Last time I wrote about hard landscaping, so I thought I’d talk about soft landscaping this time!

When you think about a garden, you think of plants, freshly cut lawns and well sculptured trees. These types of additions are known as soft landscaping. This basically means that they are not permanent structures. There are literally hundreds of different types of flowers and plants that you can add to your garden. But getting the colours and types of plants right, is not always an easy task. It can often take a few years of practice before you get it right.

Choosing different types of soft landscaping really depends on how much time you can devote to looking after your garden. If you are able to constantly water the plants and prune them, then you can go for short term plants. On the other hand, if you don’t have a lot of time to spend on the garden, then you should choose plants that can cope with harsh conditions and don’t require a lot of looking after. You can choose plants which will last at least a year, rather than the annual varieties.

These types of plants are happy to survive in fairly dry soil conditions, so they don’t need watering often and maybe even not at all, depending on how much rainfall you receive wherever you live in the world. The only problem with these types of plants is that they don’t tend to have much colour to them. This can make your garden quite bland and unattractive, but can be overcome by combining different styles and shapes.

So there are quite a few things to bare in mind when choosing your soft landscaping. If you’re not sure what types will be best for your garden then you can always seek advice. Your local garden centre will explain the types of plants available and how much attention they need to survive. Alternatively, there are many specialist gardening magazines which you can purchase very inexpensively from your local newsagent, which have great information and tips for you to read.

You may also want to take a look at Step-by-Step Landscaping: Planning, Planting, Building, an excellent book by Better Homes and Gardens.