You better believe, after owning a nursery for over 50 years, my parents have a lot of advice. Growing up, I assumed that everyone knew “Thriller” wasn’t just a Michael Jackson song, but also something you found alongside “Spiller” and “Filler” inside a successful color bowl. I also assumed everyone probably drove through neighborhoods as a family, playing the car game “See If You Can Name Every Plant in This Person’s Yard.”

Sometimes my parent’s gardening advice will be quaint country colloquialisms, other times catchy pneumonic devices to help you remember something more easily. There are even a few terms that, to this day, I am unclear about, like when my dad calls something a “Trash Tree.” I think that just means either we don’t sell it at OUR NURSERY because it underperforms in Texas, or that he simply can’t remember the name of it, or that he just thinks it is an ugly tree. Or possibly all three.

But out of all the advice, swirling around me, over all the years, my absolute favorite is one of the very simplest: Have a Plan.

Before beginning any major project, or touching a single plant or shovel, everyone should have a landscape design; or at the very least, a long-term plan for their yard. That way, you can do your yard in stages, as money becomes available, but always with the confidence and peace of mind of knowing that everything you do in your yard is contributing to a singular vision and cohesive end result. This also helps in avoiding what I call "The Landscape Comb-Over": allow yourself to really focus on achieving each small area to perfection, piece by piece, rather than taking that same budget and trying to spread it too thinly, all at once, across the entirety of your yard. Suddenly, rather than having one really cool area that you are super proud of, you will have a whole yard of sparse mediocrity, that never really lives up to what you were imagining. Better to do a small area well, than a whole lot of areas poorly.

Also, by tackling a small area first, you may find out that you don’t really enjoy gardening like you thought you would, and don’t really want to constantly mess with all those complicated, difficult plant varieties you had your designer include in your landscape plan. Better to find this out early on, in a small way, and probably have your designer change the plant materials in your plan to easier, more manageable, varieties before moving forward.

Not everyone likes to spend their nights and weekends working in the yard. (If this is you, you probably shouldn’t plant BAMBOO. Just saying…)

If for whatever reason, you are going to skip involving a landscape designer entirely, because you want to design your landscape yourself, and you already have a good handle on the sun, shade, watering requirements, and growth habits of all your plant materials, then I am going to share with you the 3 basic tenants of Landscape Design, as taught to me by my father:

1. Color Contrast

2. Height Variation

3. Texture Change

Now the way you utilize and combine these three things can produce wildly different results, ranging from a storybook, fairytale-type garden, to an ultra-contemporary xeriscape, but these are the main factors running through the mind of any good landscape designer, regardless of what look they are trying to achieve.

Before you begin your design process, I would recommend first cultivating at least a rudimentary understanding of your home’s architectural style, the various landscape styles that exist, and how the two have historically been paired together in the past, to achieve aesthetical harmony and visual success. Don’t let anyone tell you that landscaping is anything other than an art form, because it very much is, and just like with any artistic medium there are a plethora of different styles, and proven techniques for achieving them.

Personally, I think an English Tudor-style home looks ridiculous when paired with minimalistic beds of cacti, succulents, and granite, but that’s just me. A Tudor is obviously going to look best with more traditional plant materials and manicured maintenance, but are you really prepared for all that watering, hedging, and sculpting? These are decisions you’ll have to make for yourself.

Another pitfall, that many new homeowners especially fall in to, is getting sidetracked with flowers and bedding plants too soon. Whoa, buddy! What are you doing with all that icing when you haven’t even got a cake yet? Flowering bedding plants are pretty, and relatively cheap compared to trees and shrubs, but let’s not get carried away until you have the fundamentals of your landscape established.

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Read more of my general thoughts on landscaping HERE, my feelings about international landscapes HERE, and how to greatly reduce your time spent watering HERE!