The terms landscaping and hardscaping are thrown around a lot in the world of gardening but the term softscaping is discussed less often. What exactly is softscaping and why does it matter for your garden?
Essentially, the term softscaping refers to the management of anything in your garden that is “soft.” By that, gardeners tend to mean anything that is organic, like grass, shrubs, trees, flowers, bushes, etc. Softscaping doesn’t include things like stone footpaths, fountains, [amazon_textlink asin=’B00CBU81ZS’ text=’pergolas’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’mygardening411-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’b4f5978d-8430-11e7-95dc-e37e233643a2′] or tile patios.
When considering the layout of their gardens, many urban gardeners fail to adequately take account of softscaping and, instead, focus on mechanical landscaping without really considering whether it is complemented by their plants. Thus, softscaping is all about creating balance and harmony in your garden.
Now you have an understand of what it is, here are some softscaping ideas to get you started.
Use Your Softscape To Accentuate Your Hardscape
Many modern garden designs focus on the hardscape first. The reason for this is that it is usually easier to install hardscape garden elements than grow softscape items, like trees, from scratch. Many gardeners, therefore, end up with things like rockeries or fountains as focal points.
This, however, shouldn’t be the end of the matter. Although hardscaping options are often chosen for the sake of brevity, softscaping can be used to complement and add texture to hardscape elements.
For instance, if you’ve just installed a retaining wall next to your lawn, you don’t just have to leave it as plain brickwork. Decorating it with hanging flowers or vines can help incorporate it into the natural flow of your garden.
Get Better Proportions
One of the reasons people choose softscaping services, including services from Soulscape, is to help them get the proportions in their garden right. Gardeners will often invest a considerable amount of money on things like gravelled areas and wide, stone paths. However if they aren’t careful, these features can make a garden appear barren and uninviting.
The problem usually comes down to incorrect proportions. The hardscaped features of the garden are too large compared to plants and shrubs, making the whole environment look bare. The trick here is to get the proportions right.
If you’ve gone for large hardscape features, you need to choose large softscape features too, and vice versa; if you don’t the proportions will look wrong.
Create Symmetry
In hardscaping, many designers try to create symmetry. Sometimes it is overt: they choose a mirror line running down the middle of the garden and stick with it. Other times, the symmetry is less obvious, but still there. (That is, if they use multiple mirror lines). The same principles carry over to softscaping.
Ideally, your softscaping should have some form of symmetry. The garden shouldn’t look lopsided, with large plants on one side, and small plants on the other, unless you’ve found a clever way to offset the effect. Instead, plants, trees, and shrubs should be equally dispersed.
You don’t have to be too strict about how similar both sides of your garden are, so long as you create a sense of balance.
