Guide to Garden Design

Gardens range from the front garden that welcomes visitors to your home, to the secret garden behind a wall that is your private space. Vegetable gardens, rose gardens, herb gardens, healing gardens, water gardens and Zen gardens all have one thing in common; they begin with garden design. Garden design incorporates statuary, garden furniture, fences, arches, pathways, stepping stones and many other items into the landscape to individualize the space. Many design features will depend on whether you want to specifically enhance the space to attract birds, bees or butterflies. Bird baths and birdhouses are a prominent feature in many gardens. Butterfly housing is gaining popularity and bee hives may or may not be practical where you live. It’s all part of the design planning issues you will consider as you look at your space.

Garden design is the way you take your garden from just a “plant place”, to pleasing and enchanting. Nothing is more soothing, pleasing or satisfying than a well kept garden brimming with vigorous plants and perfectly balanced in color and design. Many popular styles, such as the English Cottage Garden, or the Japanese Garden, will sound familiar to you but there are many other themes and designs to adapt to your particular taste and the location of your home.

Your garden should have a clear plan and a “key” to identify each element and plant in the design. Planning a garden and making adjustments can be done anytime of the year. There are certain activities in the garden that are better done in the winter and some that are best done in one of the other seasons but gardening is a year round activity.

� Winter planning allows you to see the skeleton of the garden without the intervening foliage so basic shape planning is easier.

� Spring planning may focus on the study of your spring climate and the location of the early warm spots in your garden. You may want to do a spring study each year and keep the notes in a special notebook so adjustments can be made as your garden grows.

� Summer planning takes into account the actual look of your garden during full foliage and flower season and involves some dreaming about how you actually want it to look.

� Fall planning involves having a clear idea about how your winter garden should look and where you want those exploding colors of spring when the bulbs you plant in the fall season come up and bloom.

After you have made your sketches and studied the basic design of the existing garden, it is time to begin the planning for your dream garden. Color, space manipulation, decorative garden statuary, garden furniture and furnishings all add to the overall affect and should be chosen carefully to reflect your design idea and personality. Your garden is part of your home and can be designed as an integral part of your whole property style. The structural elements and accoutrements in the garden can mimic or mirror interior decorating details so the garden is not only a reflection of your tastes but a seamless cocoon of personal style from inside to outside.

Starting with a blank slate:

If you have just purchased a brand new house you may have the luxury of being able to plan your garden from a blank slate. If you have this advantage then simply start with an “inspiration list” of features you want in your garden.
� Inspiration list features
o Herb Garden
o Shrub border
o Pansy beds
o Pergola
o Statuary
o Flower gardens
? The red theme
? The white theme
? The blue theme
? Perennial
? Annuals
o Vegetable garden
o Small fruits and berries
o Fruit trees
o Shade trees
o Patio, built-in bar-b-que
o Outdoor Fireplace
o Bird bath/fountain or water garden

Get a large sketch book and experiment with ideas. Make accurate measurements of your area and keep the size of desirable garden features in mind as you make your list. It is less expensive to make adjustments to your initial design in your sketch book than in the growing garden after you have already planted it. Your first sketches can be simple basic shapes and dimensions. Improve on the sketches as your ideas coalesce into the final garden plan. Your sketch should have the outline of the property with an icon for the house, the garage, and any other permanent structures noted in the proper scale on the paper. Place sketches of herb gardens, ponds, flower beds and vegetable gardens on the “map”. Make notations of fixed elements such as boundaries, streams, any indigenous trees you intend to keep and the placement of the driveway. Sunset has put out a sweet little book called Garden Pools, Fountains and Waterfalls that can help you construct anything from small fountains and waterfalls to fish ponds and water gardens, available at www.amazon.com

Does that blank sketch pad give you “gardeners block”? Don’t worry, just go get a handful of last years garden catalogues and gardening magazines, a pair of sharp pointed scissors and some double sided tape. Any thing that appeals to you can be cut out and arranged on the page, then rearranged as you see fit. When you find a look you really like, use a tiny bit of double sided tape to stick it down.

At this stage you may still be trying to decide between a strictly formal look and a more informal wild garden look. There are compromises to both extremes that work great and looking at shapes, themes and color combinations in gardening magazines and books help you sort out just what appeals to you. Gardens do not spring fully developed and perfect from a daydream. They must be carefully manipulated to get the ideal affect. Do as much of the initial manipulation as possible on paper and use as many sketches as you wish. Expert garden designers and landscapers typically make a number of rough sketches before settling on the most satisfying design.

Garden design should integrate the front, side and back yard areas into a flowing whole. This does not mean the whole affair needs to be one theme but that separate themes should transition in a pleasing way into one another or be separated by a clever structural element. Some ways to do this are to place arches, gates, hedges, or pathways in between the elements. The truly great garden design book Your House, Your Garden, 2003, by Gordon Hayward, published by WW Norton, covers:

1. Gardens at the front of the house
2. Gardens along the sides of the house
3. Back terraces, patios and gardens
4. Gardens in the ell or courtyard of a house
5. Gardens between buildings
6. gardens around outbuildings

Your House, Your Garden earned the 2004 American Horticultural Society’s annual book award (no small feat, this is a prestigious award).

Small spaces can be made to look larger by creating the illusion of things beyond the space. Using arches and trellises combined with mirrors to manipulate perspectives can completely change the look and feel of a small space.

Redesigning an existing space:

Redesigning a garden that has already been established is a different story than designing on the “blank slate”. Your first step is to map the existing garden and decide what you want to keep and what you want to change. McHoy, P., and Evelegh, T., 2000, Garden Design and Decoration, advise “Never let an existing feature dictate your new, gardenâÂ?¦.” They discuss the improbability of doing anything about the unfortunate placement of an existing garage or a large tree but I know those things can be dealt with too. It cost me about $1000. to have five huge diseased and dangerous Black Locust trees removed from my yard but the improvement was immediate and profound.

As far as garages or other existing buildings, they can be taken down of course but it is probably more realistic to camouflage them. Trellises and vines can hide buildings pretty well and hanging baskets and containers of plants and flowers can make the garage wall a part of the design element. Try attaching a large mirror to the garage wall and placing an arch in front of it with plantings of tall skinny evergreen plants angling out like partially opened wings from the sides of the arch to create the illusion of an endless garden path.

Ideas for adapting walls, doorways, fences, decking, and boundaries (without removing them) into your design plan can be found in many garden design books. I particularly like McHoy and Evelegh’s Garden Design and Decoration. The sections on remodeling the existing look are in the back of the book. Experiment with the idea of painting the garage wall plant green and sponge on camouflage elements. Cover it with panels of prefab trellising or trellis that you make yourself from grape vine cuttings or woven willow branches. The trellis should be firmly attached to the wall to keep it from becoming an unidentified flying object in a wind storm. This can become the display wall for wall mounted fountains, statuary, garden knick knacks and sun masks. Use your imagination and think along the lines of incorporating the permanent feature and transforming it rather than fighting it.