Garden Garden Planning Advice

Date Published:

09/06/2008

A garden shouldn't be a chore it should be an extension of your homes natural living space, an attractive vista upon which to gaze in winter and a place to have fun and relax in summer. Anyway, digging up great clods of earth just releases horrible crawly things and makes your back ache.

Styles

If you're not one of nature's dirty finger nailed gardeners, then either get someone in who is, or find a way to enjoy your garden that suits you. Sculpture gardens are great, and planters and creepers in even the most basic of courtyards can even invest a quiet corner of Ripon with a little Dolce Vita.

There are many different garden styles to choose from:

When deciding which style to go for visit as many gardens as you can. It's a pleasurable and sure way of seeking inspiration.

Andy Sturgeon's Tip:

'What I always advise clients to do is to create a mood board. Rip out pictures from magazines, or visit gardens and take photos of beds, plants, trees, statues - whatever takes your fancy. You want to build up a montage of what you like and feel relaxed in. And add pictures of things you want to do in your garden too. You also need to think about maintenance you've got to be realistic from the outset when you're thinking about the design about how much time you can afford to spend looking after it.'

Layout

There are five basic design principles for designing a glamorous garden:

The next thing to do is to make a scale plan of your plot. Mark on the things you can't change - the boundaries, where the house is, any features like ponds, plus any trees or smaller plants you can't or don't want to shift. And mark which way north lies.

Make lots of copies of this basic plan and use three or four of them to mark in where there's shade in the mornings, afternoons and early summer evenings. Now you've got the basis for your new layout. Onto this you can jot down ideas for what you want and where might be the best place to put them in terms of the overall design of the garden. Like any room in the house, it's really important that you're completely happy with the design before you start digging up turf, pulling stuff out, or spending a fortune on plants.

To help you plan your garden in 3D, play around with props to rough out your ideas on the ground. You can use hosepipe, black plastic, anything that comes to hand. Even if you've done a full design on paper this helps to visualise how it will look in reality.

Translate your layout onto the ground with paint, chalk or good old-fashioned pegs and string and then the hard labour begins ­ the landscaping. That's digging the beds and erecting the structural features.