The land is already there – use it. Good garden design equals better health and increased home value. Good garden design connects your house to the surrounding landscape. The right garden design refreshes you and your health. It nurtures the soul. What’s good for you is good for your home, and home value.
Some people are afraid of taking on outdoor spaces. They fear maintenance will be too much. Some might feel that they have a “black thumb” – their plants always die. The truth is you don’t have to be an expert. Discover what kind of outdoor landscape feels right to you and find a designer and gardener who can deliver and maintain it for you.
Homeowners’ Dreaded Question
Landscape designers generally start engagements with a dreaded question: What do you have in mind? Now what? Hopefully, by then you will have had the chance to watch the many truly inspiring garden design videos on SHG Living. The garden designers on the ChibiMoku series, for example, present many super cool designs with interesting garden layouts and, more importantly, many viewpoints on how to go about the right garden design for you. You will have seen the many approaches and design solutions in different environments – everything from vertical wall gardens to desert landscapes to gardens with elaborate play zones, fire pit areas to chill out around at night, chip ranges, poolscapes, backyard decks, terraces, and more.
Garden Design Creates Home Value
No matter the simplicity or complexity, the right design of your outdoor space
- envelopes and frames your house, and
- expands your life into your outdoor spaces.
Garden designers like to use the term “outside rooms”. It’s true: Why not extend your house by adding outside spaces or “rooms”. It’s like adding an addition to your house.
Garden Design For Rejuvenation
In the words of one garden designer:
“…everyone needs to go outside to breathe outside air… this is how we rejuvenate and feel good about our world and ourselves..”
He might really be onto something since a 2017 study by The National Institute of Health found that “negative mood states including tension, anger, fatigue, confusion, and anxiety – were significantly reduced when viewing the garden compared with city scenes.”
Beautiful outdoor environments can give you a magic exhale at the end of a long day. You instantly feel settled and way more relaxed in designed outdoor spaces. The industry term for this is “biophilic” design or the practice of connecting people to natural environments through the use of nature, a.k.a plants. Connecting to Mother Earth grounds us, humans. All of that without even having to go on a camping trip vacation? It can happen every day on your very own property. This is why good garden design enhances the value of life and the value of your home.
Does It Require A Large Property?
Large or small – size doesn’t matter. In fact, the smaller the property the better the garden design has to be. Deep properties can also be challenging. Small and long properties are actually bigger garden design challenges. Close neighbors might be an issue. There are so many creative solutions. There are also various exciting go-vertical types of approaches. It’s really just a matter of finding the right designers and gardeners to turn your small or long/deep or narrow garden into your private sanctuary.
Selecting The Right Garden Designer
Good garden designers are an interesting cross of architects and horticulturists. Find one who really knows about the growing, watering, light needs of shrubs, trees, and plants in your planting zone. Most garden designers today have websites with extensive portfolio galleries. This provides a hint of their styles, knowledge, and approaches. When you watch the garden designers on ChibiMoku you will quickly discover what facets of garden design they are most excited about. The ones that resonate with you should be on your shortlist.
Don’t be afraid to ask them what their own properties and their own gardens look like. Designers who love what they do will tell you more than you ever want to know. While one garden designer on SHGLiving’s Chibi Moku series relishes the transformation of a “sterile urban concrete jungle into vertical green walls”, another talks about how plants can stimulate our five senses with their different foliage, smells, and even sounds through the seasons. She thinks about the sounds from rushing grasses or perhaps fire bush branches dancing in the wind. In other words, these are very different approaches to thinking about outdoor/garden spaces.
Your Garden – Your Supermarket
Another nurturing use of gardens takes a portion as a vegetable patch. This takes matters a step further and feeds your stomach. Start small with a 5×4′ bed and don’t overwhelm yourself. In fact, you can even start with just a couple of containers as SHGLiving’s Cali Kim shows you. In fact, go ahead and buy Cali Kim‘s biodegradable containers and learn step by step from her how to go about it. This even works for urban folks who may only have a small balcony. Get started with CaliKim. It couldn’t be easier!
Enjoy the journey of finding the right landscape and gardening solutions for your outdoor spaces. It’s well worth it for your own wellbeing and health as well as the value of your property. When something is fundamentally right it simply resonates with all people, you, your friends, and future buyers!
Photo by: Filip Urban
