If you are looking for garden design ideas you have more options than just driving around neighborhoods or looking at magazines you also have the choice of checking out online landscape designs. The most professional and detailed choice for online landscape designs seems to be landscape design drawings, they can be anything from simple garden design ideas to a complex complete renovation; in both instances you would get a done to scale drawing. This means that either you or a contractor would have to perform measurements on everything to ensure an easy installation.

You will also be likely asked to provide pictures of the property and home together along with a survey; some of the online landscape design companies will take measurements of the property and house in lieu of a survey. For garden design ideas you will need to provide them with some idea of what you want; for instance, if you are looking for a complete design or foundation plants, a patio, an arbor or simply a walkway around a garden.

The online landscape designs normally will include an estimate and agreement for you to sign, professional grade drawings, a list of any type of paving material that may be needed, additional notes on the drawings that they feel are necessary, a lighting design if appropriate, where the drainage areas should be and a complete plant list that has not just the name of the plants, but the size and quantity that you will need to create the design.

There are also 3D online landscape designs which are pretty amazing since often times people can have some difficulty actually seeing a design. The 3D design will include not just the landscape design done in three dimensional form it will also have the actual architecture of your home. This means that you will actually be able to see a better picture of what the final results will look like.

Most of the online landscape designs come from a program called Sketchup for their 3D renderings; the Cad drawing is entered into the software program and it transforms even the simplest of garden design ideas into beautiful, highly detailed, full color 3 dimensional drawings. This produces a lifelike illustration that becomes available to you in a PDF format or if you prefer they can also transfer the images to a CD or DVD and have it sent to you.

The mere thought of designing anything can sound a little intimidating, especially when it comes to your landscape; however, not everyone is able to hire a professional for their garden designs. There are some great tips for those that want to do it themselves that will result in a garden that is both beautiful and inexpensive.

In order to complete your landscape project you need to understand the basics of garden designs; these include color, line, form and texture. The form portion refers to the plant’s branching pattern as well as its shape and garden designs take into consideration the difference in these shapes.

Texture is a visual aspect in garden designs which means you would rely on things like how the plant is perceived in relation to things around it. For example, the texture of one bedding plant might be considered coarser than a plant next to it simply because of the different leave sizes. The line element is a consideration because the eye movement of the viewer is usually governed by how the plant groupings flow or fit together in the landscape; both on the vertical and horizontal planes.

When it comes to color in landscape there are four categories: primary which are the yellows, blues and reds, secondary are purples, oranges and greens, tertiary are the mixture of secondary’s and primaries and neutral which are the silvers and grays. In garden designs the easiest way to obtain unity is by matching the cool colors, blue, green and purple to cool colors and warm colors, yellow, orange and red, to warm colors.

You can use this kind of color theory to influence the mood emitted from your landscape; the warmer colors will excite the person viewing them and the cool colors are much more likely to create a relaxing atmosphere. So in garden designs a blue color is a great choice for something along the lines of a meditation garden while a bright red is considered a natural focal point. A beginning gardener tends to just plant the colors that are their favorites in any placement while the more advanced gardener will use this color theory as a way of making their gardens really stand out.