A lovely garden is rarely an accident. Plants may look great individually, but a good garden relies on all its parts fitting together well. Before you purchase plants or pick out ornaments, it’s a good idea to take some time to look over the space, consider what you want to achieve, and put together a rough layout. A little planning can go a long way toward saving time, avoiding unneeded purchases, and helping you grow a beautiful garden as it matures.

First Things First: Look Around

Start by taking a good look at your existing garden.

What’s the overall size and shape of the space? What trees, structures, walls, paths, or other fixed elements do you have? Where is the sun, and where is the shade?

It helps to see how things change throughout the day as well. It might be bright in the morning, but shady later. This affects where you should put different plants.

Think About What You Want the Garden to Be For

Your garden should work for you.

Think about what you’ll want to use your garden for. Do you want an outdoor eating area? A place to chill out? Room for kids? A place for guests? Or perhaps a low-maintenance garden?

Once you’ve worked out the function of your garden, it becomes easier to split it up into sections.

Set Up Different Areas

Rather than having the whole garden be just a planting area, think about setting aside different areas for different purposes.

For instance:

• A sitting area
• An eating or entertainment area
• Flower or shrub beds
• A walkway
• An open area

You don’t necessarily need to build barriers between these spaces. You can distinguish them with planting, paving, or even a path.

Look at the Garden Environment

It’s a good idea to choose your plants based on the garden’s environment, not just on how they look.

Think about sunlight, soil, water, wind, and space.

Just because a plant looks good somewhere else doesn’t mean it will do well in your garden. Once you understand your garden’s environment, it will be easier to select the right plants and put together a good planting plan.

Observe the Sunlight

One of the biggest factors in picking out plants is sunlight.

Watch how the sun moves through your garden for an entire day. If you can, watch it through different seasons as well.

Note what areas get full sun, partial shade, or mostly shade.

Knowing this can make your planting plan much more realistic.

Evaluate the Soil

Different plants like different kinds of soil. Is your soil sandy, clayey, full of organic matter, dry, wet? If you’re not sure, a basic soil test will give you a good indication.
You don’t have to overhaul your whole garden to suit each plant. Choose plants that match your existing conditions as much as you can.

Draw a Basic Garden Plan

Once you know what your garden space is and what it is for, draw up a basic garden plan. It doesn’t have to look like an architect’s drawing.
Put down any existing permanent features first. Then add in any paths, seating areas, planting beds, and anything else that is important to you.
Think about how you will move around your garden. Paths should link your main areas and should fit in well with the rest of the design.

Think About the Views

There can be many different views in a garden.
What do you see when you look out the window, step outside into the garden, sit on the patio, walk along a path? These can be great places to position features, eye-catching plants or ornamental pieces.
An especially beautiful tree, flower bed, sculpture or seating area can be a destination in itself.

Plan Your Planting Structure

Don’t pick plants one at a time and hope they will look good together. Think about the structure of your planting in layers.

High Plants

Trees and tall shrubs can bring height, shade and structure to your garden.

Middle Plants

Medium-sized shrubs and perennials can act as a link between the higher and lower levels.

Low Plants

Ground covers, low-growing perennials and seasonal flowers can fill in the bottom layer and soften edges.
Varying height helps give depth to your planting scheme and prevents it from looking flat.

Think About Seasons

A garden is always changing. Some plants have spring blooms; some provide summer colour. Trees and shrubs may provide autumn leaves or winter structure.
Try to choose a mix of plants that provide interest in different seasons. You don’t need every plant to be in bloom all year round. But it is nice to have something attractive to look at all year.

Choose a Colour Direction

Colour can set the tone of your garden. Do you want soft and subtle shades, high contrast, cool colours, warm colours, greenery with splashes of white? Decide on a general colour theme before you buy lots of plants.
Use colours that repeat throughout the garden. This will link your planting schemes together visually.

Don’t Ignore Texture

Colour isn’t the only way to introduce interest into your garden. Plants have different leaf shapes, textures, density and forms. Contrasting textures will add life and energy to a planting scheme, even if your colour palette is limited. For instance, you could place a plant with fine-textured leaves next to a plant that has coarser foliage or well-defined leaf shapes.

Allow for Future Growth

One of the biggest errors in garden design is planting things too closely together.

Many plants look tiny when you buy them, but they’ll grow quite large in maturity.

Look up the size the plant will be at maturity, and make sure to allow room for future growth.

The garden might look a little sparse the first year, but this will yield better results as the plants mature.

Think About the Amount of Maintenance You’re Willing to Do

Your garden design should correspond with the amount of time you’re willing to spend on maintenance.

How much water, prune, trim, fertilize, and seasonal maintenance are you willing to do?

If you have little time to spend on the garden, focus on designs and plants that require minimal maintenance.

Keep in mind how easy it will be to get to the garden beds when it’s time to do maintenance.

Avoid Planning Just for the First Year

A garden is a living entity, not just something pretty that you install and forget about.

Plants will grow, spread, change shape, and die. Design your garden in a way that allows for those eventualities.

Rather than just thinking about what your garden will look like on the day you install it, think about how it will look three, five, even ten years down the road.

Create a Plant List

Once you’ve developed a basic design, start listing out the plants you plan to include in the garden.

List the following for each plant:

• Mature size
• Sun requirements
• Soil preferences
• Bloom/flowering time
• Water requirements
• Location in the garden

This will help you make a more informed choice about what plants to buy.

Begin With a Small Area and Go From There

Don’t feel that you have to implement your entire garden design all at once.

If you’re dealing with a big space, start with one part and use it as a pilot project to see if your design works.

As you watch your plants grow and see how the design holds up, you can make adjustments to the rest of the garden.

This allows your design to evolve organically, rather than expecting to have every detail right from the get-go.

Summary

Garden design involves careful consideration before planting a single flower.

To begin, study the area, assess the growing conditions, determine what the garden will be used for, and draw a rough sketch. Once you have a layout, choose plants based on their ultimate height, color, texture, blooming period, and mature size.

With a little effort up front, you’ll save yourself plenty of headaches later and have a beautiful, functional garden to enjoy for years to come.