Understanding the Language of Landscape Design

Whenever you put something together yourself, you are engaged in designing. Sometimes we take our designing skills for granted, because what we're putting together is so commonplace for us that we are no longer conscious of the designing process. For instance, you are employing designing techniques when you compose a letter to send to somebody. Your basic "elements" to accomplish such a task include vocabulary, spelling and grammar. Some more complex elements, or "principles," are built directly on the basic elements. Letter-writing principles include conveying your ideas clearly and coming across as a courteous, intelligent individual. Your success with these principles will largely determine whether your letter achieves its ultimate objective or not.

And so it is with landscape design. Do-it-yourselfers must first learn the basic designing elements that underlie the discipline of landscape design. These fundamental elements will then serve as building blocks for learning and implementing the more advanced principles for designing a garden in the backyard. These tried and true principles are the cornerstones of the world's picture-perfect gardens.

The basic elements of landscape design are:

• Colour, as defined by colour theory.

• Form

• Line

• Scale.

• Texture

These five elements must be considered in designing both the hardscape and softscape of your property, the latter consisting mainly of gardens, lawns, shrubs and trees. As for scale, it is simply the size of one component relative to adjacent components.

Colour, along with form, line, texture and scale, is one of the basic elements of landscape design, while proportion, transition and unity are some of the principles that rely on those elements. Your choice of colours to be used in the yard should not be considered in isolation. Rather, always keep in mind how colour interplays with the other basic elements, with the principles of landscape design, and with the overall objectives of your plan.

Examples of the Application of Colour Theory

The spectrum of colours is often divided into 4 categories:

• Primary: reds, yellows and blues.

• Secondary: greens, violets (purples) and oranges.

• Tertiary: Blends of the primary and secondary categories.

• Neutral: White, grays and silvers.

The secondary colours can be thought of as an even blending of two primary colours. Thus red and yellow produce orange, yellow and blue produce green, and red and blue yield purple.

The blends known as "tertiary colours" add a further element of complexity to the colour wheel. They are as follows: yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet, red-orange and orange-yellow.

Using colour theory as your guide, you can match the colours you use in your landscaping so that they "go together." The tertiary colours can serve as transitional colours to this end. For instance, let's say you want a colour scheme using reds and violets. If you can find a plant that has a red-violet colour, it will help bridge the gulf between your red plants and your violet (purple) plants. The addition of the third plant in such a case makes the difference between a slightly jarring effect (i.e., with just reds and violets) versus a smoother, more harmonious ensemble.

Colour can also alter mood and perception, allowing you to:

• Create a relaxing corner in your yard where you can meditate.

• Make small spaces seem larger.

• Attract attention to a particular area.

• Tie different areas of the yard together.

You may wonder what seemingly abstract terms like "form" have to do with backyard landscape design. You may object that you're not painting a landscape, after all; you're just putting plants in the ground. Yet it is not coincidental that backyard landscape design shares some terminology with the world of art. The backyard is your canvas; your landscape design skills will determine the beauty of the resulting picture.

The element of form is defined as the shape of a plant and the structure of its branching pattern. Trees come in many shapes (especially if pruned), including columnar and globular shapes. Likewise, tree forms range structurally from having the stiffly upright branches of Lombardy poplar trees to the droopy quality of a weeping willow. The form of individual components of a plant also needs to be considered. For example, the leaf form of one type of tree can be very different from that of another type of tree. Relative leaf size, meanwhile, helps determine plant texture (see picture).

Since texture is primarily a visual matter in landscape design, we often rely on the relative size of a plant's leaves to draw conclusions about its perceived texture. Yes, plant texture is highly relative: it refers to how the surface of the object is perceived, relative to the objects around it. Thus the plant texture of one bedding plant, for example, might be considered more or less coarse than that of an adjacent plant, due to differences in leaf size.

The element of line refers to the fact that the viewer's eye movement or flow can be governed by the arrangement of plants and their borders. Eye movement is unconsciously influenced by the way plant groupings fit or flow together, both on the horizontal and vertical planes.

With the basic elements defined, it is time to put them to practical use. In planning a landscape design it is necessary to work with the "principles" that stem directly from the basic elements. How effectively you implement these principles will determine the impact of your landscaping upon the viewer – be it yourself or a prospective buyer.

Exercise 1

Find in the text English equivalents of the following words and word combinations:

конструирование, проектирование; принимать что-либо как должное; применять методы проектирования; мастер на все руки; цветовой спектр; основной цвет; смесь двух основных цветов; смесь трех основных цветов; колоннообразный; шаровидный; горизонтальная плоскость; вертикальная плоскость; малая ландшафтная архитектура, искусственный ландшафт; ландшафтное озеленение, декоративное растениеводство.

Exercise 2

Complete the following sentences:

1. Whenever you put something together yourself, you are engaged in …

2. Do-it-yourselfers must first learn …

3. The primary colours are …

4. The secondary colours can be thought of as …

5. The examples of the "tertiary colours" are as follows: ….

Exercise 3

Answer the questions:

1. Where can we employ our designing techniques?

2. What are the basic elements of landscape design?

3. What is scale?

4. What is the role of colour in landscape design?

5. How is the element of form defined?

6. Are such elements as line and texture important in designing?