Landscaping of a country house - examples of design
A piece of land around a country house is not just a piece of property and freedom from neighbors in a city apartment, it is an opportunity to express yourself, your dream, imagination with nature's tools - trees, flowers, water, stones. It is not difficult to create a landscaping of a country house with your own hands, but you still need the skills to care for plants, the artistic taste, and hard work. The main thing is not to rush, to approach the arrangement of the site deliberately, the result will surely please, maybe not immediately, but only after a few years. But this is not scary, because the process of landscape design is a pleasure. Once you get a great result, you just can’t stop.
Getting to the landscape design of the site of a country house, carefully examine it, evaluate the pros and cons, especially pay attention to:
the location of the plot relative to the cardinal points;
shape, relief - the presence of hills, lowlands, ravines, ditches;
growing plants - large trees, shrubs, perennials;
composition, soil quality (wild grasses characterize the soil composition well);
location of the house and outbuildings;
ground water level.
Starting work on landscaping, get ready for the fact that you will never finish them. Improvement of the site is a continuous process associated primarily with plants. Plants grow, require watering, pruning, weeding, transplanting, they are alive, and life can not stop and freeze in the result.
Illumination of the territory, protection from the north, north-west winds depends on the location relative to the cardinal points. On the north side of the site, it is wise to plan protection from cold-resistant large plants, a high fence. It is possible to arrange farm buildings in this part. On the south side it will be comfortable heat-loving fruit plants, vegetable beds, flower beds.
Complex terrain is not always worth aligning. This is the same case of landscape design, when the cons easily turn into pros. A slope equipped with a staircase with stone steps or a retaining wall, a gabion near a ravine will decorate the site well. A natural elevation is ideal for an alpine hill, and a swampy lowland for a pond. The shape of the site sets the lines of planting trees and shrubs, the location of paths, rest areas.
Powerful old trees are a real landscape treasure. Having made a large tree the center, you can create a unique composition. Tall large plants give the surrounding space volume.If old trees on the site are not needed, they interfere with the overall style, do not rush to clean them until suitable plantings have grown. Large plants perfectly retain moisture in the soil during dry periods, during periods of rains they drain well, in heat protect from the scorching sun, and cover from cold winds in bad weather. Cut a large tree for a short time, and it will take several decades to grow. By removing large old trees, you will bare the site for a long time, for 20-30 years, until new plantings grow, thereby worsening the overall microclimate of the site.
Successful landscaping of a suburban area is an excellent microclimate.
Decorative, elegant site is achieved by creating the optimal microclimate for growing plants. If this point is not followed, plant care will require tremendous effort. It is difficult to track the features of the soil immediately, sometimes it takes several years to refuse to grow any plant due to inappropriate soil. Laboratory analysis of the soil will clarify the situation, but the quality of the soil in one area may be different at a distance of several meters. Experience and observation will be a lifesaver here, and if you don’t have experience, just refuse to grow plants that do not grow well on your site with proper care. This will save you energy and nerves.
A big plus will be the location of the residential building in the back of the plot. This layout gives comfort, security, hides from prying eyes, unusually decorates the house. Beautifully designed entrance, driveway give the landscape solidity and reliability. Unlucky with the layout, the house is right on the road, and the plot is behind it? The situation can be corrected by designing a beautiful open terrace and a cozy patio from the side of the plot. Outbuildings are best placed on the north side of the site to protect it from the cold and make maximum use of the sunlight on the south side.
Groundwater is the "pitfall" that destroys already flowering gardens a few years after planting. Well-established, giving the first fruits, apple trees begin to die for no apparent reason, cherries do not grow at all, and water accumulates in the basement of the house. A study of the level of groundwater occurrence is the very first, most important study that is worth conducting when choosing a site. If groundwater lies closer than one and a half meters from the soil surface, additional drainage will be required.
Having appreciated the pros and cons of the territory, you can proceed to detailed planning.
Design project - the basis for orderly work
Perhaps you are a creative person and you can create a landscape by inspiration, today - a flower bed by the porch, and tomorrow - a gazebo behind the house. The most experienced artist does not dare to paint a picture without preliminary sketches. Working on a site without a plan, you risk creating chaotic piles of small architectural forms and thickets of plants. Then you still have to redo everything, structure it and organize it.
A preliminary landscape design project will save time, effort and money, allow you to see the site in perspective, and open up new opportunities. Allocate a couple of nights to think over and design the project in detail. At this stage it is necessary:
Highlight functional areas;
Choose a style direction, appropriate decoration;
Consider the location of sites, tracks;
Choose a method of fencing;
Decide on a watering system;
To develop a power supply scheme for garden communications, technical and decorative lighting.
Functional Zones
This includes places to relax - gazebos, terraces, patios, cozy garden corners, tea houses. The garden has a purely practical function (although it can also be made decorative). It is necessary to determine the place for fruit crops, berry plants.If greenhouses, greenhouses are planned, outline their location. A small pond - a pond with aquatic plants, a swimming pool for swimming in hot weather will greatly decorate the site. For dry soils on the sunny side, you can plan an alpine slide. Be sure to mark the lawn.
The lawn, even tiny, will become a decoration of the garden at any time of the year. In late autumn, it pleases the eye with fresh greens to the very snow, and in spring it revitalizes the garden until the leaves open on the trees. In the summer - serves as an excellent background for flowering plants.
To cook meat in the fresh air, consider a barbecue area, fireproof, protected from rain and wind. For children, plan the equipment of the play area - sandbox, swing, orphanages.
Style direction. The choice of style depends on personal preferences and capabilities. The area near the house should please every time, as soon as you approach it, returning from work, from a trip or just go out to admire the flowers in the early morning. Choose the style of landscape design that your soul responds to, and the possibilities of implementation will certainly be found.
The regular style of English gardens requires an impeccable taste, constant care of the lawn, plants, significant investments - in paving, decorative flowerpots, sculptures, seedlings, garden equipment;
Elegant light Mediterranean style implies a combination of stone - marble chips, sea pebbles, wooden elements (arches, pergolas, terraces) and climbing plants.
Complementing any style with evergreen conifers, you can achieve the expressiveness of the landscape at any time of the year.
Japanese style is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Clear forms are achieved by the correct selection of plants, a well-thought-out, well-planned layout, additional decoration with stones, wooden accessories.
Landscape design in the style of "wild nature" is minimally costly and easily adapts to the existing terrain.This is the best option if you come to a country house only for the weekend, you do not have the opportunity to regularly care for plants.
The rustic style is simple to implement, it is close in spirit to the “wild” nature, but is complemented by original elements from wood such as a cart or a wheel from it, clay pots, willow wicker, decorative simple unpretentious plants - nasturtium, sunflower, mallow.
The landscape design of the site around the country house in style should be combined with the house and outbuildings.
Paths and grounds
Paths connect the house with functional areas, allow you to move around the site in wet weather without problems, form the internal geometry of the territory. The coverage of the paths depends on the chosen garden style.
Regular style requires a dense, even, uniform paving, the Mediterranean - more liberal - combinations of different materials are acceptable here - stone, wood, pebbles, mosaic finishes. In rustic, natural, landscape styles, paths sprinkled with pine bark, lined with wooden circles or just lawn paths are possible.
Paths and paved areas adorn the landscape, make it easier to care for the garden, move around it. Having shown imagination in the design of the tracks with your own hands, it is real to get a spectacular cover with minimal investment.
Fencing
A very important, most expensive element of landscape design of a country house depends, first of all, on the purpose - whether the fence is intended to protect against unauthorized entry or separates the surrounding areas purely symbolically.
After determining the destination, you need to take into account the stylistic orientation of the house and, accordingly, the entire plot. Brick and stone fences with wrought iron elements perfectly complement the English-style country cottage with a regular garden.A wicker willow fence will beautifully decorate and protect a country house in a rustic style with a “wild” landscape, and a fence from a profiled sheet will “kill” the most sophisticated patio near the house.
There is no way to choose a fence that is stylistically suitable for the chosen landscape design? Decorate the fence with vertical landscaping, wooden structures (trellises, screens), shrubs, trees.
Irrigation system
70% of plant care - watering work. Of course, you can limit yourself to an ordinary garden watering can, but you need to really assess the amount of time and physical costs with this method.
The modern market for garden products offers a huge number of irrigation systems, from simple hoses with nozzles to powerful automatic systems that completely eliminate manual labor and control the humidity of large plantings.
When designing plantings near the house, be sure to evaluate the possibilities of watering, if you do not do this in advance, then it will be very sad to watch how exotic expensive specimens of flowers, shrubs or trees dry out under the scorching sun.
Power supply and lighting. Maintenance, decoration of the territory requires electrical equipment - a pumping station, a pump system for a pond, pool, stream. Perhaps the use of an electric lawn mower and, of course, lighting the territory. The entire electrical system is mounted taking into account operation in humid atmospheric conditions. It is good if the technical connection is separate from the decorative lighting.
Advance solution of the technical problems of electricity and water supply will save you from hard manual labor with the landscaping of the site with your own hands, free up time for a pleasant stay and real creativity.
Plant selection
This is the most important stage in the landscape design of a suburban area of any stylistic orientation. Plants must correspond to the climatic zone in which the house is located. No matter how you wrap a date palm tree in the winter, it will not winter in the Moscow Region. Most novice gardeners make this mistake, trying to "temper" the southerners in the mid-winter winters. The result is obvious, but attempts to subject the inhabitants of the subtropics to winter mutation do not stop.
Appropriate humidity. Swamp, coastal plants will not be able to grow on dry, stony soil, and succulents will “loom”, rot near the pond. The requirements of plants for a certain moisture content are vital for them.
Lighting. Plants of sunny places will stretch in the shade and cease to bloom profusely. Shade-tolerant species "burn out" in the hot sun, do not develop at full strength, "cower" from the heat. Planting seedlings, flower seedlings, depending on the brightness of the place, will enable each plant to express itself in all its glory.
Do not hurry. You planted a seedling, but it "froze", does not grow? Do not touch it, do not undermine, do not transplant. Any plant needs to “get comfortable” in a new place, to gain a foothold, to take root well. A herbaceous plant will need several days, deciduous tree seedling - a year, and coniferous - 2-3 years.
The basic vegetative landscape design of the site is laid by large tall trees. Shrubs fill the "matrix" of large trees, flowers decorate, decorate it. The plot without large size looks flat, incomplete. If the trees have not yet grown, there is a simple way to add additional volume to the garden with vertical landscaping - wall, on arches and pergolas, using climbing plants (girl's grapes, hops, different types of clematis).
For a better microclimate on the site, in order to lessen damage to plants by pests, diseases, it is worth avoiding planting monocultures, and practicing mixed planting.Tall, winter-hardy plant species are preferably planted from the north, north-west sides of the plot, and gentle warm, sun-loving, from the east and south sides.
To reduce the number of planting, transplanting plants into flower beds and flowers, it is better to plant winter-hardy perennials, fill the gaps between them with bright annual flowers. The principle of planting on rabatki is tall plants on a distant part, lower ones in the center, very small flower beds along the edge of the bed.
The combination of colors according to the timing of flowering, the color scheme is infinitely diverse. A couple of years of do-it-yourself landscape design experiments will help you find your favorite options. Do not be afraid to experiment, the main thing is to do it with love for plants, and they will definitely thank.
When landscaping a section of a country house, there is another golden rule. Do not grab onto all areas of work at once, do not try to cover the entire site at once in one season, if you do not have the opportunity to hire a team of gardeners. Even if the territory is small, the scope of work is huge. Work gradually, consistently in accordance with the project.
First, design a small flower bed near the entrance, keep it in perfect condition. It turns out? Then continue on, lay the Alpine slide with your own hands, bring it to perfection. Do not deviate from the general plan, gradually, step by step, master the entire site.
Garden furniture and accessories
Wicker chairs, a table on a paved cozy area in the shade of trees, a wooden bench between rose bushes, a comfortable lounger near a pond with an alpine slide will complement the overall landscape design of the site, making it more comfortable to enjoy.
Figures of small animals - hedgehogs, mice, snails, - fairy-tale characters - gnomes, fairies - will give the garden a flair of mystery, romance, and inner fullness.It is important that they naturally, unobtrusively fit into the general atmosphere, and even better, that each figure has its own personal story of the appearance in your garden.
Stories attract attention. This fills the garden with a special spirit of life, hidden from prying eyes. To turn the landscape design of a large country house with your own hands into a continuous creative process ... is this possible? Yes. Just take your time ....
A piece of land around a country house is not just a piece of property and freedom from neighbors in a city apartment, it is an opportunity to express yourself, your dream, imagination with nature's tools - trees, flowers, water, stones. It is not difficult to create a landscaping of a country house with your own hands, but you still need the skills to care for plants, the artistic taste, and hard work.
The main thing is not to rush, to approach the arrangement of the site deliberately, the result will surely please, maybe not immediately, but only after a few years. But this is not scary, because the process of landscape design is a pleasure. Once you get a great result, you just can’t stop.
Content
The beginning is just the beginning
Getting to the landscape design of the site of a country house, carefully examine it, evaluate the pros and cons, especially pay attention to:
Illumination of the territory, protection from the north, north-west winds depends on the location relative to the cardinal points. On the north side of the site, it is wise to plan protection from cold-resistant large plants, a high fence. It is possible to arrange farm buildings in this part. On the south side it will be comfortable heat-loving fruit plants, vegetable beds, flower beds.
Complex terrain is not always worth aligning. This is the same case of landscape design, when the cons easily turn into pros. A slope equipped with a staircase with stone steps or a retaining wall, a gabion near a ravine will decorate the site well. A natural elevation is ideal for an alpine hill, and a swampy lowland for a pond. The shape of the site sets the lines of planting trees and shrubs, the location of paths, rest areas.
Powerful old trees are a real landscape treasure. Having made a large tree the center, you can create a unique composition. Tall large plants give the surrounding space volume.If old trees on the site are not needed, they interfere with the overall style, do not rush to clean them until suitable plantings have grown. Large plants perfectly retain moisture in the soil during dry periods, during periods of rains they drain well, in heat protect from the scorching sun, and cover from cold winds in bad weather. Cut a large tree for a short time, and it will take several decades to grow. By removing large old trees, you will bare the site for a long time, for 20-30 years, until new plantings grow, thereby worsening the overall microclimate of the site.
Decorative, elegant site is achieved by creating the optimal microclimate for growing plants. If this point is not followed, plant care will require tremendous effort.
It is difficult to track the features of the soil immediately, sometimes it takes several years to refuse to grow any plant due to inappropriate soil. Laboratory analysis of the soil will clarify the situation, but the quality of the soil in one area may be different at a distance of several meters. Experience and observation will be a lifesaver here, and if you don’t have experience, just refuse to grow plants that do not grow well on your site with proper care. This will save you energy and nerves.
A big plus will be the location of the residential building in the back of the plot. This layout gives comfort, security, hides from prying eyes, unusually decorates the house. Beautifully designed entrance, driveway give the landscape solidity and reliability. Unlucky with the layout, the house is right on the road, and the plot is behind it? The situation can be corrected by designing a beautiful open terrace and a cozy patio from the side of the plot. Outbuildings are best placed on the north side of the site to protect it from the cold and make maximum use of the sunlight on the south side.
Groundwater is the "pitfall" that destroys already flowering gardens a few years after planting. Well-established, giving the first fruits, apple trees begin to die for no apparent reason, cherries do not grow at all, and water accumulates in the basement of the house. A study of the level of groundwater occurrence is the very first, most important study that is worth conducting when choosing a site. If groundwater lies closer than one and a half meters from the soil surface, additional drainage will be required.
Having appreciated the pros and cons of the territory, you can proceed to detailed planning.
Design project - the basis for orderly work
Perhaps you are a creative person and you can create a landscape by inspiration, today - a flower bed by the porch, and tomorrow - a gazebo behind the house. The most experienced artist does not dare to paint a picture without preliminary sketches. Working on a site without a plan, you risk creating chaotic piles of small architectural forms and thickets of plants. Then you still have to redo everything, structure it and organize it.
A preliminary landscape design project will save time, effort and money, allow you to see the site in perspective, and open up new opportunities. Allocate a couple of nights to think over and design the project in detail.
At this stage it is necessary:
Functional Zones
This includes places to relax - gazebos, terraces, patios, cozy garden corners, tea houses. The garden has a purely practical function (although it can also be made decorative). It is necessary to determine the place for fruit crops, berry plants.If greenhouses, greenhouses are planned, outline their location. A small pond - a pond with aquatic plants, a swimming pool for swimming in hot weather will greatly decorate the site. For dry soils on the sunny side, you can plan an alpine slide. Be sure to mark the lawn.
To cook meat in the fresh air, consider a barbecue area, fireproof, protected from rain and wind. For children, plan the equipment of the play area - sandbox, swing, orphanages.
Style direction. The choice of style depends on personal preferences and capabilities. The area near the house should please every time, as soon as you approach it, returning from work, from a trip or just go out to admire the flowers in the early morning. Choose the style of landscape design that your soul responds to, and the possibilities of implementation will certainly be found.
The landscape design of the site around the country house in style should be combined with the house and outbuildings.
Paths and grounds
Paths connect the house with functional areas, allow you to move around the site in wet weather without problems, form the internal geometry of the territory. The coverage of the paths depends on the chosen garden style.
Regular style requires a dense, even, uniform paving, the Mediterranean - more liberal - combinations of different materials are acceptable here - stone, wood, pebbles, mosaic finishes. In rustic, natural, landscape styles, paths sprinkled with pine bark, lined with wooden circles or just lawn paths are possible.
Paths and paved areas adorn the landscape, make it easier to care for the garden, move around it. Having shown imagination in the design of the tracks with your own hands, it is real to get a spectacular cover with minimal investment.
Fencing
A very important, most expensive element of landscape design of a country house depends, first of all, on the purpose - whether the fence is intended to protect against unauthorized entry or separates the surrounding areas purely symbolically.
After determining the destination, you need to take into account the stylistic orientation of the house and, accordingly, the entire plot. Brick and stone fences with wrought iron elements perfectly complement the English-style country cottage with a regular garden.A wicker willow fence will beautifully decorate and protect a country house in a rustic style with a “wild” landscape, and a fence from a profiled sheet will “kill” the most sophisticated patio near the house.
Irrigation system
70% of plant care - watering work. Of course, you can limit yourself to an ordinary garden watering can, but you need to really assess the amount of time and physical costs with this method.
When designing plantings near the house, be sure to evaluate the possibilities of watering, if you do not do this in advance, then it will be very sad to watch how exotic expensive specimens of flowers, shrubs or trees dry out under the scorching sun.
Power supply and lighting. Maintenance, decoration of the territory requires electrical equipment - a pumping station, a pump system for a pond, pool, stream. Perhaps the use of an electric lawn mower and, of course, lighting the territory. The entire electrical system is mounted taking into account operation in humid atmospheric conditions. It is good if the technical connection is separate from the decorative lighting.
Advance solution of the technical problems of electricity and water supply will save you from hard manual labor with the landscaping of the site with your own hands, free up time for a pleasant stay and real creativity.
Plant selection
Plants must correspond to the climatic zone in which the house is located. No matter how you wrap a date palm tree in the winter, it will not winter in the Moscow Region. Most novice gardeners make this mistake, trying to "temper" the southerners in the mid-winter winters. The result is obvious, but attempts to subject the inhabitants of the subtropics to winter mutation do not stop.
The basic vegetative landscape design of the site is laid by large tall trees. Shrubs fill the "matrix" of large trees, flowers decorate, decorate it. The plot without large size looks flat, incomplete. If the trees have not yet grown, there is a simple way to add additional volume to the garden with vertical landscaping - wall, on arches and pergolas, using climbing plants (girl's grapes, hops, different types of clematis).
For a better microclimate on the site, in order to lessen damage to plants by pests, diseases, it is worth avoiding planting monocultures, and practicing mixed planting.Tall, winter-hardy plant species are preferably planted from the north, north-west sides of the plot, and gentle warm, sun-loving, from the east and south sides.
To reduce the number of planting, transplanting plants into flower beds and flowers, it is better to plant winter-hardy perennials, fill the gaps between them with bright annual flowers. The principle of planting on rabatki is tall plants on a distant part, lower ones in the center, very small flower beds along the edge of the bed.
The combination of colors according to the timing of flowering, the color scheme is infinitely diverse. A couple of years of do-it-yourself landscape design experiments will help you find your favorite options. Do not be afraid to experiment, the main thing is to do it with love for plants, and they will definitely thank.
When landscaping a section of a country house, there is another golden rule. Do not grab onto all areas of work at once, do not try to cover the entire site at once in one season, if you do not have the opportunity to hire a team of gardeners. Even if the territory is small, the scope of work is huge. Work gradually, consistently in accordance with the project.
First, design a small flower bed near the entrance, keep it in perfect condition. It turns out? Then continue on, lay the Alpine slide with your own hands, bring it to perfection. Do not deviate from the general plan, gradually, step by step, master the entire site.
Garden furniture and accessories
Wicker chairs, a table on a paved cozy area in the shade of trees, a wooden bench between rose bushes, a comfortable lounger near a pond with an alpine slide will complement the overall landscape design of the site, making it more comfortable to enjoy.
Figures of small animals - hedgehogs, mice, snails, - fairy-tale characters - gnomes, fairies - will give the garden a flair of mystery, romance, and inner fullness.It is important that they naturally, unobtrusively fit into the general atmosphere, and even better, that each figure has its own personal story of the appearance in your garden.
Stories attract attention. This fills the garden with a special spirit of life, hidden from prying eyes. To turn the landscape design of a large country house with your own hands into a continuous creative process ... is this possible? Yes. Just take your time ....