Advice on landscape and garden design

I've thrown together a little garden on my 4608m parcel and it looks just that - thrown together. I see parcels with lush dense gardens and I wonder how they spare the prims for it. Could be I was great at designing 2d images, but when it comes to an immersive environment, it's a whole different animal.

I'd like to keep about half of the 1054 allotted prims for a skybox and building platform and still leave enough left over for people to fly over my parcel without crashing and also to rez a box or two in the public dressing room I have provided., which I notice people are using.

Is there some trick to the design that I am missing or am I just being prim stingy? Maybe those lush places have empty parcels in the same sim for the extra prims. I'm wondering if there are tutorials somewhere aimed specifically at garden or landscape design. Or should I just hire someone with a greener (and opposable) thumb?

Weston,


I cant help you on this but I wanted to add my wish to learn how they do it.

Bec

You could use a grass particle rezzers to create that "lush" effect, but I imagine landscaping skills come into place as well.

Hi Weston

Because I spend most of my time outdoors and not in the house, I rez the house first, furnish it with bare essentials and put the majority of my prims outside...One thing that I have found helpful when I had to watch my prim count, was to use the Linden trees and bushes (the ones that are free copy all over the place, they are usually 1 prim each) along the outline of my parcel for the backdrop and to create a filled in look, then really get into the landscaping with purchased trees and plants that are much more appealing.

Ashe

Using rezzers and one prim sculptie plants, with some of the better Linden plants to fill it out, and a few higher prim plants as highlights and you can have a very lush looking garden without using many prims.

It does take landscaping and layout skills to make it look really good though.

a landscaper is an artist, he paints the land, with a little practice most people can do it. as an example I can place ten plants and spend the next 10 to 20 minutes, just positioning them, then place 10 more and position them, then maybe reposition some of the original plants too. sometimes you can get it right very quickly, sometimes it can take a few days, tweaking here and there.

Try somewhere like Forest Feast. They sell a lot of those 'circular' plants (several concentric circles of flowers and grasses that, from a distance and close-up, have a very lush effect). They've rapidly become one of my favourite garden stores in SL, and the whole sim is worthy of a wander around. Don't just stick to the store area

Also, for trees, I recommend New Trails. Average prim count for a beautifully-detailed sculpty tree is 25.

I always find that it helps to include a low prim fountian or gazebo as a focal point. Even a cluster of sculpted rocks or a single prim as a stone patio will work. They take up space for few prims and give me something to arrange plants around.

Also, I've found terraforming to be very useful for creating realistic and interesting garden spaces. Rolling land with lower area to suggest a worn path wandering though it, for example.

Sculptomancy has great 1 prim trees if they will rez properly for you.

The biggest impact I find to a garden is not how much or little that is put out but making sur that you have heights and levels.

What this means is having tall tree,s smaller trees, shrubs, small flowers and then grass. It is this that really makes a garden pop.

The positioning and placing does come into play as does esp terraforming.

I usually start off with one key feature I want n my garden. Most recently when i re did my garden this was willow trees cos I worked on a water plot. I then played with the cherry blossom tree which was smaller to add soem depth. Added reeds and rocks and a few flowers which worked.

For a 3000 sq m plot My total landscaping prims was around 300, althoguh I could have dropped that back by taking out the 20 prim little raft i have but Ilove it.


here is a look at what we did.

I recently located some superb one- and two-prim trees (believe it or not, they look great!) Drop me a line inworld and I'll be happy to show you or send you a LM.

I used the low-prim trees around the perimeter of my land, then put just a couple higher-prim ones from Botanical as focal points. It's a work in progress but I think it's shaping up nicely. Ground cover helped, and a stone pathway.

What they said. It's one of the reasons I switched my plants to one prim sculpts. Using those (and others who sell those) mixed with Linden plants (the ferms look good) makes for a lush feel.

You've gotten some great suggestions thus far.

I'd also suggest going to Botanical at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Straylight/183/52/25.

Not only do they just have beautiful plants but they also have some groundcover sculpty prims (covers a large area with one prim) and some particle emitter plants which are really lovely. Those can both add to the lush look of a garden with a small amount of impact on prims.

(I have no affiliation with Botanical--just admire their work.)

Creative Fantasy has some really nice one prim sculpted plants that look like six or eight plants (I have no affiliation with them either).

Many thanks folks. RA came through again for me. You are all great! I will try all of the above suggestions. They are exactly the nudge in the right direction I needed.

I know what I'll be doing the rest of the day . . .

Can i also add that many gardens that look thrown together are the ones with one or two of everything scattered about. Instead of having everything everywhere, limit some of the elements, ie, restrict most of the greenery to one type of green, or the flowers to one or two hues, not every one. Then add a few contrasting colours/shapes to form visual focal points.

In the same vein, use repetition of a few basic types of plants, with some distinctive individuals added as foils.

Instead of scattering objects evenly all over the land, try grouping them to also form focal points. Give each clump a taller tree or three, and build mid-height and low-height levels around it.

Also, i know this is a cliche, but it's true-- think of your garden as a set of rooms, and divide your space up into them. Partially screen the view from room to room so that people are compelled to walk about and explore. Make it mysterious

Yes, particles, rezzers and linden trees are good ways to stretch the prim budget.

And a place you might like to visit is Fluffy Green Meadows (no affiliation, just pretty ground covers)