Content
It's good when you have a favorite summer cottage where you can take a break from the monotonous everyday life, breathe fresh air, and sometimes live for a while. The dacha landscape largely determines the character of the owner.
In order to correctly design and implement the landscape design, you can call specialists with many years of experience. But it is much more pleasant (and cheaper) to create a summer cottage landscape with your own hands.
Of course, this requires a lot of effort, some knowledge and skills, but the result will delight any owner, because doing something with your own hands, you put a piece of your soul.
How to create a landscape design with your own hands, where to start, what accents to place - everything in this article, with numerous photos and useful recommendations.
Determination of the type of landscape of the cottage
Before starting the design, you need to figure out which area you will have to work with. To do this, you need to come to the dacha and look around carefully. This stage is especially important for new sites, the owners of which are not yet familiar with the features and properties of the dacha landscape.
So, the decisive factors in choosing a landscape for a summer residence will be:
- the location of the suburban area, its orientation to the cardinal points;
- the nature and style of the buildings available at the dacha (both the main house and small outbuildings);
- illumination of the suburban area;
- type of soil on the site;
- terrain (plain, slope, close location of a natural reservoir, forest, and so on);
- the presence of a fence between neighboring dachas.
Having decided on the type of landscape at the summer cottage, you can proceed to the next point.
Design
Like any construction, creating a landscape in the country requires preliminary preparation - drawing up a plan.
You can use one of the many computer programs to make your plan. Modern technologies make it possible, only by driving in the parameters of the suburban area, to get the most optimal landscape design. In this case, you can get a three-dimensional image of the future landscape of the cottage and finally decide whether you like this project or you need to look for another.
If there is no desire or opportunity to work with robotic programs, you can sketch a diagram dacha landscape with your own hands... To do this, you need a plan of the dacha site itself and the buildings on it.
The existing dacha plan is transferred to graph paper, observing the scale, and then they begin to draw individual elements of the landscape.
Landscaping details
To date, many elements have been invented that make it possible to decorate the landscape of the cottage and the adjacent territory, to make them as functional and expressive as possible.
Among other things, the most prominent details of the country landscape are:
- Small architectural structures... These are garages, sheds, outdoor showers, saunas and much more. The main requirement for such suburban buildings is that they must be performed in the same style as a residential building, in accordance with the landscape design. Today, a combination of incongruous and a mixture of styles is in vogue, but it is better to entrust such work to professionals, since it is very easy to "overdo it". Maintaining a single style of the garden landscape, it is easy to achieve naturalness and naturalness. So, if the house is built of wood, brick outbuildings will look ridiculous against its background. But a log bathhouse is quite suitable for a stone dacha.Another rule is that buildings should have interesting architecture, because the garden is beautiful only in summer, in winter the eyes of all guests of the dacha will be focused on the structures.
- Landscape zoning should be performed based on its original configuration. So, for square summer cottages, a breakdown into identical square zones is more suitable, an elongated section is better to divide into rectangles of different sizes with a certain landscape.
- Fences and fences also play a fairly large role in the design of the landscape design of the country house. At the same time, as a rule, fences between neighboring dachas are not included in the definition of the landscape. Here decorative fences are taken into account, which help to divide the dacha into thematic zones, such as a garden, a vegetable garden, a recreation area, a playground, a parking lot and others. These fences do not fulfill the function of protecting the cottage from prying eyes or strong winds, their purpose is to complement the landscape design, to act as an additional decorative element.
- Tracks... Garden paths in the country can be of two types: geometric and arbitrary. The first option is more suitable for spacious country cottages, the territory of which has the correct shape of a square or rectangle. In the overwhelming majority of cases, country cottages have a polygonal complex shape and a small area. On such landscapes, curved, winding paths look more profitable. So, there should be two types of paths: the main one, which connects the gate with the entrance to the house, and secondary paths, connecting the house with all zones of the summer cottage.
- Artificial constructions perform a decorative function in landscape design. These include alpine slides, rockeries, patios, and an area around the pool. A person creates all this with his own hands, before building each of these elements, it is necessary to draw up an individual plan with all sizes and small details.
- Water bodies also often become a decoration of a summer residence. Today in the landscape there are artificial ponds, rivers, streams, fountains, waterfalls. A combination of several of these structures in one landscape is often used. When designing a reservoir in the country, one should not forget about supplying water to this place, electricity for pumps and filters, as well as a drainage system.
- Vegetation occupies perhaps the most important part in creating a landscape for a summer residence. Well-chosen trees, shrubs, flowers and herbs can change any landscape beyond recognition. Planting and caring for plants takes up most of the summer resident's free time, therefore, when choosing plants, you need to correctly calculate your strength and time. It is better for a busy person to plant perennial crops, shrubs and dwarf trees, unpretentious flowers adapted to the local climate in the country.
Completion of the task
You can also bring your plan to life on your own. The creation of a landscape design for a summer residence, as mentioned above, must begin with the preparation of a project. You can choose a landscape project based on numerous photos and videos of already implemented landscapes, but it is much more interesting to come up with it yourself.
When the landscape design is selected and the plan is sketched, you can begin to implement your plan. First of all, they build country buildings: a terrace, a gazebo, a tandoor or a barbecue. Without these structures, it is difficult to imagine a summer cottage as a place to relax.
During the period of excavating the foundation, excess land may form, sometimes large stones come across - you should not get rid of them prematurely. All this can become a building material for rockeries or alpine slides.
The next step will be laying paths in the country... The easiest option is to mark the perimeter of the path, remove the soil to a depth of about 10 cm and fill the resulting void with large stones or paving slabs.
Country paths can become a real decoration of the landscape, they are made from wood cuts, covered with pebbles or rubble, using modern materials, such as mosaics or ceramics. The most successful examples of paths in the landscape are shown in the photo.
After that you can do cottage landscape decor... At this stage, stone gardens are laid out, fountains and ponds are made, and swimming pools are built. It is not customary to decorate the modern suburban landscape with figures of animals and gnomes - this is a stage already passed. Today, various flowerpots, statues, installations from interesting materials (as in the photo), original lamps are in vogue.
The stage of landscaping the landscape of the cottage, by right, is considered the most interesting. But it is also the most important, because green spaces can transform any summer cottage. For those who visit their summer cottage only on weekends, perennial plants, unpretentious flowers, trees and shrubs.
Exotic bright flower stalks, as a rule, require more careful care - they need regular watering, feeding, transplanting.
It is difficult to imagine the landscape of a summer residence without hedge... Evergreens, conifers and shrubs can be selected as this element. The hedge should be beautiful not only in summer, but also in autumn and winter. The condition of the hedge must be carefully monitored: water, cut, remove dead wood.
You can choose a lawn as an intermediate landscaping of the summer cottage landscape. Smooth grass looks spectacular in any area, the lawn can be "diluted" with interesting shrubs or bright flowers.
On both sides of the path leading to the house can be broken flower beds... It is better not to make them symmetrical, flower beds, different in shape and content, look more original.
On the terrace, in the gazebo, by the pool, flowerpots and flower pots look great. The gazebo will be decorated with weaving vines and pots with ampelous plants.
Arranging a summer cottage with your own hands is not only a way to save money, but also an excellent option for relaxation and rest from urban everyday life.
