Not everyone would choose Langen's design aesthetic; young families may opt for a children's yard filled with play structures and space for running and games. Still others prefer building the yard around a swimming pool. Some stick with more formal lawns and gardens inherited from our European ancestors; others opt for low-maintenance landscapes such as the Japanese Garden.

Landscape architects and designers are watching their popularity bloom these days, but Langen maintains that for her, designing, building, and maintaining the yard herself is half the fun. She even considered putting in an underground sprinkler system, but says watering the garden herself lets her discover something new each day.

"I come out every morning and go 'Hmm. This is new,"' she says. "If I put in the sprinkler system, I'd lose my personal connection with the garden" (If you think you'd prefer a professional's help, be sure to shop around and check out samples of their work.)

Langen approached the planning of her yard from gut instinct. She stared at the back and worked toward the front, often taking one step forward and two steps back, tearing out what didn't work.

"Doing that would probably be very frustrating to people who are working from a landscape design concept, but for me this comes from the heart."

 The trial and error, step-by-step method is often best for the beginner. Start with smaller areas of the yard and complete each one before moving on to the next. That way you won't find the time or money overwhelming. Langen used graph paper to roughly sketch what she wanted, but didn't enslave herself to the design. It was flexible and subject to experimentation.

TO PLAN OR NOT TO PLAN
If you're not comfortable with sketching or drafting, there are inexpensive, easy to use computer design programs available. When you make plans of any kind, it's important to keep them to scale so you get a rough idea of spatial requirements within the dimensions of your yard. Try to visualize what you want by looking out the windows of your house into your yard, and then looking from your yard to your house. Remember: you'll be looking at that yard through your windows for years. A great view from inside doubles the pleasure.

Regardless of what look you envision, there are certain design principles you should keep in mind - especially if you choose to treat your yard as an extension of your house. Yards have floors, walls, and ceilings, just as your house does.

There are two basic types of structures in a garden: hardscapes and softscapes. Hardscapes are items like patio blocks, gravel walkways, woodchips, fences, trellises, arbours, decks, or screened gazebos.

Before choosing hardscapes consider price, how difficult they are to install or maintain and what kind of variety they'll bring to the garden's appearance. Will you be content with plain, square patio blocks? Or do you want the more elaborate patterns and colours of interlocking stone? Langen chose a variety of hardscapes beginning with an interlocking round patio in the front, leading to a pea gravel walk going down the south side of her house, to a simple wood deck in the backyard, to wood chips on the north side of the house. Small wrought iron corner fences frame the front, and traditional wood fences run down both sides and across the rear of the yard to her double garage, which buffers the yard from the lane.

GREEN CHOICES
When choosing softscape, or plants, personal preference and cost are the two big factors. Langen's plants are arranged to flower in succession and she mixes colour, size, and texture to achieve a beautiful natural look. But not everyone wants the explosive colour of such diverse perennials and annuals.

More formal gardeners may want rose gardens or vegetable gardens only. Langen has a vegetable section as well as fruit trees and an herb garden, but many of her plants are flowers. Shade comes from two mature trees on either side of her yard and a mature crab apple tree overhanging the deck. In front,