or plant society
These groups frequently have informative speakers at their meetings and periodically offer garden tours. Garden tours are great because they offer you the opportunity to observe the use of various landscape elements, both hardscape and plants. Your local nursery should be able to hook you up with garden clubs or societies dedicated to specific plants, like the Rose Society or Rhododendron Society.
Tour your neighbors’ yards
Ask people how they did what they did. You may find that even normally reserved or private people love to talk about their yard. Also, seeing the level of landscaping in your neighborhood gives you a benchmark on the level and quality of landscaping that the neighborhood warrants.
Go online
Start with social media, such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Search for “landscaping design ideas” and specific wishes to find many sites, blogs, and images.
Subscribe to garden magazines or trawl their websites
They can increase your warehouse of knowledge on plants and their uses.
Of course, after you subscribe or provide your email address, you soon receive every mail-order plant catalog in the country or are added to those email lists, which is great for you.
Create idea caches on your computer’s desktop, or manually clip articles or images that interest you and make idea-board collages. Or make folders organized by plant type. Here are labels on some of the folders we keep: bulbs, perennials, annuals, evergreen trees and shrubs, deciduous trees and shrubs, vines, tools, lawns and groundcovers, bugs (both good and bad), plant diseases, decks and patios, garden paths, and garden furniture.
Magazines and catalogs can also alert you to problems in the care and maintenance of plants in the landscape. Magazines including Garden Design, The English Garden, Gardens Illustrated, and Gardenista are sources of inspiration geared more to design ideas, whereas Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Garden Gate, Birds & Blooms, Better Homes & Gardens, and Sunset offer lots of practical information on plants and planting.
Chat with a Master Gardener
Your closest Cooperative Extension office can put you in touch with a Master Gardener, or alert you to any event or gathering a group of them may be planning. Master Gardeners are knowledgeable about plants and gardening. They can answer your questions and point you to good resources, including their favorite suppliers in your area.
THINKING LONG TERM
How long you plan to live in your house influences your landscape planning. If you’re only planning to live in your house a couple of years, concentrate on fast-growing trees and shrubs to give you a more powerful effect sooner. Expensive projects like a deck or gazebo may add to the value of your home, but you may not recoup those costs before you’re ready to move.
In general, the shorter your stay, the less complex your landscape plans should be. If you plan to stay in your house for a long time, go ahead and tackle more difficult projects, such as adding a deck, fence, pool, or patio (see Part 2).
Are you or someone else in your home aging, or planning to stay and garden at this address until older? Is anyone, of any age, handicapped or mobility-challenged (regular visitors or residents)? Sooner or later, you and your landscape design may need to accommodate these specialized needs. Among the design ideas that facilitate such folks are: wider, flatter smoother paths providing access to different spots, elevated gardening beds, comfortable (shady) places to sit, and specialized maintenance tools. Among many great resources for ideas and advice is www.accessiblegardens.com.
Use this book
Flip to Part 2 of this book for information on building hardscape and Part 3 for ideas on plants. You can also check out the latest edition of Gardening Basics For Dummies by Steven Frowine and the Editors of the National Gardening Association (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).
Drawing within the Lines: Living with Practical Issues
Some parts — only a few, don’t fret — of working with your landscape are nonnegotiable. Here we discuss them in greater detail, in case one or more applies to your situation. Although they may be necessary considerations, they don’t need to derail your dreams. Just find ways to address them.
Making sure you know where your property lines are
Our advice here is quite blunt: Don’t work near or on the bounds unless you know where the bounds are. By that, we mean, don’t plan a change, or don’t start up a new fence, hedge, or any landscaping project close to the edges of your property unless you know for certain where the legal lines are.
Keep in mind that your actual property line may be set back several feet/a meter or so from its markers. Also check your deed to see whether the street occupies an easement along the front of your property (an easement essentially means that your city, county, or neighbors may use the space if ever needed).
When you can’t verify your property lines, you need to hire a professional land surveyor (PLS); they can also provide seasoned advice about any disputes or ambiguities.
Verifying whether you need permits
If you’re contemplating some new and substantial features or dramatic changes
