Whether you’ve just moved into a new home or have just let your garden go, a brand new design could work wonders – but diving in with your spade and chainsaw rarely produces good results. You have to work through it methodically and thoughtfully. If this sounds daunting, here’s our simple step-by-step guide on how to design a garden.
Measure it
Your first task is to measure your garden. Get a pad and a pencil and a long tape measure and sketch the rough shape of your garden with measurements included. Don’t assume your garden is rectangular – houses on crescents, end terraces and homes on curvy roads often have irregularly shaped gardens.
Don’t forget to include immovable objects like sheds and patios (if you’re keeping them), as an accurate measurement is important.
If you’re struggling, you can get a rough idea of the shape and size of your garden from Google and Bing Maps. Zoom in as far as possible and use the “measure distance” function.
Sketch it out to scale
Get back inside and sketch out the garden shape on graph paper. A scale of 1 cm to 1 m is usually good enough, but the bigger the better.
Next, work out where the shady and sunlit areas will be. At the height of summer, the sun rises in the North East, then swings over the south and sets in the North West. A south-facing garden will get the most sunlight in summer, whereas a north-facing garden will be in the shadow of the property. Knowing this will affect which plants you put in, and where you locate any seating or entertaining areas.
What sort of garden?
Do you know what kind of garden you want? Will it be a place for children to play, a beautiful floral display, a minimalistic outdoor space, a vegetable plot or somewhere to entertain in the summer? You need to know this before you start deciding what to fill it with and whether you’re going to need any groundwork or construction.
Get some garden ideas
Now, the fun starts. Once you know the function of your garden, have a look through magazines and websites and tune in to gardening shows on TV (Gardeners World and the RHS flower shows are great). You’ll see your garden design plans take shape before your very eyes.
The traditional British garden of a lawn with flower beds around the borders is a good place to start with your plans. It’s really adaptable – you can use it for playing, entertaining or just soaking up the sun. Some people see lawns and beds as a little high-maintenance, so paving stones or decking can work in the centre, with flowers in pots around the edge. This is good if you’re the kind of person who changes their mind all the time.
Looking at example gardens will also give you some inspiration for colours that work well together. Note down all the species of plants you see, and do a bit of research about how tall and wide they are, and whether they like direct sunlight or shade. You’ll probably need to know what kind of soil you have, too – you can get a tester from a garden centre.
Bring your ideas and sketches together
So you have a plot of the area, know where the light falls, and have a good idea of what plants, furniture, ponds, lawns, structures and pathways you want. You can now start to overlay them onto your sketch. If you do your dimensions in pen and sketch out your things in pencil, you can rub out and start again – and you definitely will. Alternatively, cut out paper shapes to scale so you can move them around.
If paper and pencils all seem a little old-fashioned, there are some fantastic digital solutions too.
Gardena
Gardena is a garden tool company but they have a simple online garden designer that lets you plot out your space and then populate it with plants and other objects.
Sketchup
Sketchup adds another dimension by letting you create your space in 3D. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s so useful that even professionals use it. There’s a free version and a feature-packed paid version, so it’s up to you how far you want to take it (downside: you will definitely get addicted to sketching things).
Marshalls Garden Visualiser
You need to create an account but this online tool from the seed company Marshall’s is free, and the account saves your designs so you can go back to them later. Here, you plot out your garden and fill it with lawns, paths, plants and so on, then you can look at our design in 3D, and even upload a photo of your house to get a better idea of what it’ll look like.
Shoot
Shoot is much more than a garden design tool. Sure, you can use its online tool to plan out your garden just like those above. But for a monthly subscription of a few pounds, you can let them know which plants you have and they’ll send regular emails to tell you how to care for them.
Plan for the long term
Remember that the beautiful gardens you see in the glossy magazines are usually (a) taken in summer, (b) designed by experts, and (c) well established. Garden-growing is a game of patience. That little pot you put into your soil could become a large shrub in a year or two. The sapling could be 5 metres high in a few years.
Learn about how big your chosen plants grow and in how many years. Your first summer might look unimpressive, but the second can look out of this world once the roots and branches are better established.
A quick summary: How do you plan a garden?
- Measure the space accurately.
- Draw a sketch of your garden including your measurements and markers for the shady and sunlit areas of the space.
- Brainstorm some ideas about what kind of garden you want, seeking inspiration from magazines, TV and websites.
- Bring your inspiration and original rough sketches together to make a more detailed plan of your garden using an online tool like Sketchup or Shoot.
- Do some research into plants – how long they take to grow and what kind of weather they thrive in.
- Get the installation process underway!
Enjoy your garden
The most important thing to remember is that your garden it there for you to enjoy. If you happen to enjoy gardening too, you’re in for a wonderful time.