Views and Layers

View points are very important in most yards. There may be special mountain views or valley overlooks, and even without mountains and valleys, there are often very nice view corridors that become key to the connection with a space. The number one concern I hear, and often the very first one mentioned, relates to these views. Usually this centers around windows and the views out of those windows. People do not want their aesthetic vistas blocked by trees or other landscape elements. It is often very helpful for me to walk an interior space in order to connect with the experience a homeowner will have with the landscape through those windows.

Imagine the above image is one of those views that we want to preserve. We certainly wouldn’t want to block those mountains. That being said, there is something missing here. An opportunity to make this view better. When I look through a window I like to treat it as an artists canvas, or through the lens of a photographer. The background is already painted, what can we add?

Adding a layer to this canvas helped. There is more depth and interest while maintaining the view of the key parts of the background. Good painters and photographers will look for foreground elements in order to add layers to their composition. Layers draw in the eye and give depth to the artwork. We should add another layer here to further enhance the effect.

This is the look we hope to achieve. Layers lending depth. We take care to place trees on the edges of the view in order to frame in and enhance the beauty of the mountains. This same care should be taken as you pick the windows or view corridors that are crucial to the aesthetic quality of your landscape design. So do not hesitate to place a few well thought out trees in front of your windows. The result will be better than imagined.