Our Soft Landscaping Guide To Elevate Garden Design
No garden is complete without the natural elements, and this is what planting is all about. Plants, flowers, turf, and trees all fall under the soft landscaping category and are often combined with hardscape elements, like paving or decking, to create a cohesive outdoor space.
At Beautiful Spaces, plants are our speciality and our team of passionate gardeners loves nothing more than getting their hands dirty to create a garden you’ll love. We appreciate the magic of nature and work to create stunning outdoor havens for our clients, no matter what they are currently working with.
To help you make the best out of your outdoor space and create a garden you’ll love, we have created this soft landscaping guide to share everything you need to know about planting, flowers and developing a green thumb.
What Is Soft Landscaping?
Soft landscaping refers to all the natural elements that you can incorporate into your garden, such as plants. Plants come in all shapes, sizes and colours, meaning there are a lot of options out there for you to consider for your own landscape.
Choosing the right combination of soft landscaping elements is the key to successful garden design. While hardscaping creates the structure of your garden, such as fences, decking and paving, it is the natural elements that make the design breathtaking.
From trees to flowers and everything in between, there is no shortage of ways you can incorporate the natural world into your garden. In this soft landscaping guide, we are sharing some of our favourite plants and the ways you can improve your outdoor space with them.
The Best Soft Landscaping Guide For All Gardens
You can add colour, texture, and scent to your garden using soft landscaping elements. As there are many to choose from, we understand it may be overwhelming which is why we are recommending our favourites, such as:
- Perennials
To add colour to your garden with minimal effort, perennials are your perfect solution and a key part of this soft landscaping guide.
These plants bloom each year, ensuring there’s always something exciting in your landscape, and require minimal maintenance, making them suitable for beginners.
Whether you choose flowering perennials, like lavender or geraniums, for their long-lasting blooms, or grasses like Blue Fescue for their movement and texture, your garden will be a beautiful display that returns each year.
- Ornamental Trees
Trees are a great addition to any outdoor space, offering structure and visual interest that can last for many years. Ornamental trees are especially useful for this soft landscaping guide because they are so unique in their appearance and incorporated into garden design for visual interest.
Trees such as Japanese Maple or Flowering Cherry are a way to add not only structure to the garden, but also aesthetic appeal as these are certain to become a focal point. They can be installed in a range of places, even the smallest gardens, for additional interest.
- Bedding Plants
If you are looking to create a beautiful season display that incorporates multiple colours, then bedding plants are a great solution for this. As part of this soft landscaping guide, we need to recommend plants for all kinds of landscapes – and bedding plants are suitable for even the smallest garden.
Even without a lot of ground space, bedding plants allow you to incorporate colour and scent seasonally. They can be planted in containers or flower beds and will last a season so you do not have to be so committed. Some great options for this include Petunias, Marigolds, and Pansies each available in vibrant colours to complement any outdoor space.
- Evergreen Shrubs
Not to be overlooked, shrubs can be a wonderful addition to any outdoor space and can help create stunning soft landscaped areas.
Evergreen shrubs, such as Boxwood and Holly, are particularly beneficial as they offer year-round greenery, requiring limited maintenance, ensuring you always have something beautiful to look at in your garden.
- Biennials
If you want to have a longer-term soft landscaping guide, the biennials cannot be ignored. Plants like Foxglove and Sweet William provide colour in their second year, along with stunning displays as they develop in their first.
Planting Soft Landscaping Guide For All Gardens
Now that you have an idea of the kind of soft landscaping elements you can incorporate into your garden, it is time to get planting.
As a team of passionate and experienced gardeners, here are some of our best planting tips to complete this soft landscaping guide and ensure you create a stunning display:
- Test Your Soil: Check the pH levels and nutrient content of the soil using at-home kits. This helps you ascertain what amendments are required to give your plants the best start.
- Add Organic Matter: Incorporate compost or well-rotted manure to enhance soil structure and fertility, promoting the growth of all plants and flowers so they can thrive in your landscape.
- Ensure Proper Drainage: Ensure your soil drains well before planting to make sure that your plants get the proper hydration and will not succumb to waterlogging.
- Proper Spacing: When planting, ensure you give plants enough room to grow to their full potential without overcrowding.
- Regular Watering: Water thoroughly after planting and maintain consistent moisture levels during the season, as this will aid their growth. The watering quantity depends on the season’s temperature and weather.
- Mulching: Apply a layer of mulch around plants once they have been planted in the right areas to retain moisture, suppress weeds, and regulate soil temperature.
Conclusion
Soft landscaping is the heart of a well-designed garden and the key to creating a stunning environment that you’ll love. Plants, trees and flowers are a way to incorporate the natural world into our daily routines and can create a beautiful outdoor environment, no matter the size, shape or condition of your landscape.
As a leading gardening company, Beautiful Spaces is passionate about the power of plants and wants to ensure that all outdoor spaces experience the best beauty. This is why we have shared our best suggestions and planting tips to suit any garden in this soft landscaping guide.
If you need more help, our team is always ready to take on new projects.
