Planning Your Own Landscape: Step-by-Step Guide

Professional landscaping costs can be astronomical. Master Gardener designers share a practical DIY approach in two parts. This week: getting started.

Do Your Homework

Theresa Schrum: Determine use (entertaining, play, pets, curb appeal) and honest maintenance time. Divide yard into functional zones.

Sharon Entin-Roth: Get a project notebook with pockets. Photograph priority areas from multiple angles. Sketch the yard roughly, noting cardinal directions, existing plants, and large trees. Know your hardiness zone (Atlanta = zone 7).

Design Principles (Shannon Pable)

1. Choose style: formal, natural, garden rooms, open.
2. Plan for function: mower paths, spigot access, pruning reach. Call utilities to mark underground lines (see Locating Buried Utility Lines).
3. Design for year-round interest: evergreen foundation → deciduous trees/shrubs → perennials/annuals. Use drought-tolerant natives.
4. Place large deciduous trees on south side for summer shade/winter sun.
5. Plant in odd numbers; group small plants; only specimens stand alone.
6. Repeat plant groupings for unity; keep clean bed edges.
7. Know mature sizes—avoid planting Leyland cypress under power lines.

Borrowed Views (Stacy Freeman)

Note views to preserve (distant trees, sky) and areas to screen (neighbors). Choose screen plants carefully: will they thrive? Are they invasive? Is a fence better?

Take it one area at a time. Next week: free and inexpensive resources.

azalea beds