I use the following terms a lot, and often interchangeably: garden, landscape, and yard. The words do have different connotations for me, and here’s what I think of each term.

Yard: A piece of land surrounding a house. Nothing is required here except for physical space.

Landscape: The features of a yard or outdoor area. A landscaped yard is purposely planned out and filled with various hard-scape and plant material. 

Garden: A place for plants. In a garden, the highlight is the plants and how they interact and grow.

When I think about the area surrounding the house, I often think about it in three tiers. The bottom is the yard. If you have a yard you have a bunch of land that is not devoted to any purpose, including aesthetics. Think a dirt pad, weed patch, or even a run-of the mill lawn with boxwood foundation plantings. Nothing special or desirable here.

The next is a landscape. The area is purposefully planned out to be functional and beautiful. There can be good or bad landscaping and a slew of different styles…but there is always some thought and effort behind it. Most commercially done landscapes fall into this tier (with a few exceptions). These usually have a “before and after” type approach, with a one time installation and only minor modifications after the initial installation.

Finally, the most desirable tier is a garden. A garden is all about plants. There almost always has to be a gardener attached as well, someone who appreciates and cares for the plants. A garden changes dynamically through the years as plants are appreciated, cultivated and experimented on. In the culture where I grew up, a garden usually meant a kitchen garden with vegetables and such. Most people only cared about their vegetables too…the rest of the landscape was not cultivated by a caring gardener but occasionally hacked at with a mower and pruning shears. But there are also flower gardens, mixed borders, meadows, and more that can accurately be described as a garden.

I said that a garden is most desirable, but I think a lot of people aren’t actually looking to have a garden. They want a nice landscape, something that is functional and pretty, but avoid the effort and knowledge that is necessary for a garden. There is always something missing from these landscapes though: no piece of land can reach it’s full potential unless it is treated as a garden.