We most often associate architecture with buildings—with the grand skyscrapers and imposing monolithic cities across the world. But landscapes can be treated as a built space too, and even those landscapes that look most natural may have been shaped and reshaped by human intervention. Whether you’re thinking about changing the appearance of your garden, or you’re just interested about how landscape architecture works, this article holds some answers as to how you or other professionals can beautify landscapes around the world.
Shifting Soil
The basis of landscape architecture is in the shifting of large amounts of soil. This means using heavy machinery and digging vehicles to heave large amounts of dirt from the ground to arrange elsewhere in a garden or park. Plans are drawn up in advance so that slopes are aesthetically pleasing and rivers, streams, lakes, or ponds weave and sit in the folds of those hills. It’s an exciting part of the landscape architecture process, as it basically means changing the very topography of the space that you’re working on. To do this yourself, make sure you’re free to dig and that there are no pipes or wires running beneath where you’re digging.
Planting
Next up, once the dust or dirt has settled in place, is the planting. Start with plants that tend to hold soil together, so that your hills or hillocks don’t simply disappear in a slip over the coming months of rain. Landscape gardeners tend to know which plants are best to serve this purpose, and where they’ll look best on the canvas that is outdoor space. While shrubs and bushes tend to be good for borders and boundaries, try planting trees that’ll grow in the years to come in places that are well watered and in need of a deeper root system to hold the soil together.
Fences
Most gardens and parks require fences at their borders or perimeters. These help give you some privacy, or give parks a little security at nighttime. Fences tend to be susceptible to the wind, and as such they can blow over easily or become damaged over time. The way to overcome this is to drill into the earth deeply to set in fenceposts. You’ll find a hand-held post hole earth auger for sale online, which you can use to drill the holes you’ll need to fix reliable and long-lasting posts.
Turfing
Finally, you’ll lay down the turf. Only do this once you’re sure that you’re not going to need to use heavy machines, vehicles, or wheelbarrows on the land that you’re decorating with plants and other outdoor furniture, as these pieces of equipment can cut up and kill newly laid turf. Ensure that you’re purchasing high-quality turf from an outdoor center or warehouse—and the kind of turf that’s hardy throughout the year. If you have plenty of time to wait, you could also use grass seeds, scattered about in the soil. It takes roughly four months for these seeds to grow and cover the soil in grass.
With all these components coming together, you’ll have designed a landscape that is truly beautiful – natural yet manmade at the same time.