When you begin planning your landscaping needs you need to consider the style or styles that you’d like to integrate into your design.

First of all, make sure you look at plenty of pictures of various landscaping styles so you have a good idea of what you like and what you want to combine into your own unique style. Having photos also helps you decide if the end result will be aesthetically pleasing.

Questions to consider:

• Do you want a formal style or informal style? Perhaps you’d like areas of both aspects blending together if you have a large area to work with.

• Do you want a consistent and elegant design or something completely unique and varied? Unity works great in landscaping but you can also blend many styles together or create many sections into your design if you plan properly.

• Always think through it and decide which elements will bring different styles together in an eye-pleasing manner.

Try considering having an elegant look close to your home and a wilder, more natural environment on the edge of your property. You can divide the two with fencing, have an arbor walkway or a covered bridge so you truly get the feeling of leaving one area and entering another.

• Will you use geometric shapes? Create soft-lines or hard-lines? Can these enhance each other without seeming out of place or being an eye-sore.

• Will you use symmetry like straight lines, square angles or plan some curvy areas in the design?

• Will you use structures in some areas and not in other areas? Will these styles blend well?

Also take into consideration that the style of the landscaping itself works best when created and suited to the style of architecture of your home. A formal garden does not fit well with a small white house. An informal garden takes away from and does not fit well with a large Tudor home.

However, you can blend some elements and pull it off nicely if you plan ahead and have the majority of the landscaping fit the style and structure of your home as well as your neighborhood.

Looking at existing styles in your own neighborhood can give you a good indication of what works well for the area too. Plus you’ll also want to consider your city and even the region of the country you live in as this will help you specify which plants and trees grow best in your location. This is information you need to know so that your plantings are suitable to the environment.

No matter which style or styles you go with, they must be pleasing to you. You may want to “wow” your guests, but you’ll spend more time in your yard than anyone else. It should be designed for your personal style and needs and make you happy.