Rather than dreading and delaying the chore of home landscaping, think of your backyard as a blank canvas with limitless possibilities. If you’re daunted by the sheer size of the task at hand, following these six simple steps will help you manage the work piece by piece, helping you realize your vision for your perfect yard sooner and with less effort and expense.

1.Know what you’re working with. Begin by making a detailed survey of all areas you want to landscape. Take accurate measurements of the areas, and note any anomalies or abnormalities in the terrain that might need special treatment or consideration. Know your soil type, map out your grass coverage and, of course, demarcate your property lines if you don’t already have fences bordering your neighbor’s yard.

2.Do your research. You need to understand growing conditions and weather patterns in your area, particularly how much rainfall you can expect on average and how many hours of sunlight you can expect your plants to get. Get specific facts about the length of the local growing season, and research temperature ranges in your area closely � temperature is, perhaps, the single most important factor that will influence the decisions you make about your landscape and garden.

3.Put pen to paper on your vision for the finished product. Use the data and information you collected during your survey and information collecting phases to inform and guide your landscape design. By now, you’ll know what types of plants, trees, flowers, shrubs and hedges grow best in your area, and what won’t work. If you live in a particularly arid climate, you might opt to put most of your effort into creating a unique and attractive rock garden; however, if you live in a temperate zone that gets plenty of rainfall, the sky’s the limit in terms of what you can do. Visit a garden nursery if you need ideas or expert guidance.

4.Create a plan. Think long-term, especially if you want to include young trees as part of your design. It will take a couple years, at minimum, for any large plants you anchor your landscape with to mature. Keep in mind that your results will manifest themselves in stages, so you should include strategies for protecting plants that will mature faster from pests and excess sunlight.

5.Execute the plan in stages. Not only does this help keep the labor manageable, it will also help you absorb the costs of your projects in small chunks rather than plunking down buckets of cash all at once. Moreover, implementing the changes bit by bit lets you concentrate on a single aspect of the overall design at a time, meaning your flower garden, grass or hedges will get your full attention. This will help you do a better, more careful job, ensuring that the end project will be that much better.

6.Be flexible. You may make mistakes, find that something just isn’t working, or change your mind about one aspect of the project or another as you work. Don’t worry about it � in fact, this is often to the benefit of your yard. Some of the world’s greatest inventions were discovered by accident, so don’t worry about making mistakes. Slavishly erring on the side of caution will limit your creativity and may actually hinder you from realizing the vision you set out to create in the first place.