local plants in your garden, as well as some advice on how to make them thrive.

Before we proceed with the benefits of having local plants, let’s answer one of the most important questions first: Why use native plants?

Many homeowners who are just starting out with gardening and landscaping usually ask questions like “Why are native plants better than exotic plants,” or “What are the advantages of going for local plants for gardening and wildlife?” You’ve already probably heard that they are more cost-effective and healthier, but let us discuss the specifics. Here are some of the advantages of why landscaping with native plants is the best option you’ll have for your garden:

Native plants require less maintenance because they have already evolved and adapted to a specific area, and would therefore need very little to no watering, or require commercial fertilizers or pesticides.

Most native plants will not usually need much raking, because the fallen leaves could serve as soil-builders and natural fertilizers, so you do not have to mow your lawn.

Generally speaking, plants that are adapted to the local climate will have more resistance to pests and diseases.

Having native plants in your home will contribute to the overall health of your whole community because they will help decrease and put a full stop to the harm done by invasive alien species.

Native plants are resistant to pests, so you won’t need to spray any harmful pesticides for maintaining or improving soil conditions.

Landscaping with native plants will not only be beneficial to you but also to the animals around you. A healthy ecosystem is created if you plant with native species because they provide great sources of food and shelter for birds, butterflies, and other wildlife.

Native plants also give out a distinctive style in a certain area–so you will have sort of a regional character that makes your area unique.

Native landscaping also reduces environmental threats. Not having to use a lawnmower or a leaf blower in clearing out your yard means that you won’t consume any electricity or gasoline. Maintenance equipment such as these are normally associated with emissions of different air pollutants (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxide, etc.), so not using them will lessen the release of harmful air toxins.

By following these steps, you will be closer to achieving a healthy and environment-friendly garden that won’t require many fertilizers and complicated watering systems. Once you already have an idea of the possibilities offered for plant life in your area, and what you’d like to get out of them, then you will be ready to get out there and pick out your plants for your garden!