Landscaping Made Easy
Designing Your Yard
Step 1: Determine Your Needs
The first step in designing your yard is to identify your needs. Do you want a yard for a
play area, a flower garden, or as an outdoor area to entertain guests? Do you want a
“zero maintenance” yard or do you love mowing, weeding, pruning and caring for
plants? Only you can determine your needs, but our expert landscapers are always
available to answer your questions.
Step 2: Take Inventory
The next step is to identify existing plants and features that already exist in your yard
that you’d like to keep. Take a look at how your space is arranged and notice the
things you like and dislike. Sketch your yard and label the contents as either “keep” or
“remove”. If you have a camera, use it to help you identify each of these items.
Step 3: Sketch Your Dream Yard
Now the fun starts! Draw a rough sketch of how you’d like your new yard to look.
Remember to keep the features from Step 2 in your new plan and then add new items to
fit the needs identified in Step 1.
Step 4: Select Your Plants
Now is the final step. Complete your sketch by choosing the plants and other
features appropriate for your new yard. Select items with characteristics that
match not only your needs, but also your yard conditions such as amount of sun,
soil type, and moisture available. Develop a list of suitable plants.
Choosing a Tree
General Appearance
The shape of the tree should look balanced
The tree should have an overall healthy appearance
The tree should have a single strong "central” leader trunk
The crown and rootball should be proportionate to the size of the tree.
Trunk
The trunk should be free of insect damage such as bore holes.
The trunk should be straight and have a healthy appearance.
The bigger the rootball, the better.
Crown
Make sure the branches come off the leader trunk at between 45-degree and 90-
degree angle. Any wounds from pruned branches should be healed or almost
healed.
Branches should have good scaffolding, which means they are evenly distributed
throughout the tree.
Branches should not grow in clusters. The length of each branch should be no
longer than one-quarter of the height of the tree.
Once your yard is planted, keep a diary of how the plants perform. If you have any
problems or questions, contact us. We can help!
Our office hours are as follows:
Day Time
Monday – Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm
Saturday 8:00am to 6:00pm
Sunday Closed
How to build garden steps
If you want to construct garden steps that are built into an earth slope, you can use a
whole range of materials - from bricks to concrete slabs, timber to gravel, and concrete
to large flat stones. The design really depends on the type of material you're using, the
gradient and the length of the slope.
The steps shown here are built from brick and concrete slabs. The first riser is laid on a
concrete footing, while the rest of the risers are bedded directly onto the tread below.
The tread lengths are all the same, but the excavation for the first step is longer than the
others.
1. Step 1
Start by marking out your site using a builder's line and pegs.
2. Step 2
To work out how many treads and risers you need, you'll need to measure the vertical
height and horizontal distance of your flight of steps.
3. Step 3
Divide the vertical height by your riser height and use the tread-riser combinations chart
to find the tread length you need. Strip away any turf in the marked-out area with a
spade.
4. Step 4
Use lines to mark the back of the treads - making sure you set back an extra 50mm or so
to give you enough room to work. Then roughly shape the steps with a spade.
5. Step 5
Dig a trench about 125mm deep for the footing for the first riser. Drive in pegs levelled
with a spirit level to mark the surface of the footing before you pour in the concrete.
6. Step 6
Concrete the footing, making sure the surface is level with your pegs. Then leave it to
dry for 24 hours before you build on it.