Posts tagged front yard landscaping

Because our living and out of doors spaces are getting smaller all as time goes on it makes sense to make our smaller garden spaces “do more”.

One way to do this is by adopting the art of “Distance Perspective” to make a larger sense of distance and depth in the garden than is really there.

“One of the main tricks is to station dwarf plants or even bonsai plants far away, say abutting the boundary fence, then put bigger plants close to the locations you routinely view the garden from”, recommends Peter Cole, specialist water-feature installer and “false distance-perspective” landscaper.

“If you can mound soil up toward the back, rising hills also give a longer depth of view”. Peter suggests an initial step before piling soil against any fence or wall, of first installing fiber cement sheeting in front of the fence and bracing the sheets if the fence is in need of structural support, or applying 2 coats of paint to cut out rising damp on a wall, or timber rot.

If you wish to sculpt your soil into higher “mountains” and sweeping valleys for an even better perspective-illusion, and have your mountains stay put, Peter offers his “Hardcoat” permanent soil surfacing system which been developing during the last 10 years. It is a coating which you mix and apply over your land-shapes, only 5mm/3/8ths in. thick, then you use his tested methodologies to make the Hardcoat coating seem like a natural soil surface, river bank or rock-look. “A visitor to my latest display stand described Hardcoat for me”, quips Peter, “she declared ‘it’s like making sandcastle-shapes, only the Hardcoat makes them permanent”.

Peter also recommends that another way to further enhance the trick of Perspective is to put small statues and figurines like miniature bonsai steps at the far points of your landscape “which really tricks your mind regarding the scale one is looking at “it seems that you see real mountains or hills in the distance”. Peter has added miniature-sized “Hardcoat Steps” into a display mountainside, which truly fools the eye, “but that could be a bit too tricky for the novice.”

Peter also uses water to convey Distance Perspective. “I commence with a tiny stream hiding “away in the distance” then I add more outlets to the stream as it gets up to the key human viewing area. “Most folk design their waterfalls and streams to be large-flowing directly from the start of their waterfeature, but there is no reason you can not build up the flow as you go. It creates a more natural look anyhow, and it’s straightforward to do; you simply tee off the pipe on the way to the most distant waterflow and add a tap to each teed-off outlet to perfectly control your water outlets”.

The final trick to convince your eyes that they're viewing a landscape with far distances, of far larger proportions than truly exist, is to put your larger rocks in the foreground and use the same type of rock for the distant background- “place more of them on the far mountains, but they ought to be much smaller”, says Peter.

It is rare to have a plot of garden that tapers (gets narrower farther away) but if you have that shape, or you can create such a landscape-shape for your garden, it also adds to the required distance-perception.

“You might have drawn a distance-illusion picture using many of such described tricks during your junior school art class” reminds Peter.

“If you've an amateur artist buddy, their help in painting a trompe l’oeil (meaning “mistake the eye” “with false distance) picture on the wall or fence will be invaluable “not necessary, but a cherry on the top”.

Peter Cole is a specialist artist/landscaper with 25 years expertise. He has developed his “Hardcoat” product to enable more inventive landscape people and home gardeners to make landscape artworks, including hills, valleys, small mountainsides, streams and lakes. He offers a “how to make it” video download on using Hardcoat to make your own garden work of creativity.