Understanding Landscape Design Principles

1. Starter • Which is a good landscape design and a bad landscape design? • What makes one good and one bad?

2. Landscape Design Competencies 17.00-21.00

3. Landscaping Careers

4. What is Landscaping? • Landscaping is a profession that includes designing, installing, and maintaining the outdoor human environment. • There are 3 branches of the landscaping industry • Landscape Architecture • Landscape Contractors • Landscape Maintenance

5. Landscape Architects • Licensed professions • Conceptualize and plan the outdoor environment or landscape for residential and commercial clients. • Landscape designers usually do actual drawings for residential landscapes.

6. Landscape Contractors • Carry out the installation or actual construction of the landscape plan • Often use subcontractors to do special work such as pools, electrical work, stonework, etc.

7. Landscape Maintenance • Extended care of existing landscapes • The care and upkeep of the landscape after installation

8. Design-build Firms • Landscape businesses that handle everything from the initial contact with the client through design and construction as well as long-term care and maintenance. • http://zakgeorgelandscaping.com/design-build-process.htm

9. Landscape Nursery Worker • Professional who sells and installs landscape plants and related materials.

10. Types of Landscape Plans

11. Types of Landscape Plans • There are three types of plans used in landscaping • Sequential • Computer Assisted • Graphics

12. Landscape Plans

13. Sequential Plans • Each part of the plan is increasingly more specific and detailed. • Includes • Functional diagrams • Preliminary designs • Final Plans

14. Sequential Plans-Functional Diagrams • Begin the arrangement of the client’s program on the site. • Called “bubble diagrams” because they use loosely drawn freeform shapes to represent areas or spaces • Help the designer make decisions concerning layout and sizes and the use of each area.

15. Sequential Plans-Preliminary Designs • Break the “bubbles” to show first draft vision of how each landscape area will be shaped. • Landscape is given its form, type of materials to be used, and application of landscape design principles. • Simple without real details, but the horizontal and vertical relationships between objects and areas are now included. • A number of these may be shown before final plans are made.

16. Preliminary Design

17. Sequential Plans-Final Plans • Use suggestions and reactions of the client to make a master drawing that is graphically detailed and specific in its intent for the landscape. • Include identified plants, paving patterns, and other specific information. • Can also include construction drawings for the landscape contractor or subcontractor • Graphics are designed to impress

18. Computer Assisted • Also called drawing board • CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems are accelerated drafting systems, designed to draw landscape plans using a personal computer.

19. Graphics • Consists of letters and numbers • Free-hand lettering • Mechanical lettering • Computer lettering B A C

20. Landscape Principles and Procedures

21. Principles of Design • Balance • Focalization of Interest • Simplicity • Rhythm and Line • Proportion • Unity

22. Balance • Materials are distributed evenly on opposite sides of a central axis • Three types of balance: • Symmetric • Asymmetric • Proximal/distal • Macro-range-the viewer sees the landscape from the most distant vantage point • Closer range-the views from other locations not as distant

23. Symmetric Balance • One side is a reflective mirror image of the opposite side • Most formal type of balance

24. Asymmetric Balance • Each side has as much interest as the other • Not a duplicate of the other side

25. Proximal/Distal Balance • Balances right and left as well as near and far

26. Focalization of Interest • Selects and positions visually strong items in the landscape composition to create focal points • Draws the eye of the viewer to one major feature in each use area • Example: corner planting

27. Simplicity • Seeks to make viewers comfortable within the landscape • Excludes any unnecessary changes in shape, color, direction, etc.

28. Rhythm and Line • Repeating something at a standard interval or pattern creates rhythm • Lines establish the shape and form of the landscape • Replicating strong existing lines such as the lines of a house or a pool • Functions of line plantings include foundation plantings, block a view, frame a view, and provide privacy.

29. Proportion • The size relationships between all the features of the landscape including vertical, horizontal, and spatial relationships

30. Proportion • Will maintain proper proportional relationships in a landscape between • Buildings and people • Buildings and plants • Plants and people • Plants and plants • Masses and soils

31. Unity • All the separate parts contribute to the creation of the total design • Ties together individual parts of each area by: • Repeating prominent colors • Repeating construction materials • Continuing interior design themes to outdoor rooms • Repeat plant species • Raise patios, decks, and porches to door level

32. Landscape Processes • Process is a sequence of steps to reach a goal • There are three parts to the landscape process • Project development • Project maintenance • Design

33. Project Development Process • Includes determining need or objective • Design process • Accepting the design • Contracting and subcontracting • Landscaping • Acceptance • Billing and payment

34. Project Maintenance Process • Determining need or desire • Selecting landscape maintenance company which assesses the needs and presents a proposal • If the proposal is accepted, the company schedules and does the work • Customer is billed

35. Design Process • Site analysis and program analysis

36. Interior Landscaping

37. Interior Landscaping • Called interior plantscaping or interiorscaping

38. Add color Add textures Add softness Add life Increase employee productivity Decrease employee absenteeism Add oxygen Provide herbs for cooking, medicine, or fragrance Add beauty and comfort by combining all of the previously mentioned purposes Purposes of Interior Landscaping

39. Benefits of Interior Landscaping • Adds color, texture, softness, life and oxygen to interior plantscape • Increases employee productivity • Decreases employee absences from work • Provides herbs for cooking, fragrance, or medicine

40. Disadvantages of Interior Landscaping • Reduced light • Reduced root system • Dependant upon people for watering • Build-up of soluble salts from fertilizer • Plugging stomata from dust on leaves • Damage from heating, air conditioning, and cleaning chemicals

41. Disadvantages of Interior Landscaping • Growing medium • Only plants that will grow inside can be used • Picking or breaking leaves by people using the interior building area

42. Benefits of Exterior Landscaping • Adds color, texture, and life • Adds aesthetic value (beauty) • Adds economic value to property • Adds comfort (shade) • Adds privacy—borders, fences, etc. • Helps prevent erosion • Can use larger exterior plants • Rain natural soil provide most of required water • Gets natural light

43. Disadvantages of Exterior Landscaping • May get too much rain and drown • Natural soils may have diseases, insects, improper pH, etc. • Natural soils may be shallow or rocky • Natural outdoor soils may be subject to erosion • Weed and insect control is more difficult • Large areas of landscaping costs more • More labor is required to establish outdoor landscape

44. Methods of Planting Ornamental Plants

45. Planting Ornamental Plants • Tools vary depending upon type and size of plants from bulb planter, trowel, spade, shovel to power augers and front end loaders.

46. Planting Ornamental Plants • Hole should be larger than plant roots and soil prepared so that new roots will grow in it. • Methods of installation are determined by root form whether bare-rooted, balled-and-burlapped or containerized

47. Balled and Burlapped Plants • Balled and burlapped plants have a round soil ball of roots wrapped in burlap fabric. • Planted in flat-bottomed, straight-sided hole that is deeper and wider than the ball. • Backfill soil should fill the hole enough to raise the plant to the level at which it grew in the nursery. • Loose burlap around top of plant. • Mounded ring of soil around plant to catch water.

48. Balled and Burlapped Plants

49. Containerized Plants • Use the same type hold, mounded ring, etc. as balled and burlapped. • In addition, the plant must be removed from the container • Roots should be unwound or cut at two inch intervals if pot-bound

50. Bare-rooted Plants • Have to have a mound or dome in the bottom of the hole to spread roots and direct roots to grow downward.