Home Improvement Idea

Some careful records of the English monastic gardens have been preserved. A twelfth-century map of Canterbury, where the monastic gardens a herbarium, garden fountains, and a pipe with a garden pond, orchard and vineyard outside the walls, gives only an idea about the plants and equipment. But there is no other document is complete this fall in this early period.

But when the various parts of the English monastic gardens of the same magnitude were as uniform as circumstances permitted, the general structure of the English monastery gardens are available from the plans and descriptions of them on the continent. The plan of the old monastery of St. Gallen in Switzerland still exist and provide many design details of a great religious establishment of the Benedictines in the ninth century.

The monastic gardens was located in a valley and the cultivated land within the walls consisted of four divisions: the convent-Garth, fountains, sculptures and ornaments, kitchen garden, and a combination of plantation and cemetery. The monastic gardens, Garth was a square, planted with grass and shrubs, divided by two crossed paths in four equal quarters. In the middle was a Savina, a type of decorative outdoor fountains able to provide water for drinking and washing. These garden were south of the church and surrounded by a large garden sculptures and other important municipal buildings.

Logically, the fountains and garden sculpture near the top center of activity. The fountain, which fought for the cultivation of many of the smaller plants, including peppermint, rosemary, white lily, sage, rue, corn-flag, pennyroyal, fenugreek, rose, watercress, cumin, lovage, rain catcher, kidney beans, fennel, or savory . All these were considered useful herbs for medicinal purposes.

Kitchen gardens were necessarily on a larger scale and included eighteen oblong beds of identical shape, each planted with a different type of plant or pot-herb: onion, garlic, parsley, cilantro, chervil, dill, lettuce, poppy, savory, radish, parsnip, carrots, cabbage, beets, leeks, shallots, celery, or cockle. The neighborhood was home to the palace gardener or hortulanus.

At the cemetery was honorary statues, trees and shrubs located in the spaces between the graves, and the decorative effect produced in this context, we tend to regard as modern. Together, when growing in circles around a large fountain garden was apple, pear, plum, service medlar, fig, quince, peach, hazelnut, almond, chestnut, walnut, pine and laurel. Mid such an abundance of leaf, fountains and sculptures, they are digging almost hidden.

Designing your own landscape, can be both exciting and challenging. If you are considering such a project, here are some practical ideas and suggestions.

Planning the Project

Planning your landscape design is the first and most important step. Take the time to gather the information you will need to make your decisions on the elements you wish to include in your landscape design. Will you want a deck, patio, foot paths, walkways, a pond? What type of plants, trees, flowers, and ground cover will you want to use? You should research books, articles, and landscape design magazines to help you make these decisions. This will pay off in the end by saving you money, time, and frustration, enabeling you end up with a beautifully finished project to be proud of.

The Design

The landscape design is your next step. You will need to make a layout of the area to be landscaped, as close to scale as possible, and with accurate measurements. Many landscape design planning guides that will give you step-by-step instructions are available on the internet for free, and books or eBooks are abundant. Once your landscape design layout is done you can began to place your elements on the layout pad.

This should be your first or preliminary plan and as you progess, changes can be transfered to your secondary or updated plans. Changing your mind often is just fine. After all this is just on paper at this point and you have not spent any money or performed any labor yet. Experimenting with a few plans is necessary before you come up the final landscape design. A well planned landscape will never look the same in different seasons. Plan your landscape design to change with the seasons. You should attempt to design your landscape as maintenance free as possible.

Landscape Design Software

If it is hard for you to visualize your finished landscape design by just looking at your layout, there is some very good landscape design software available. Much of the landscape design software was originally developed for professional landscapers, but since has been modified for the beginner who wants to do-it-themselves. There are many do-it-yourslef landscape design software programs available today.

Landscape design software lets you see a virtual picture of the landscape design and enables you to move items around and see the changes you make come to life. Some software allows you to import a photo of your home or building and designs the landscape around the photo.

Most landscape design software programs offer advise on using and placing the many different elements available today in your landscape design. A well designed landscape will always change with time, abd some of the landscape design software available will allow you to view your landscape as it matures. You can see what it will look like 5 or 10 years from now when the trees have grown and the plants matured.

Gardens

Many people like to incorparate a garden in their landscape design. Gardens can be tucked away in the corner of an area, or be the focal point of the entire landscape design. Gardens can even be stragecly placed among the plants, flowers and trees so they blend in with the entire landscape design. If you like to garden, dont overlook all the garden design possiblities when planning your landscape design.