Chapter 3
Forming a Working Plan: Getting Serious about Your Design
IN THIS CHAPTER
One reality about landscaping is that you need a plan — on paper. That’s easy if you’re artistic, a little tougher if you’re not. (Also difficult for the non-artistes is visualizing what the plan will actually look like. That’s why we tell you to take things like chairs and stepladders into the yard to create the semblance of your planned landscape.) This chapter shows you the ropes.
We highly recommend an assessment drawing (a sketch of what you have and what you need; flip to Chapter 1). Keep it handy because you’re going to refer to it to make sure you don’t forget anything. Now you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and tackle a more serious process, a site design drawing, which can show you how your finished yard will look. Exciting, yes?
We start with what is and move to what will be. Measure and make the base map first. Then the fun part begins — plotting your dreams. Some people like to sketch first and visualize second. On the other hand, you may work better doing a live mock-up first and then transferring what you come up with to paper. Either way, this chapter can help you get where you’re going.
Other realities that this chapter helps you know how to deal with are neighbors and public agencies and their codes, how to estimate and order materials, and who is going to do the work.
Knowing What’s Already There — Making a Base Map
Before you can start adding your wonderful new landscape features to your yard, you have to have a map of what’s already there. You measure everything and put what you discover onto a drawing, called a base map.
If you don’t have a surveyor’s map, you need to draw your own. The following sections list what supplies you need and explains how you can draw your own base map.
Ensuring you have the supplies to draw
In order to do so, pick up a few of the drawing supplies in Figure 3-1, at least graph paper, tracing paper, a good ruler, a pencil, and an eraser. More complicated drawing tools help you keep your lines straight and maintain consistent sizes for the elements of your landscape, but they aren’t essential to drawing a useful map.
We recommend that you use graph paper for making this base plan, which has a printed grid of squares that makes transferring real-life elements to a flat piece of paper much easier. You can, for example, use a 1-foot to ¼-inch ratio — a 1-foot-long line in real life covers ¼ inch on graph paper; a 4-foot-line is an inch on graph paper, a 20-foot-long line in real life extends 5 inches on graph paper (for those of you who use metric graph paper and measurements, you can use similar ratios) and so on. If you need to, tape sheets of graph paper together to get everything in.
With all your supplies in hand, you’re ready to draw.
Drawing your own base map
You don’t have to be a professional surveyor or landscape architect to draw a base map. Just follow these steps and voilà — your very own base map:
(c) John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
FIGURE 3-1: Basic drafting tools help you draw your plan.
1 Measure the lengths of all edges of your property and draw the outline of your yard on the graph paper.Don’t guess. Refer to Chapter 1 about discovering where the boundaries actually are.
2 Measure and draw in the outline of your house.Be sure to place the house exactly where it sits on your lot.
3 Measure and add the garage, barn, tool shed, chicken coop, and whatever other outbuildings currently exist.Some of the measurements are easy to take, such as the length of building walls, so start there. Then draw in other elements and show their locations in relation to known measurements.
4 Measure and draw in whatever paving is already in place and that you want to keep, such as the driveway, front walk, basketball court, and so on. Don’t assume that right angles and parallel lines that are formed by walls, fences, driveways, and property lines are always perfect — often they aren’t. Verify the distance between objects with as many measurements as you can.
5 Measure and draw existing elements that you want to keep right where they are, with no changes.This may include fences, big trees, hedges, perennials, a vegetable garden, and so forth. For example, indicate the precise location of a tree trunk or plant by measuring the distance from it to two known points, such as two corners of the house. Make note of approximate heights of taller elements. To do so, try this: position a 6-foot (1.8 m) tall person under a tall tree. Back away and estimate: how many of that person will it take to measure to the top?
That’s a lot of measurements, right? Taking measurements may sound like a pain in the neck — and we won’t lie, it is — but you’re far ahead of the game when you get estimates for what this new design is actually going to cost. Without measurements, you’ll have no idea how much concrete, wood chips, topsoil, bricks or paving stones, groundcover plants, or other materials that you’ll need.
Measurements are also vital when adding new elements to your yard. Sure, you can eyeball your yard and make your drawing fit, but when you try to execute the plan, you may find out how fallible that casual method really is. Measurements eliminate guesswork and give you the confidence of knowing that your plan will work.
Overlaying Your Ideas
Time to get out the tracing paper. Lay it over the graph-paper base map. Sharpen your pencil, stock up on erasers. If you want to start over, change your mind, rethink something, or make a neater drawing, just erase or get another sheet of tracing paper. Yes, there are other, more high-tech ways to accomplish this part of the process, but honestly, this method