1. Bring your home outside.

When you are planning your landscape approach, consider bringing elements of what's inside your home, outside. For example, build a nice patio that has several comfortable chairs on it, along with flowers, planter boxes, a table, and umbrella, and more. If the patio is accessed from the house through a sliding glass door, this is a natural and unobtrusive way for you to blur the boundaries between outside and inside.

If you are loathe to build a patio, either because it's too expensive, or if you don't like the look, there are other ways that you can bring the indoors outside. Create several cozy nooks in your yard. In one corner, train some flowering vines up and over an arbor. Underneath, place two or three chairs, along with perhaps a table. In another corner, you can have a hammock with a convenient table that makes it easy and relaxing to read outside (alone or with someone else) and enjoy a refreshing drink.

The key to lawn furniture is that it be unobtrusive, that it not take over the yard, and that it fit naturally in your landscaping plan. In order to create a connection to your interior décor, choose lawn furniture that has similar patterns, either in the style of the furniture itself (cottage, country, urban, etc.), in its fabric, upholstery, and in its colors. This will tie your entire living space together.

2. Have a plan.

Before you even take out one shovel, or buy one bag of dirt, you need to come up with a landscape plan. Go outside and look at your yard. What do you want it to look like? What type of environment do you want your yard to be? Do you want it to be cozy and intimate? Do you prefer something wide open? What's your style? Do you like southwest motifs? Do you prefer English cottage? Do you want something cool and modern? Sit down and come up with a cohesive landscaping plan. Look around at your house and how your style has manifested itself inside your home. Take that same style, and translate it to the outdoors.

Before you buy any plant, make sure that it fits within your scheme. For ideas and help, go to your local nursery. They have experts who can tell you what plants will work well together. They can also help you discover which plants are right for your climate and region. They can help you come up with a low maintenance, high show landscaping scheme, or whatever is right for you.

3. Plan for your entire year.

When you think of your yard, do you think about how beautiful it will look in the late spring, moving into the middle of summer, and then the vision sort of disappears when you reach late August? If so, you're missing out on about eight months of the year. That's eight months when you don't have any design for your yard except for dead. Design for fall and winter, also. The fall and winter months are one of the most spectacular for gardening, with all kinds of exciting color and possible color and texture combinations. Don't miss out.

Here are some more tips that will help you make your yard an extension of your home:

4. Have layers in your flower beds: plant your flowers in three rows, with the tallest at the back.
5. Use evergreens. This will give your yard unity through the entire year.
6. Use annuals along with perennials. This will give you more color that lasts longer.
7. Use hardware. I'm talking about walls, fences, arbors, patios, and decks. This will give your yard a finished feel.
8. Try water features. They're not as difficult as you think they are.
9. Use drought tolerant plants. Otherwise you could be disappointed come July.
10. Go for low maintenance. You can have a gorgeous yard that doesn't require your entire life.