Give your compound an artistic touch
Your compound speaks a lot about your aspirations and dreams for your home. Ultimately, you need to think through what your compound must look like. File photos
Designing your compound will add spark to it, making it look more beautiful and attractive.
Aloysius Wandera, a landscaper, says that when thinking of the things to do with your compound, you need to ask yourself questions as these will inform your decisions. For example: What am I going to use my compound for? Is it for entertainment, relaxing or sharing with friends and family?
He adds that every piece of material put in the compound must have function, and since we desire to beautify our compound, it must be practical, as well as decorative.
“The greens; lawns must be clearly demarcated: definite - end and start,” Wandera explains. Otherwise, beauty will not be achieved if grass is grown haphazardly.
Talking about the plants within your compound, Wandera says that one should carefully pick them and ensure that they are not mixed up: fast growing plants and slow growing plants. Those that grow high and fast are best put separate from those that grow slow or those that stay short at maturity.
The driveway
Adrian Nangosha, a landscaper with MacFaj Concepts Ltd shares ideas on how to change the driveway from ordinary to spectacular, saying, “It goes a long way in enhancing the general look of your compound.”
The driveway should be at a lower height from the lawn. You can either have only paving or paving mixed with grass for your driveway. Using the latter, you can either have grass and concrete paving or stone paving and grass. For concrete paving with holes, allow the grass to grow within the holes. For solid concrete paving, leave more space between them than usually left for sand. Then rather than sand, put loam soil between them to allow for grass to grow. For stone paving, leave reasonable space between them, ideally equivalent to that left for mortar, for grass to grow. The grass used should not be creeping grass.
For a more calming and homely compound, it is a great idea to have plants on each side of the driveway or to one side of the driveway, depending on how the house is oriented. These help to lend a more natural feel to the surrounding. If the green is sparsely placed, you may add some white small stones within the gardens to cover up any bare soil. These are great in enhancing the serene look in the home.
For the water lovers, you can either have a fountain or a pond at the end of your driveway. You could also have the water flowing on either side or on one side of the driveway, from the start to the end. This is ideal for a short driveway.
If you desire to have a loud or gushing sound of water, for a driveway that is way lower than the lawn, you will have to create a water fall to that side of the lawn.
You can also add lights into the water so that at night it will come alive and still be enjoyed.
It is worth noting that water features add glam to compounds without trying so much and they never fail to achieve their intended purpose.
Yard
Wandera shares how to add more spice to the rest of the yard:
You can have coconut or palm trees along the perimeter wall and put white small stones to cover the soil. You may install a solar light on each palm tree so that at night, you can still enjoy nature’s beauty.
For a greater touch of colour, plant flowers of different colours, clustered together to form colour patches. These can be of various flower types. For those that grow so high, trim them occasionally to have a uniform height.
You may put stone slates within the lawn: where people usually pass. This avoids the formation of a path within the lawn owing to constant passage. It is surely not impossible to make your compound look extra ordinary. These ideas could actually propel you to come up with more ideas that will further enhance your compound.
Take good care
Get rid of weeds: Weeds will always evade your grass cover. However, you cannot allow them to fester your green cover. Therefore, pluck them out rather than using herbicides as they may destroy your lawns.
Rake the ground deeply: Upon weeding, mowing or slashing, there is need to rake your compound deeply. That will enable you to get rid of the thatch and every other thing that is in the compound. Deep racking will leave your compound immaculate.
