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Planning Your Garden Design
Whether you already have an existing garden or not, it can seem like a daunting task to come up with a design for your garden. You want to have a design that will suit your needs for years to come and will give you lots of enjoyment over the years. If you decide to go to a garden centre for inspiration, you will find lots of items to choose from, but no real plan of how to put it all together. Without a plan, it can be easy to buy a lot of stuff and bring it home, only to find that they don't work well together or meet your needs.
To help you out, here is a brief guide that will show you the steps in planning a design for your garden. It will lead your through the process of deciding how you will use your garden, how to evaluate the constraints you face and from this, how to develop your final plan.
The first step is to decide on the purpose, or purposes, of your garden - basically, how you want to use your garden. A garden can have more than one purpose, in which case you have to decide on how important each purpose is to you. You may also want to rank the priority of each purpose. The different types of purposes could include things such as having a vegetable or flower garden, a kid's play area or a place to relax and entertain.
The key to successfully achieving the purpose of your garden is to be realistic. You have to take into consideration the different constraints that you face. These constraints include things like budget, space and your lifestyle. Sometimes you can change some constraints and other times you have to work to find the balance between them and the purpose of your garden.
Once you have considered your purpose and the constraints you face, you are ready to come up with a plan. It is a good idea to sketch out your ideas on a piece of paper. Don't worry about what the sketch looks like, as long as you know what it means. By sketching your ideas, you will make sure that the design meets all of your needs and considers all of your constraints.
Before building, outline the areas on your yard. Use spray chalk to outline borders or pieces of cardboard for furniture. Once everything is in place, walk through and evaluate your plan. Ask yourself if there is enough space to easily get around, is this really how you envisioned using the space, and if you have any furniture, is it enough and is it too small or too large. If something doesn't work like you thought it would, don't worry. This is the time to make any changes you need to. Keep making changes until you are happy with your plan. Then go ahead and build it knowing that this will be a garden you will enjoy for many years to come.
Check out our FREE garden design plans. Feel free to use them for your own garden. Each plan is designed with a specific purpose, while keeping in mind constraints such as space, budget and lifestyle.
