When the first signs of spring start to show, it’s normal to anticipate lounging in your backyards during those warm summer nights in your personal paradise. If that hope is ever going to see the light of day, you need to plan the project properly.

To begin with, there are some hard-scaping ideas that you can use – this is essentially the use of brick or stone to create features that will form the defining borders of your soft-scaping, or the organic components of your landscape master-plan. These could be walkways, retaining walls, or even water cascades and fountains. This being the features that can’t be moved around one erected, will be the crucial part of planning your landscaping – and considering the variety of options you have, might also be the hardest part to plan.

The best approach to this crucial step is to write down, or even draw out, every thing that’s in you mind about what you want, how you want it to look, and where everything should go. Get all your measurements done at this point, and know the orientation of your property so you can plan for correct positioning of sunshades and plants. Consider the locations of your bathroom vents and other sewer vents, sources of water and power, and even where you’ll be hanging your clothes out to dry. The more meticulous your planning during these early stages, the fewer your alterations will be at a later time, and the lower your cost. It’s a good idea to use graph paper, those sheets of paper with small squares – this will let you do your drawings to scale and let you know exactly how much of each material you will need. Of course, if you can afford it, you can get a professional draftsman to do it for you, but that’s not absolutely essential. Make sure you put down where everything currently is, and where you want your new fixtures and plants to go. If you plan to do this is stages, leave the remaining areas blank, but account for them on the drawing. This gives you a great sense of proportion for when you want to go on to the next stage later.

Next is to decide on what materials you need for your landscaping project. Iron, wood, stone and brick are all readily available as prefabricated pieces or as raw materials, whatever you choose. Deciding the materials now, and how they will look as a whole, will save you time, money and a whole lot of effort in the long run. For color coordination, take samples from your siding or even paint you used for your home’s exterior to the hardware store. You’ll be grateful for all the research and care you took at this stage.

Doing your soft-scaping is probably the more pleasurable part of planning your landscaping project. All of the usual questions will need to be answered – how much lawn and how much garden, what types of plants, do you use sod or seeds, do you want an area for flowering plants and an area for vegetables and other goodies for your table as well, and whether you want to replant every year or you want the garden to be perennial. The final result will be completely in your hands as these decisions are more a question of personal preferences than convention or tradition. Once you’re happy with all the planning that you’ve put into your project, go ahead and create that personal paradise that you’ve always wanted.