Once you have your dream log home built, your likely next step is landscaping. If your log home was integrated into the environment enough, you may not need to do much, if anything at all, since the natural surroundings, including trees, bushes and other native flora should grow naturally. But if your log home is in a residential area, is in an area which has little native plants, trees or shrubbery or if you are starting from scratch with totally cleared space around your home, you'll need some ideas on where to begin. Here are some tips for landscaping around your log home:

Planning

Careful planning is crucial, especially if you're starting with a blank slate. You can get advice from employees at a local nursery, they can often recommend appropriate native plants that will not only grow well in your area, but will also look natural with your log home. You may also consider using software to design your landscape. There are many programs available for your computer that will help you design your own landscape. Just plug in the measurements for your house and surrounding area and then you'll be able to select from tens of thousands of different trees, plants, shrubs, flowers and many more options. It's similar to a drag and drop interface. You'll also be able to select the color and type of the exterior of your home, and view a 3D preview of how the plants will look when young and mature against the backdrop of your home. There are many good programs available but one excellent program is 3D Garden Composer, which includes extensive tutorials to make it easy for you to use.

Log Home Considerations

At every stage, you'll want to be careful to consider not just how your landscaping will look against and around your house but also how it will affect your house. For instance, you probably won't want to plant something like Ivy or a crawling plant against your home, since the plant growing too near your logs may cause aesthetic problems like water stains or even cause damage to your logs over time, even if they are extensively water treated.

Style & Aesthetics

Since your log home has a very different exterior than traditional homes, the style of your landscaping should be a good match for this. For instance, a formal garden, an Oriental style garden or an English Cottage style garden and plantings probably wouldn't go well with your log home. A log home tends to look best with a more casual style of garden with plantings and trees selected to enhance not only the logs and the exterior of your home but also the natural surroundings.

Maintenance

Think carefully about maintenance before selecting your plantings. Will you have enough time to maintain flowers or trees that will need to be pruned every so often? Will you have the time to rake up leaves of the trees you have planted? This is another reason why native plants and trees are a good choice for log homes, as the maintenance of native species will usually be much less.

Whatever landscaping you choose, above all, it should enhance the look and feel of your log home but also add to it's value.