How do you start landscaping?

I've never been into landscaping before but now I've restarted my town, I want to give it a try.
What's your usual "technique" like? Especially when it comes down to laying out paths - do you just starting laying the designs down where you want and then remove all the trees that are in the way or do you remove all the plants first so you can plant new ones once your done?
I'd also be happy to maybe receive a few "landscaping noob" tips if you have any. ^^"

i start with paths. even if i'm planning to have a dirt path town later, i start by placing down paths where i know i'll be walking (try to lay them so that they can get you anywhere in town, with the shortest routes between areas). then, i start decorating around my paths. flowers, trees, stumps, and cut bamboo to line them or to lightly frame them. i plan out areas i want in town (for example, in my main town i have a wishing well area that is surrounded by trees) and start planting what i can. i plan where i want pwps and start decorating those areas as i wait for those pwps to be requested. this is more optional, but i also plan where i want the villager houses to be so i can start placing stuff and paths around the 3x3 plots where they'll live.

hope that helped a little!! a lot of people recommend cutting down all of your trees first to get a empty base town to work with but personally i don't do that because its a one-way ticket to getting rafflesia and your mayor ratings will crumble ;; also you never know if you'll end up wanting a tree where you cut one down and you save a lil money for not having to buy another sapling

good luck!!

I start by laying down paths, because you can’t really plant stuff if you don’t know where your main walkways are going to be. I also like to have all my permanent buildings/villager homes in before I begin any landscaping, and if you have anything that may change later, then you can’t exactly landscape around it (in my experience, anyway). Then I usually start deciding where I want things to go, breed all my flowers, buy bushes/trees, and just kinda start putting stuff down. If I don’t like it, I can always get rid of it later— that’s the beauty of it! Hope this helps~

Hi, this was the first town I actually landscaped, and its still a work in progress. My town is very angular, the paths are straight and easy to traverse. I kept what kind of play I have in mind - focusing on getting high friendship with everyone. So I wanted every single place in town to be easy and quick to get to.There are a LOT of paths around town. Others might not like this, but for me it's a dream, I'm loving be able to just sprint everywhere so quick.... I then basically set up 'set pieces' and set up the paths to connect these areas. For example, I've a playground area, which connects into a backyard area, which connects to a beach cliff lookout area. I just make areas with a focal point and then connect them. Would you like any help in your town? I can give you some fruits to plant, and since I've the gold shovel I can plant you normal trees too. Let me know if you'd like me to come over and help, I just need a cup of tea, then I'll just be around ^^

Also I'd say my town isn't that great, but if you want to come over for ideas.. you can? Idk... there's def more impressive towns out there I guess I'll say about mine >////<

Thank you all for your posts and advice, they're super helpful! I'll wait until all my 9 villagers have moved in (I just restarted a few days ago haha) and then start by putting down pathways and leave the plants for now. I'm not too concerned about PWPs since I don't want too many of them anyway as that wouldn't really match my theme but I'll remember to leave a bit of space for the caf? and a few smaller ones.

Warrior said:

Would you like any help in your town? I can give you some fruits to plant, and since I've the gold shovel I can plant you normal trees too. Let me know if you'd like me to come over and help, I just need a cup of tea, then I'll just be around ^^

Also I'd say my town isn't that great, but if you want to come over for ideas.. you can? Idk... there's def more impressive towns out there I guess I'll say about mine >////<

Click to expand...

Thank you so much, I'd love to take you up on the offer in the future, once I figured out how I want my theme to look like! For now I'll have to wait for my last two villagers to move in and unlock the QR machine - the joys of not wanting to TT haha ^^

Thair said:

Thank you all for your posts and advice, they're super helpful! I'll wait until all my 9 villagers have moved in (I just restarted a few days ago haha) and then start by putting down pathways and leave the plants for now. I'm not too concerned about PWPs since I don't want too many of them anyway as that wouldn't really match my theme but I'll remember to leave a bit of space for the caf? and a few smaller ones.


Thank you so much, I'd love to take you up on the offer in the future, once I figured out how I want my theme to look like! For now I'll have to wait for my last two villagers to move in and unlock the QR machine - the joys of not wanting to TT haha ^^

Click to expand...

just a heads up, post update you can plan where villagers move, as now they won't move on top of patterns. So they can move here (X meaning empty non patterned tile, O meaning patterned tile)

OOOOO
OXXXO
OXXXO
OXXXO
OOXOO

But not here

OXXOX
XXOXX
XOXXO
OXXOX
XXOXX

It seems like you have a good amount of ideas coming from people. This town is the first time I'm really trying, haha. But I always start with paths. Just to get a basic layout of where i'm going. Then I cut down ALL the trees. It's like having a clean slate. After that I start lining the paths with bushes, trees, flowers ect. Now I'm currently working on plating an orchid and other random trees around the town.

You play and just see what you want while playing.

So many wonderful suggestions, that's for sure. But visiting dream towns is most helpful for me because, duh, visual ideas!
I take screenshots to look at later. Never copy exactly, though, much rather create my own scenes from the ideas I get. Way more satisfying!

I started with removing all of the tree's in town. Then I went around with paths so nothing was in the way and just went about my way until I was satisfied. I started thinking about PWP placement as well, trying to making strategic placements of place holders (tiles) so no one moved in and ruined my layout.

In my first town, I didn't really prepare it at all and just put stuff where I wanted, cutting down trees and planting flowers and bushes where I wanted them, which was really haphazard but it worked! In my second town, I've been a lot more metholodical though. First I cut down all of the trees so there was a blank canvas to work on, before I laid out the paths and then started putting down placeholder patterns to designate where I wanted my trees and bushes to be. I'm still planting a lot of those (my town is only about 10% done tbh haha) and I've kind of just put copious amounts of patterns of hybrids in between! It sounds really messy but it surprisingly looks good. As for PWPs, I haven't really unlocked many but I've designated areas for ones that'll be essential, whilst the other ones are just put in along the way. It sounds a bit crazy but it works! As for villagers, I've just used the ones the game's given me as I like them (in the first town, I spent aaaagggggeeeesssss on here trying to get the perfect cutesy ones) as they more or less dirt the natural aesthetic of my town, but there's 2 I'd like to get rid of and I have an idea of who I'd replace them with. I feel that I'm a little bit less restricted or precise in the planning of my town than many people, but I like how it's turning out a lot!

I started with thinking of a theme that I wanted for my town first. I researched the PWPs that were in game, and worked from there. I googled extensively for paths that would match the theme that I wanted to create for my town. Once I found them then I placed them. I think though, before you start any landscaping, you better make sure that you have all the villagers in your town that you want. I decided later on after all the stuff was landscaped to let two of my villagers go, and the two new villagers that moved in, moved into completely random places in my town. I had to fill the empty spaces with PWPs, but to me it still looks a bit awkward.

So I suggest the following:

Decide on what theme you want.

Make sure you have all of the villagers in your town that you want.

Have more than one human resident in your town so that they can hold some QR paths for you. (Some paths takes up more than 10 slots)

Place paths.

Decide on what trees/bushes/etc you want that will fit with your idea of your town.