benefits of great landscapes

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Page 1: Benefits of Great Landscapes
Page 2: Benefits of Great Landscapes

The Benefits of Great Landscapes

Richard S. FreelandDragonLyre Edition

Copyright 2012

Cover Photo Courtesy Moyan Brenn, Flickr

Discover Other Titles by Richard Freeland at DragonLyre.com

DragonLyre Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did

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of this author.

The Benefits of Great Landscapes

What Can a Great Landscape Do For You?

Great landscapes are more than just a collection of random plants. A great landscape—one built for ideal outdoor living—is the result of a well-thought-out plan, designed to convey true benefits to home and business owners.

A great landscape is an investment, and not only of money. Time, energy and commitment play huge roles in the creation process. But the dividends derived from designing and building a great landscape are well worth the costs.

When planning your great landscape for outdoor living, make sure you achieve all the benefits possible from your investment.

Great Landscapes Unify Your Property

Great landscapes result in the creation of outdoor spaces that fit perfectly within the context of your region, neighborhood and site; reflect your home’s style and architecture;

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and inter-connect spaces seamlessly. Like a child's Lego masterpiece, great landscapes, though made up of separate parts, function as a whole.

The creation of a landscape begins with regional context. You live in a unique area, both geographically and culturally. Your climate, USDA hardiness zone and soils influence what type plants you can grow. You'll find certain hardscape materials readily available in your region; others will be scarce, unobtainable or expensive. Regional architecture, garden themes, even a neighbor's prized garden, may serve as guides for your own dreams.

A landscape that functions as a whole will invite integration of the home into the site, resulting in the preservation of existing trees and watershed patterns, with less necessary site grading.

Ideally, you should perform a site analysis before constructing your house. Then design and build your home and outdoor spaces together to capitalize on the opportunities your site presents while avoiding problems and constraints.

Great landscapes reflect your home's architecture as well as your decorative style. Your total living space actually increases through the transition of indoor living space to outdoor rooms. Usable space expands. Views and vistas from your home to the garden stimulate your senses. Using the same or similar materials in your home and landscape, and extending architectural elements such as walls or floors from the house into the outdoors, will further strengthen the relationship between your home and landscape.

Whether you're building a total, site-wide landscape, or a small, intimate courtyard, your outdoor spaces should interlock on your site, connecting with the house and transitioning into one another like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The result is synergy, where the whole is greater than the parts.

True functionality plays a large part in designing for outdoor living, and enhances both residential and commercial properties. Landscapes for outdoor living promote the creation of outdoor spaces designed not just for static beauty but for functionality, ease of installation, low ongoing maintenance, and budgetary constraints. Elements of great landscapes create a sense of rhythmic movement and harmony that tends to further tie the design together.

Great Landscapes Reflect Your Wants and Needs

Designing for outdoor living ensures outdoor spaces are created to reflect your true wants and needs, and addresses how you will really use your home or business property.

Say you wanted to travel to Madagascar. The first thing you’d do plan for you trip. You’d decide where you wanted to go, what you wanted to experience, how to get there, and how long you would stay. You need a similar plan when you’re designing your great

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landscape. Such a roadmap is called a design program, and it lists everything you and your family want your landscape to accomplish or provide.

Want an outdoor kitchen? An entertainment space? A pool and spa area? Need to screen the neighbor’s unsightly garage? Block the north wind? Create a safe spot for the kids to play? Establish a vegetable garden? All these desires, and more, should appear in your highly-personalized design program. It’s one of the first steps in the process towards creating a great landscape that reflects your wants and needs.

Don’t hold back at this stage. Engage the entire family in preparing this plan. List everything you can think of that will improve your property and your life.

Now’s the time to dream. You can pare your design program down to fit reality and your budget later, when drawing up your site's Masterplan.

If you’re hot on creating a landscape, why not do it right and enjoy the process and the results. Why not create a great landscape? A masterpiece.

Great Landscapes Enhance the Environment

If you design for outdoor living, you can enhance not only the overall environment but your own personal living environment, as well. How? You can protect sensitive areas, maximize on-site resources, preserve mature native vegetation and wildlife corridors, treat stormwater at the source (or harvest it for your own use), and save energy. It’s called intelligent modification of the environment.

The natural drainage patterns, soils, vegetation and wildlife habitats are what gives your site its distinct personality. Fit your home into this context in a way that protects these sensitive areas and integrates them into the design.

Why bother? Site construction can have undesired consequences. Stripping the site of its soil (like some developers do when constructing subdivisions) will cost you money in soil enhancements and lost plants, as well as contributing towards erosion and sedimentation. Taking out mature vegetation is a waste of native plant species that add real dollar value to your property. Destroying wildlife habitats and travel corridors interferes with species health and diversity and ecological order—not to mention displacing birds, small mammals, reptiles and beneficial insects that can help make your landscape great!

How about water? Changing natural drainage patterns could result in flooding your property—or your neighbors. Laying down paved walks and drives can increase runoff volume and velocity and contribute to soil erosion.

But you can create intimate, workable human spaces within natural places. By harvesting rainwater and protecting existing vegetation, you can help control erosion while storing

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water for irrigation, cutting down on the amount of municipal water you need to use and pay for.

You can utilize on-site rock and stone to create walls, paths, or patios, or to create decorative rockeries or water features. Large, immovable stones could possibly be integrated into the home itself.

Wind and sun constantly impact your site and can be nuisances or blessings. Correctly planted evergreen trees and shrubs can block cold north winds and keep your home warmer, or channel summer breezes to help cool a shaded patio. Shade trees can cool heating and air conditioning units or seating areas. Deciduous trees like oaks can also contribute to cooling the home by intercepting the sun’s rays. In winter, these same trees lose their leaves and allow the lower winter sun to penetrate through and warm the home, effectively using solar energy to supplement your home's heating system.

These elements modify climate by providing shade and blocking the wind. They make natural snow fences and sun screens. They also serve to keep dust down, abate noise, reduce glare, and control air pollution. Plant transpiration cools the air. Plants also absorb carbon dioxide while producing oxygen as a waste product. Windbreaks can reduce wind by up to 50%, with a corresponding 20% to 40% reduction in heating fuel consumption.

Take it even further. Use the geo-thermal properties of ponds or the earth itself to heat and cool your home. And if you have a live stream with any kind of head, small scale hydro-power could be feasible.

Streams, even those designed and constructed by man, help enhance your environment. Moving water in the garden helps to purify the air and serve as a source of water for wildlife. As for plants, perennial and native varieties attract birds, provide fragrance, save water and help control erosion.

Intelligent modification of the environment can include the use of permeable paving to allow water to infiltrate into the ground at gutters or other runoff sources; planting of vegetation to decrease heat buildup; creation of heat sinks using stored water or other materials to absorb solar energy for heating swimming pools or providing hot water; and establishing tree and shrub buffers to absorb noise.

Great Landscapes Increase Property Values

By preserving site features, creating true functional space, improving aesthetics and paying attention to detail through fine garden design principles, your property values increase.

A study by Clemson University says that homeowners may be able to recoup 100% or more of the costs of landscaping. Further, the report mentioned that "homeowners wanting to increase the value of their property will do well to consider the cost-effective,

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return potential of quality landscaping, and to safeguard their investments by hiring licensed, professional landscape contractors to perform the work.”

Trees (in the right place) play a critical part in increasing a property's value. Mature trees in well-nurtured landscapes can add appraisal values of $1000 to $10,000 when compared to projects with no trees or poor landscapes. Landscaping your patio or deck can increase property values around 12 %. Adding landscaping close to the curb adds approximately 4% in value.

Landscape values increase over time as the landscape matures. A home looks much more established when nestled within a landscape where plants have to a point where they're in scale with their surroundings. Another study by Clemson University (along with the University of Michigan), revealed that consumers value a well-landscaped home up to 11.3% higher than the same home without landscaping. These findings were correlated by the Associated Landscape Contractors of America in a report entitled "Economic Benefits of Landscape". The report found that landscaping may add as much as 14% to the resale value of a building, and decrease the time it takes to sell it by as much as 6 weeks.

Designing for outdoor living helps stage your home or business at its best. It reflects your architecture, creates curb appeal, improves site conditions and showcases your home at its finest. You can accomplish these goals by pruning existing plants or removing over grown ones; putting in new plants that are suitable to the site and growing conditions; using color and focal points to draw the eye; conditioning, improving or even reducing the size of a home's lawn (which is the "stage" your home is showcased on); and more.

Great Landscapes Decrease Stress and Improve Fitness

Designing for outdoor living can create livable outdoor spaces for your relaxation and sensory delight, while offering opportunities for loosing weight and increasing fitness. Just designing a garden can feed your creative spirit.

Many folks want low-maintenance landscapes, and that’s a worthy goal if you lack the time, inclination or expertise to take care of your own garden. After all, that’s what landscape maintenance firms are for. But gardens love for you to be out in them; if you like to work in the garden, great! You'll body will benefit from physical exercise in the outdoors, your mind will benefit from all the thought that goes into garden planning, and your spirit...well, your spirit will benefit from your participation in the great circle of life!

By doing some or all of the installation and maintenance work yourself, your overall strength and health should increase. Pulling weeds, digging beds, handling rock, pushing wheelbarrows—who needs an expensive gym membership? Put the money you'll save into your garden.

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A great landscape can be an individual or family hobby. Planning and caring for a garden is an inexpensive way to relax, exercise, and nurture your creative side, as well as that of your kids. Gardens make great teaching aids.

Gardens don't just have to include only ornamental plants, either. Add some peach trees and blueberry bushes. Put in some onions, peppers, lettuce, peas and cucumbers. Pot up a container of herbs. What’s better than growing your own healthy, nutritious fruits and vegetables?

If you or your kids play sports, a space for half-court basketball, a tennis court, a lap pool, or even a small lawn area for badminton or kicking a soccer ball around can contribute to fitness.

A great landscape can also improve your mental health. Stressed out at the end of the day? Rat race getting to you? Your picturesque landscape can create a sense of harmony and balance, providing a serene, calm sanctuary against an outside world filled with noise and strife.

A garden can be your own private escape. Landscapes celebrate the beauty of nature, comfort the soul and reinvigorate the senses. Deciduous trees, flowers sprouting blossoms, hardy perennials, and water in the garden provide a glimpse of renewal and eternal hope, seeming to say “tomorrow is a chance to start over”.

Many hospitals use “therapy” gardens to help uplift, inspire, heal, and mend their patients' bodies, minds and spirits. Just looking at well-maintained gardens can benefit your mental health.

Come home to a magical place framed by sturdy trees with graceful limbs swaying in the breeze; colorful blooms from countless flowers; and cozy furniture just waiting to cradle your tired body. All this, nestled in a welcoming landscape.

Then relax! It's time to wind down in a great landscape designed and built to promote healthy living—your own personal Eden.

Great Landscapes Increase Livable Space and Usability

Designing for outdoor living extends your inside spaces outside, and creates functional outdoor rooms for relaxation, social interaction, play, work or storage. Create a backyard retreat. Or a hidden privacy nook. Little paradises, tucked away in the landscape, where you can recharge and rejuvenate your spirit.

If you like to entertain outside, build an outdoor kitchen complete with grill, range, and refrigerator, adjoining a patio with elegant seating and an outdoor fireplace. Add a small “postage stamp” lawn for mingling or play, and a spa for more intimate gatherings.

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Your entryway can welcome guests with colorful container gardens, designate an easy-to-see drop-off spot, and provide an exciting approach experience to your home.

You can design and build outdoor rooms for just about any occasion. Use pergolas, arbors and trellises to help define space. Tree canopies suggest virtual ceilings, shrubs and container gardens can enclose space. While some outdoor spaces will be for recreation, entertainment, or relaxing, others will be more utilitarian, like an area designed for the storage of garden tools, or cutting wood, or a small vegetable garden.

Use appropriate vegetation to block unpleasant views, reduce noise levels, and help decrease crime.

Planning a great landscape utilizing hardscape materials and plants in creative ways can optimize the appearance and use of your property, while providing an enhanced environment for human interaction.

Great landscapes result from thoughtful design and correct installation done in a professional, competent manner. Poor planning, improper installation, and low quality plants will quickly turn into a liability. And unskilled maintenance can ruin an investment.

A great landscape increases the square footage of your home’s living space and creates an outdoor environment by building rooms that are functional, unique, fun.

Great Landscapes Save You Money

Designing and building a garden can help you fit your home to your site (enabling you to cut back on site prep costs) and preserve mature vegetation (which saves money in installing new plants), thus creating a more viable, safer investment.

A great landscape can also increase your site's (and your home's) energy efficiency, as well as cutting your annual heating and cooling costs. Carefully positioned trees can reduce household energy consumption for heating and cooling by 20%, according to the Associated Landscape Contractors of America report "Economic Benefits of Landscapes." Well-designed landscapes provide energy savings with a return on investment in eight years.

Further, proper arrangement of landscape plants around buildings can substantially reduce both heat loss and cold air infiltration through walls and floors during the winter months. (Source: DeWalle, D.R. 1978. “Manipulating Urban Vegetation for Residential Energy Conservation.” Proceedings of the National Urban Forestry Conference, ESF Pub. 80-003, pp. 267-283).

Designing for outdoor living also incorporates the principles of Integrated Ecology and low maintenance, saving you even more. Using low-impact building practices, protecting vegetation and existing soils, harvesting storm water, and siting the home to take

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advantage of prevailing summer breezes, shade, and solar energy are just some of the ways to capitalize on Integrated Ecology.

Integrated Ecology can also apply to mechanical irrigation. Try watering your landscape with drip irrigation designed to serve specific climate zones. Place each zone on a timer, with water use adjusted for the particular plants the system waters.

Great Landscapes Save You Time

Landscapes designed for outdoor living can cut down on your maintenance, giving you more time to enjoy the garden, your family and your friends.

Low maintenance natives grow well together to predictable sizes, don’t need water except during establishment, don't require chemical fertilizers or commercial biocides, and are adapted to local conditions and local bugs. Their leaves act as soil builders, weed suppressors and natural fertilizers. Using suitable plants just makes for less work!

Decreasing the size of your lawn will cut down the time it takes for lawn maintenance. A small lawn integrated into perennial and shrub beds can make a beautiful statement. Better yet, eliminate the lawn altogether and go with native grasses or meadow plants.

Great Landscapes Wow the Community

A home or business that “fits” on its site, nestles into the landscape and provides usable functional outdoor spaces is an asset to the community.

Create an established look by preserving mature vegetation and properly integrating the house within the context of site and landscape. Become known within your community as a steward of the land while increasing the attractiveness of your neighborhood.

Who knows? The community as a whole may follow your lead. Others will begin to care and take the time to make their yards attractive and inviting. You'll have started a movement towards "pride of ownership". Your entire neighborhood will reap the benefits.

Great Landscapes Create Lasting Beauty

Framing vistas, introducing mystery, and creating year-round interest using plants and hardscape materials in harmony are just a few of the ways designing for outdoor living introduces aesthetic appeal.

Great landscapes enhance a project’s aesthetic value and create desirable living environments. Landscapes that build on a perfect blend of elements can enhance a home's look and feel.

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For businesses, great landscapes (especially a wonderful entrance experience) can exude tranquility, peace and relaxation to both customers and employees. The business becomes more inviting to customers, offering a sense of welcome and invitation.

Great landscapes help to produce high occupation rates and increased rentals, and provide refuges in the center of commercial districts. A study by Prof. Joel Goldstein shows that landscape amenities result in the highest correlation with occupancy rates of any other architectural and urban design variables evaluated.

Landscapes can add 14% to the resale of commercial buildings, and speed sales as much as six weeks. Great landscapes also help retain valuable employees.

It's no secret that great landscapes create lasting value in a property—and not just monetary value. Why not build your landscape to take advantage of all the benefits we've talked about? Why not build a great landscape?

The rewards are well worth it.

A Great Landscape is Within Your Reach

If you've obtained this report by subscribing to my newsletter "Smokin' Pots", then thank you! In the coming weeks, you'll learn much more about the design, installation and maintenance of a great landscape. The newsletter covers creating fine garden spaces from "A" to "Z", providing tips on designing, installing and maintaining the perfect landscape to fit your needs.

There’s a need for landscapes and gardens that seamlessly integrate the built environment with the natural. It makes sense—and cents—to apply conservation principles to landscape design whenever possible. “Smokin' Pots” will provide you with food for thought and will spur inspiration and alternative ideas for your own outdoor living spaces, whether your property is your home or a commercial site.

If you got this report somewhere else, I'd like to invite you to take a look at "Smokin'

Pots". It's a free resource on creating great landscapes, with an emphasis on small space design and container gardens. You can subscribe at my website, Potsibilities.com.

“Smokin' Pots” is published approximately monthly by email, and adheres to strict anti-spam policies.

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Like this e-guide? Get more by Richard Freeland from DragonLyre.com.

Non-Fiction E-Guides:

"Sell Your Home FAST with Exterior Staging"

Page 11: Benefits of Great Landscapes

Fiction:

“Equinox – Six Declinations”—six stories of the macabre."Communion"—a tale of terror and survival in the Sierras"A History of Cats"—love is the cat's meow."Comeback"—some people will kill to win. Some will do far worse."Ironclad Contract"—the Devil always gets his due. (Comes bundled with the bonus short story "Family Tradition").