7 Different Types of Landscape Design Styles

When you’re choosing a landscape design style for your home, it’s almost always easier to start with a particular theme and have a solid plan for what you want. It’s important to stick to a theme and your plan in order to create a unity among the garden, home, and landscaping. There are many themes to choose from, and we will discuss here just some of the many options.

1. Cottage Garden

Originally intended to raise crops to sustain families, cottage gardens have evolved. Where before, flowers were rare or only blown in by seed, today’s cottage gardens often feature various flowers as well as herbs, vegetables, fruit, and other kitchen gardens. Some cottage garden plants and flowers include hollyhocks, foxgloves, phlox, and delphinium.

2. Mediterranean Style

The Mediterranean style of garden gets the majority of its atmosphere from the plants you will use in it. As new varieties of different Mediterranean plants and Palm trees are propagated to grow in different climates, your options are more open now compared to in the past.

The Mediterranean style is a popular one and is used all over the world. A few Mediterranean garden plants you may consider include bay tree, English lavender, thyme, Mexican orange blossom, and American aloe.

3. Southwest Style

Another highly popular theme that you can create with different types of plants and garden decor, the Southwest Style is another great option. Like with the Mediterranean style, the Southwest style is becoming more popular in different climate types.

You will see this style a lot in hot and dry regions like New Mexico or Arizona, but it is possible to create and sustain a garden of this type if you choose your plants carefully. Southwest plants include a wide variety of cacti, Glory of Texas, and strawberry pity blooms.

4. Japanese Garden

The Eastern way of life and the philosophy of garden design has spread to the Western world. You don’t have to have a Japanese or Eastern-style home to enjoy a beautiful, serene Japanese garden. If you’re willing to devote your whole landscaping theme to this style, you too can enjoy the elegance, simplicity, and order of a Japanese garden.

Typically, this style will clash with most modern home designs so do speak with an experienced landscape designer for help. Plants for a Japanese-style garden include peony, hydrangea, Japanese water iris, Japanese maple, liriope, and camellia.

5. Tropical Landscape

Often grouped in the same style as Mediterranean, the plants and flowers you choose for your tropical landscape style depend on your geographic location. Tropical landscape plants usually have bigger leaves than those in a Mediterranean garden, and flowering plants with intensely bright colours.

To create a dense, tropical atmosphere, plant which foliage toward the back of your planting beds. Some of the plants you can use in a garden to produce a tropical feel include Trachycarpus fortunei, hostas, and arum lily.

6. Formal Garden

Formal garden designs centre around geometrical shapes and straight lines. Most formal designs feature symmetrical planting; plants are orderly and are continually pruned in order to keep their formal appearance.

7. Xeriscaping Garden

While not technically a design style, Xeriscaping is a type of landscaping that is meant to use very little water, taking advantage of rainfall without the need for supplemental watering. Found most often in hot, dry landscapes where there is little rainfall, you can incorporate these principles in any landscape design to help you preserve water. Xeriscape plants include succulents like hens and chicks, aloe vera, and autumn joy sebum; ornamental grasses like purple fountain grass, blue oat grass, and Mexican feather grass; and wildflowers native to your area.

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