Landscaping dilemma

[kirk1701]

Hey all,
Ran into this problem a couple years back when I started landscaping the front yard. We wanted 3 dogwoods evenly spaced across the front yard so measure the width of the yard and divide by 4 right? 4 spaces in between 3 evenly spaces trees? That part wasn't the problem, it was making all three tree's look like they were spaced evenly away from the house all the way across the front; hope that makes sense?

I measures out from one side of the house so many feet than went to the other end of the house and measured out the same distance and was going to use that as the guide and you know what; my line was not parallel to the yard, didn't look anywhere near right at all

Measured from the street up, same way and still WFT!!!

In the end, I ended up eyeballing the tree's and set them out where they looked like they went across the front parallel to the house and yard which is where they still are today and look fine.

I'm now running into the same problem in the backyard, fixing to start getting ready for fall, replanting the garden tomorrow night and before I did I was going to shape the garden evenly across the back and put landscaping timbers down well guess what, yep same scenario as I just described above?

I measured out from the house at one end of the garden and was going to match the gardens distance at the other end parallel to the house at the other end, no where even close to looking even so now I'm thinking of leaving as is, it looks even/parallel or whatever you want to call it but if you measure it out so it is even, well it just looks FUBARED

What am I doing wrong or is eyeballing just the better way to start with?

[PerfectEarth]

I always like eyeballing. Sometimes the aesthetic look to lining up trees and laying out things works better than exact measurements. I have a measuring wheel, turf paint, yard flags and string.... Sounds like your measured numbers are messing with your head! Just go with a string line and measure the diagonals, from corner to corner (assuming your garden is square or rectangle)...Anyway, no one will notice if you're off a bit. And that's coming from someone who is very particular!

[kirk1701]

Sorry I didn't get back sooner, had computer problems which led to yet another paradox but anyhow.

Thats what I ended up doing, eyeballing which actually ended up being right where the line is now, LOL.

So, no seeding to do.

Thanks.

[Kinz]

Here's a good rule to follow...don't evenly space the trees! It will look much better if they are spaced according to the architecture of the house, bed lines, other trees (if any), etc. Asymmetric balance is always the best rule to follow in a landscape.

[kirk1701]

Originally Posted by Kinz

Here's a good rule to follow...don't evenly space the trees! It will look much better if they are spaced according to the architecture of the house, bed lines, other trees (if any), etc. Asymmetric balance is always the best rule to follow in a landscape.

Yea, we found that out in the front. The tree's are evenly spaces but not devided across the entire front. On one side of the lot was a cluster of mature trees which threw the whole balance off so we came out from the cluster and started our measurement from there which I think was like 32 feet apart to get an even distance between all three tree's and across to the driveway.

But that was years ago, its the backyard right now.