A cluttered landscape looks ugly, but it can be challenging to declutter a yard. Life finds a way, after all, and that tends to mean plants will push through your landscaping efforts and create clutter regardless of your plans. How can you minimize clutter? The following four tips will help.

Landscape 3 Layers Deep

Good property landscaping employs layers going in two directions. First, there is the visual depth of things that are close to or far from you. Establishing a distinct foreground, background, and middle will help people read the landscape without much mental effort. Second, you should think about depth from top to bottom. There are ground plants like flowers and ferns, high plants like trees and hedges, and middle plants like bushes, small trees, and taller flowers.

Always Have a Plan

Landscaping can be a lot of fun, but haphazard work can lead to clutter. Even if the property starts out with a fun and bohemian vibe, the eventual growth of randomly planted things will foster chaos within a couple of years.

Always have a plan. Think hard about which plants will work well with each other. If you have a beast of a shade tree, for example, you should pair it with bottom-level plants that love the shade. Hostas and ferns are classic choices in that scenario.

Once you have a plan, stick with it. This will render decision-making simpler, and that will make it easier to notice when the landscape is starting to clutter. When the landscape no longer follows the plan, then you'll know it's time to declutter.

Fight the Invaders

Nothing makes a landscape look dense faster than allowing invasive plants to get out of control. Vining plants, for example, can grow up the trunks of trees and even the stalks of flowers. Similarly, weeds can start growing in the open spaces between even the best-planned gardens. While fighting the invaders is a long-term challenge in the landscaping world, it's one of the fastest ways to make a yard look less cluttered.

Know Your Limits

Some folks love landscaping, but even the most diehard DIYers can blow past their limits. Professional help is useful, especially when you're trying to contain clutter. The goal is to enjoy the yard, not live in service to it.

If you need to clean out a large yard full of weeds and vines, for example, call a professional landscaping service. You can always go back to DIY mode once you've fought the good battle and reasserted control.