Landscaping: rustic country style

Recommendation points

• The concept of a rustic style in the design of the site
• Site planning
• Unity of style
• Fencing
• Well
• Garden furniture and small forms
• Landscaping of the site

This article will tell you about how to turn a summer cottage or suburban area into a cozy village corner. It will consider the basic techniques of landscape design in the most democratic of the existing rustic style, or, as it is also called, country style.

The concept of a rustic style in the design of the site

The rustic style in landscape design has not lost its popularity for many decades. This is due to the following reasons:

• its device does not require large labor and material costs;
• the style is quite democratic and leaves a huge scope for the owner for creativity and self-expression;
• allows you to fully embody the ideas of the owner of the site about a cozy and comfortable corner for life and relaxation.

The main concept of the rustic style is simplicity and naturalness of design while preserving the natural landscape as much as possible. Competently placed accents help to make the style recognizable..

This style does not dictate strict requirements for the geometry of the site and allows you to use any materials at hand, if they are skillfully built into the overall concept.

As a rule, professionals try not to give advice or set any limits for the owner. The main thing to warn about is moderation..

The main mistake that turns a country-style plot into a pile of random things is the lack of a single composition and an overabundance of decor elements. Thus, it is worth remembering more often the principle “less is better.” And if the owner has ten trolley wheels, this does not mean at all that all of them must be used when decorating a lawn or flower bed.

Site planning

The rustic style does not imply strict planning. But this does not mean at all that everything should be chaotic. Site zoning is a very important stage. It’s best to start it from home..

In the article about site planning, we talked about how to correctly assess and use the relief features of the site, independently perform soil analysis, and determine the illumination parameters. All this needs to be done during the planning stage of a rustic garden. Such an analysis will allow you to correctly distribute the zone over the site, making the most of its advantages and neutralizing the disadvantages.

The garden must have a recreation area and a vegetable garden. Any outbuildings are very easy to fit into the overall concept. Tracks are not planned in advance. They just randomly connect selected areas.

Unity of style

The rustic style is often referred to as “country”. However, the rustic style should not be confused with ethnic style, which implies a clear adherence to the national flavor..

To create a recognizable look and style, it is perfectly acceptable to stick to a specific theme, which will greatly simplify the task. It can be an imitation of a Ukrainian farm, a house in the Russian outback, a farm in France. After all, for example, at the mention of a Ukrainian farm, the imagination immediately draws krynka on the wattle fence, an abundance of sunflowers, a whitewashed hut, a table under a pear in the yard.

In short, to create a landscape design in a rustic style, it is quite enough to think over the style and acquire suitable materials at hand, as well as drawings and old photographs.

It is worth remembering that the house, if it is already built, must be brought in line with the chosen style. Modern building materials will allow you to do this quickly and efficiently. It is also worth considering, for example, the arrangement of shutters and carved platbands.

Fencing

A fence in a village house has always performed many functions: it reliably protected the family from prying eyes, served as a place where you can hang something to dry. The condition of the fence spoke of the well-being of the owner. Therefore, the fence should be taken seriously..

The fence should be wooden, but its shape can be different:

• wattle;
• fence;
• stylized fence from any available materials.

If a gate device is conceived, they also need to be integrated into the overall picture, giving the appropriate look.

Well

One of the most important rustic style devices is equipping a well. This is the most time consuming and expensive part of the overall style. Of course, you can style the well as a decorative element, but it is best to arrange a real well, which, among other things, will become a source of water for domestic needs and irrigation.

To decorate the frame of a well, it is worth familiarizing yourself with what the wells looked like in the villages. Their appearance depended on the design of the lifting mechanism. In Slavic villages, two types of wells were most often used:

• Russian (with a lifting mechanism in the form of a drum on which a rope or chain is wound);
• boom lift.

The upper part of the shaft (head) must be decorated in the style of the general design. The area around the well can be cemented, or it can be planted with flowering shrubs or ivy.

Garden furniture and small forms

The main rule for the location and type of garden furniture is minimum costs and ease of use..

Benches that have served their time, wooden tables, just wooden blocks and old stools – anything can come in handy. DIY furniture is ideal.

Professionals advise against getting carried away with garden sculptures when decorating a rustic style. It is better to give preference to items of country life – old (or stylized) carts, kitchen utensils, old bicycles, garden wheelbarrows, garden scarecrows, wicker baskets.

Pet figurines and sculptures are perfect for the overall concept. Boulders or old tree stumps, picturesquely lined with flowers, will look good..

Landscaping of the site

There are no special recommendations for landscaping a country-style site. Any traditional local plants will do..

Lawns, if sown, should not be geometric and look well-groomed. The flower beds can be positioned completely arbitrarily. A certain negligence and lack of care is quite acceptable – the village housewives most often did not have time for ideal flower beds.

Garden and vegetable garden are very important elements of this style in landscape design. A garden planted with fruit trees will not only create an atmosphere that matches the style, but will also bring crops.

In addition to traditional “food” vegetable crops, it is possible to grow colorful giant pumpkins, sunflowers, ornamental cabbage used in design.

Applying all these simple techniques, you can turn the garden plot into a corner of comfort and harmony with nature, without special financial costs. Caring for the site in this style is not at all difficult, and the already created landscape design can be easily updated and redone with your own hands using improvised means.