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Organizing Your Design
Once your worksheet is complete (see Getting a Good Start), you are ready for the task of organizing and integrating the information from your worksheet with your ideas of what you need and want in your landscape. To integrate your information and ideas, begin thinking of your landscape as a system. The components of this system work in beneficial relationships with each other. The following questions provide an easy way to identify and organize the components of your landscape system. In completing the following exercises you may find that your responses will overlap. This is a good sign as it indicates that your design ideas are fitting together.
Care of the People– Fitting the Landscape Design to Your Lifestyle
Make a list of all the possible landscape needs you and your family have. Consider the following questions:
1. How do you use this space now? How would you use it in the future?
2. What is your lifestyle now? How much available time do you spend at home? Do you anticipate this changing in the future?
3. What is your activity level?
4. Identify the needs you may have for privacy/seclusion, large or small gathering spaces, places for outdoor appreciation/recreation, a place that reflects your personal/cultural expression, or a place to grow edible plants and vegetables.
5. How does your design care for the people? Is it designed to conserve people energy i.e., a shaded play area, an herb garden close to the kitchen, a place to relax, the most frequently used spaces are close to the house, pathways are placed for ease of movement, etc?
6. If you are part of a Homeowners Association, do not forget about any codes, covenants, or restrictions (CC&R’s) that might affect your landscaping plans.
Care of the Earth – Designing a Sustainable Landscape
1. What would you like to preserve or restore? This includes preserving existing features in the landscape as well as broader areas of interest such as the preservation and restoration of wildlife habitat or of native culture (traditional ways).
2. Where are the areas that are naturally suited for people? For plants? For animals?
3. How can you use resources already on site or readily available in my area? Some examples are leftover brick, broken concrete, plant starts from other gardeners, knowledge from other people, products from local artists and retailers, etc.
4. Will you need to make modifications? Can I make modifications in a way that will enhance the larger ecosystem?
5. What natural energies (wind, water, sun, etc.) will need to be blocked, diverted, or redirected? Will these modifications help conserve energies?
6. What situations exist for collecting rainwater or recycling graywater into earthworks? For storing rainwater in catchments?
7. Check your people traffic map and identify areas of most intense use (usually closer to the house). To reduce human impact in outlying areas (and to save time and energy for people), include herb gardens, tool sheds, and plants needing more care and more water close to the house. Then identify areas to be left "wild." If appropriate, connect these areas to any identified wildlife corridors in your neighborhood.
8. Develop a system of connections. Look for multiuse and multifunction opportunities. For example - Can you build a swale (trench) to collect rain water that will also help water plants that are a part of a windbreak? Will the trees in the windbreak also help shade a sitting area?
9. What are the surpluses? Do you have an over abundance of anything? Is this due to a design error? For example, planting a shrub that continually needs trimming because the area it is planted in is too small (creating too much green waste and expending people energy). Select another plant for that area or find a way to cycle the surplus green waste back into your system.
Sketch Your Ideas- Bubble Diagram
Overlay your site assessment map (from Getting a Good Start) with tracing paper. Begin making a rough sketch of where you would like to place the things you have listed in "Care of People." Use simple symbols such as circles and squares to designate these areas. Use a light-weight pencil that can be easily erased. Start with your priority items and work from there. Pay particular attention to how things connect. Be open to the possibilities. Do not expect it all to "fit" together in one sitting. Let yourself have a few hours or even days to contemplate an idea. You may need to educate yourself or hire a consultant for a particular area before taking action (i.e. water harvesting, plant selection, irrigation installation, etc.)
Jo Miller
Water Conservation Program Manager
City of Glendale
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