Well-designed
gardens and landscapes, no matter how varied in style and period, all
have certain basic design principles at their core. To create a
masterful garden, there must be attention to: unity, scale, space
division, light and shade, texture, and tone and color.
Garden
designers must also consider maturation of plants and seasonal
changes. Finally, there is time-a design principle not required by
other fine and decorative arts.
Unity
Perhaps,
it is a reflection of our contemporary era that unity is the most
lacking in today's garden. We live piecemeal, hurried lives and tend
to patch together lives and gardens as we go along. But the goal of
unity is to give a totality, or strength of purpose to the design.
Tone and color or texture can be used as unifying elements, but they
are not enough to create a garden whole.
Modern garden designs tend to be inward looking as very few of us have country
estates where we see the horizon over the hill. But even so, we can
design our gardens to be progressive or static. The first leads the
eye down an axis, while a static garden is built on a central open
space where the eye is brought to rest.
Scale
In
either design it is important to think about scale. Even an outdoor
room must compete with the vastness of the sky. There is a need for
ample proportion, and a nodding acquaintance with the laws of
perspective. There must be a definition of the space, and it must
relate to the human scale. If you have assets of gigantic proportion,
like enormous trees, it is best to insert a transition or buffer of
medium scale that then relates further to people in the landscape.
As
for the scale of all the parts of your design, you have two choices.
Either all the parts should fit together as one whole, or one (only
one) should dominate. That is how you create a focal point. Consider
also how your eye reacts. A view is shortened as you look uphill and
lengthened as you look down. You can enlarge and blur boundaries by
placing them in shade.
Division
of Space
You
must also divide your space to make it interesting. You create
pattern by how you distribute, and the proportion of, open spaces and
solid mass. A prime example is a colonnade of trees leading the eye
forward. You must decide how many trees, of what size girth (when
they mature) and how far apart to plant them.
In
dividing your space, you can either use a firm, architectural style
or a loose more organic style.
Light
& Shade
Light
and shade also are important additions to your palette with the
potential to elicit emotional response. Think of the appeal of
sunlight falling on an open spot in a glade. The sunlight is a
wonderful surprise, and much more exciting when viewed from a shady
area.
Keep
in mind that texture can only be shown with light. For example, site
something highly carved or intricately detailed where it will be
illuminated. On the other hand, a structural element can be
strengthened if it is sited to appear in silhouette, with little
detail and only the shape apparent.
