Garden Design - Start here

Making a start;

Design can be one of the most enjoyable bits of gardening - relaxing, not dependent on the weather and time spent dreaming of wonders to come.

Even if you're not a habitual designer, time spent in preparation can be worth ten times the investment later on when you decide that a particular tree, border etc. is not appropriate or is in the wrong place.

These pages are intended as a starting point if you are planning great things, or as a complete and simple guide if you aren't.

Step 1    - Draw up a plan of your garden to scale on a large piece of paper.

Step 2    - Mark on this plan the things you can't change. Position of your house, windows, doors, garage, fences and other boundaries, neighbors trees/hedges, neighbors windows that overlook your garden. Don't underestimate the influence on your garden of things just outside it.

Step 3    - Make a (realistic) wish list of the things that you would like (and the things that you need) in your garden.

Step 4    - Take your basic plan and your wish-list outside and start thinking about where things are going to be. Write them in pencil on a separate piece of paper. Then leave it all alone for at least a few days before you repeat this step until you're happy with the result.

As time goes on you may decide to have a rose bed or house your National collection of Euphorbias in a particular place rather than the original idea of a herbaceous border. You may go for a patio instead of decking, but at least you will have a good idea of the kinds of things in each area. Think in terms of the use of the surface, of how you will move around the garden and of vertical height.

Lay things out outside, use a hose-pipe for borders, pegs for the edge of hard surfaces. Above all make sure the size of the features are realistic and useful. What may look a delightful shape for a deck on paper, may in reality not have any area that is actually large enough to be useful. It is better to have a useful if mundane rectangular patio than a lovely sinuous shape where however you arrange things, there's always one table leg on the lawn.

Architectural Plants

A frequently used term. If your garden is your outdoor room, then architectural plants are the furniture. They are the long-lived permanent residents that give the garden much of its shape and character. The shorter lived annuals, bulbs and herbaceous perennials are the ornaments and pictures.

When deciding on your planting, begin with architectural plants.

Design Tips

    Cost. This will dictate to a large extent what you can and can't do, but often as not is a question of time. Do you complete the whole garden that you want at once or do it in stages? I would suggest that you stick to a longer-term more expensive plan rather than a quick cheapie. If you try to cut corners initially, you will probably end  up fiddling around with what you've got and re-do it over  the longer period spending the same amount of money (if not more).

    If possible make an entrance to the garden - a leafy tunnel with an arbour and climbers over maybe. Shield entrances to the garden from direct line of sight. Coming around a corner or through a tunnel to a "surprise" garden is always dramatic and impressive.

    Think about how your garden looks from the overlooking windows. Throughout the year, you will probably look at the garden through windows more than you will actually be in it. Attention to this is one of the easiest and more successful things that you can do to get a rewarding garden. If the garden looks good through the windows, then it will probably tempt you out into it more.

    Place bird feeders / tables where they can easily be seen from frequently used windows. You'll also get more value from water features if they're placed where they can be easily seen from a window.

    Link the garden to its surroundings if possible. If you are lucky enough to have a view of countryside or woodland. Place sympathetic plants leading to the view to give the impression that it is a continuation of your garden. If the view is reasonable, but not wonderful, then a filigree screen of planting gives a similar impression.

    Planting is too often piecemeal, plants are introduced at random by different people at different times. Plant lovers need to be very disciplined here to not be side-tracked by those saucy plants that sit and wink shamelessly at you in the garden centre.

    A sense of mystery and discovery is one of the most enchanting elements of a garden;

Plan the garden so that you don't see the whole from the house. There should be some parts out of immediate view if possible, with something such as a winding path or stepping stones drawing the eye further and encouraging you to go further.  

 Features such as statues and pots, sculptures etc. can be successfully be placed out of immediate sight giving a sense of discovery when happened upon.

    Make borders as wide as you can. 2ft minimum for small plants, 6ft is better. Rather than have a border all around the garden which will probably be narrow by necessity, restrict the range of it but increase the depth.  Avoid straight edges, sweeping curves look more natural and interesting, scalloped edges on the other hand become a real pain when mowing the lawn. When planting beds and borders, plant according to the ultimate height of the plants, tallest at the back of course.

    Try to introduce year-round interest. Time spent planning what plants to grow is important.

Decide what you want before you buy your plants. It's always very tempting to buy the plants that look good at the time of purchase. The danger of this is that you get a garden that looks fabulous each year at the time you went plant shopping but is probably fairly bland the rest of the time.

Don't plant too many evergreens, and try to make sure that some of the ones you do plant flower and / or have berries. Non-flowering evergreens might seem an ideal answer to providing year-round interest but you could end up having a boring garden that hardly changes with the seasons.

Some plants are spectacular for short periods and ordinary the rest of the time. Think about what you plant near them so that they really shine when it's their turn, but have other plants around them that take turns to do their thing at a different time of the year.

    Think laterally (OK I know it's easier said than done). Don't feel that you have to accept what is presented or for sale. There is great satisfaction to be had from making your own garden features from raw materials for example and you get a unique product.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the functions that the garden fulfils are totally user specific.

    What should be in a garden? We're told these days that all sorts of things belong there and weird and wonderful materials too. Stainless steel, rusty iron, crushed glass in various colors, steel coated in red primer, concrete looking like concrete and even tarmac in various colors. What will look good in 20 years time still? Alternate patio slabs in rose and yellow shades, a deck of railway sleepers with a frame-work of red painted steel girders or "boring" old fashioned York stone paving? I know where I'd put my money.

This table may help,

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