ABSTRACT
In landscape design, including urban design, planting plays a primary role in creating spaces. These spaces are often described in the language of buildings. Outdoor rooms can be enclosed by walls of planting, floors surfaced with grass or ground cover and a ceiling can consist of a spreading tree canopy, climbers on a pergola, or simply the sky. Doorways or gateways give access to these spaces and windows are formed by gaps in a foliage canopy or merely by the natural permeability of trees and shrubs with an open branching habit. The basic spatial form can be decorated and furnished with ornamental planting. This building vocabulary can be useful to the planting designer for two reasons. First, it reminds that outdoor spaces, just like indoor ones, are designed to be used as well as to be enjoyable. Second, it identifies the structural/spatial aspects of planting that are important in the making of outdoor spaces.
