Yardvaark said "Whatever you do ... whatever lines you make, you must make some simple, clean artistic geometry out of them. If you want more lawn on the west side, you can do it ... but adjust the lines to reflect simplicity, s m o o t h n e s s and the boundaries of nearby objects." I concur. Yard and bed edges that are squiggly remind me of group of people all talking over each other with no one saying anything of importance. It's confusing, distracting, and generally unpleasant. There is also the element of scale, the balance of area size for plants to that allotted for yard. I like to size the plant area to something no less than half the area of the sum of lawn and any hardscape devoted to people. And the plant area should not be more than twice the 'people' area. The size of landscape elements should be compatible with the overall size. For large areas use at least some larger shrubs, trees, walks. and decks. For smaller areas, scale down everything. To begin this discussion I selected a single objective you gave, that of making "the yard look deeper instead of a shallow and wide rectangle". There are an infinite number of desirable arrangements you might choose. In the end you may want to discard this idea in favor of developing some other idea. I admit I had my own motive in selecting that one goal for review. Landscaping is a blend of science and art. Years ago on this forum there were regular participants that made their living doing landscape design along with a host of others that had long studied the academic principles involved. I miss those discussions we had. The implementation of "making the yard look deeper instead of a shallow and wide rectangle" could have led to such a discussion even though it may of had limited benefit to the homeowner.

Most of the regulars to the forum know that my career has not been in landscape design, nor do I aspire to that end. But my life has been filled with design duties out of necessity; mechanical apparatus, building additions, civil projects, computer software applications, and complex digital electronic devices, for a few. There are similarities to the design process for all of these, especially at the start. The design process for all things generally begins with three things .... 1. An assessment of the current situation. 2. A defining of what would be a successful conclusion. 3. An assessment of the resources available Though the design process may not always involve a graphic, the majority do. Consider the schematics of electronic design or the flow charts of software design. In landscape design, the traditional graphic is a scaled plan view drawing, for good reason. Landscape design is all about the utilization of space. A photo does not define space, but a plan does. A scaled base map carries one through the assessment of the current situation. Those who skip this step short change themselves in the design process. The next error that many amateurs make is that of focusing on a perceived solution to a problem rather than the broader study of what would be a successful conclusion.. An example of this is one seeking to keep mulch on a slope when the rain is continuing to wash it away. This is a wrong statement of the problem. The problem is that the landscape is unstable and requires constant maintenance. The successful conclusion is a landscape that is stable, however that might be accomplished. For landscape design, an assessment of the resources available cannot be completed without quantifying the the available space. And there is no better tool for this than the scaled plan drawing. So why don't more people do scaled drawings. Perhaps it's like the person who doesn't dance that looks to those on the dance floor and says "I could never do that. And if I tried, I'd look clumsy and foolish." The hardest part of learning to dance are those first steps. The hardest part of drafting is drawing the first lines. Let me say that I am not a fan of mspaint. Out of all the paint, drawing, and photo editing software, it would be hard to find an application that would not be a better tool than mspaint. The only good thing about it is that it's already on many computers and it can do the job. It can draw lines and add text to any jpeg graphic. You don't need to go to the store for paper and pens, or download software. You can draw those first lines now. Of course if you already have graph paper or a better software, then use that. There are some advantages to doing the drawing on the computer. You can backup from mistakes. Even mspaint allows you to hold the control key down, press the 'Z' key and undo the last three operations. And it's easy to save copies of the drawing at many stages as you go along. It's in a file form that can be shown here for help and suggestions. Let's look at the first lines. Note that a grid is a pattern of perpendicular lines. In order to relate what is in the real garden to what is on the plan one needs to identify an element common to both. Since the grid is made up of perpendicular lines, one should choose two perpendicular lines that occur on the ground. The most common available element of this nature is a building corner. Where no building is near the project, another straight line element can be used, such as a fence, walk, or property line. A perpendicular line must then be manufactured to the straight line object to mimic the grid of the drawing. Here's a real example. Note that the project area is a part of the backyard. I select the upper back house corner with its well defined perpendicular lines as the primary reference point for both the real and the plan. From this corner I measure the distance along the back of the house to be 33 ft to a jog corner. Starting mspaint, I then open the blank grid graphic. Considering the area for the project I want to locate the primary reference point(house corner) in the lower right of the grid. Note that the grid has a heavier line every fifth square. This helps one to count the distance across the grid by jumping in unit multiples of 5. Since the project will span around 50ft in width, I will think of each square as 2 ft, making the distance between bold grid lines of 10ft. The principle point is placed on an intersection of bold lines to take advantage of this feature. Selecting the straight line tool of mspaint I click the house corner point at a suitable point on the plan. Holding the mouse button down, I shift left counting the distance measured of the house to the correct point on the grid and release. Repeating the process from that point I draw the 2ft jog in the house and repeat again to continue 17ft to the far house corner. The first lines are drawn, the house is on the plan. Scaled drawings are not rocket science.

There are a lot of people on this forum who care deeply about the lining-up of their drawers. I find this pretty puzzling. But recognize there is something of the self-selection among anal retentives and being on this list to begin with! (That is, caring-about-drawers-lining-up is disproportionately selected for as a trait among GWebbers, almost by definition). So when I say no one could accuse me of being easy-going, even though I don't care about drawers lining up, that sort of satisfies this thesis: people who are on here to begin with care about minutiae (read: are anal retentive) and so you will find a bunch who care about drawers lining up. But you don't have to, and still retain your AR card carrying status. You can't care about absolutely everything in life before tipping into the truly pathological never-leave-the-house-OCD world. So it's OK to pick and choose your battles. For me, no way is this one it: just no way at all. But I know there are many, many (had to go back and add another "many") battles I choose that legions would shake their head in wonder at. Quite frankly, I think if you let this one go, it leaves with with a slight net to add some more to your plate. For example, I find myself spending a lot of time fighting public-schools battles. It leaves me with less caring for the lining-up of drawers. But my point is: there's no Rule here, it's almost a lifestyle-decision. And YMMV quite legitimately on that. p.s. I think it also depends critically on the kind of drawers you have, as well as layout and drawer fronts. I have cherry shaker-style wooden drawer fronts, and none of my stacks anywhere really lines up like the above pictures with horizontal and vertical lines. So it's OK when stacks are not like one another; they aren't really in any direction (I now realize). There also isn't that shininess that lends itself to the uber-symmetry. So again, YMMV for multiple reasons.

Hi guys As per usual, we got off track w/ the fencing to put yet another fire out. We haven't done anything about our fencing except to write to you here on gardenweb. We have our mtg in front of the zoning board in 2 weeks for our home-based swim lesson business so we've been frantic about making sure we are all set for that. I did just get a letter today from our town's building inspector informing us that we never got our final inspection done for the pool build and that if not done in the next 15 days there would be some sort of hell to pay. Our installation of the enclosure isn't 100% done yet so I didn't think we were even on the radar for final inspection. Can we pass inspection w/ our orange temporary construction fence?? We can't put the permanent fence up yet until we get our answer from the zoning board; if we get a yes, we need to connect our enclosure to the house by way of a vestibule to make it truly an in-home business. If not, the two structures stay separated. Our fencing needs will depend on the board's answer. Aye yi yi... Joanne