Garden design is a very personal thing and is often
an expression of your personality. Some people like neat and tidy gardens where
there are no surprises, others love the thrill of windy paths, lots of
different plant material and not knowing what is around the corner. There are
three main styles of gardens formal, semi formal and informal. Garden design
can be intimately tidied to the style of your house as in example of the grand
French chateaux where the geometric patterns of the garden mimic the geometric
construction of the house or it can have no connection to your house at all.
To create a good design it is important you
understand that design is about managing space and people moving around it. The
core of good garden design centres round patterns and the space within these
patterns. By using geometrical shapes, circles, triangles, rectangles etc. you
can achieve a unified feel to your garden. So you need to think about ground
patterns and movement around your garden. Ground patterns can be achieved with
the use of bricks, paving and plant material such as cut grass etc.
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| Formal Garden |
Formal gardens are symmetrical and geometrical and
are strict in terms of repeating patterns and plant materials on either side.
It is very controlled, plants are clipped, shaped, manipulated regularly and
today is often suitable for small gardens like court yards. Urns, balustrades,
stone, gravel paths, parterres, formal pools and framed views are all part of
the formal garden. Plant material is allowed to spill over the structural
elements such as walls, steps and paths. Plant material is allowed to self-seed
and wander around the garden.
Informal garden design is softer, full of
surprises thus you don't know what to expect.
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| How to Make a Good Garden Design |
Contemporary is a modern style that likes to
reflect the surrounding but also use a wide range of plant material. Plants are
used as focal points to highlight the architectural forms.
Hot colourful plants are used and lots of lush
green foliage plants to create a cool atmosphere. Plants need to be drought
tolerant. Evergreen plants are popular because they cast shade on hot days.
Walls are white washed to reflect the sun, pergolas built to create shade and
use terracotta pots. Japanese gardens encompass religion and Japan's cultural
history. Japanese gardens are very symbolic often the symbols relate to nature.
True Japanese gardens are contemplative a place of meditation and great calm.
Planning
If you feel overwhelmed and don't know where to
start when designing your garden, I suggest you break it up into areas called
room’s thus dividing one big space into several smaller spaces. For example:
there is the front garden, the side garden and the back garden.
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| Front Garden |
The Three Planning Stages
To create an interesting and exciting garden there
are 3 sets of plans (may be four if you need an engineer's structural plans)
you need to devise:-
- Site Analysis Plan,
- Concept Plan and
- Planting Plan,
usually all drawn to scale.
The First Steps
To design a garden that works there are several
things you need to do before buying plants and planting them. If you follow
these steps you are more likely to have a successful garden.
Site Analysis
Levels - steep/flat
Aspect - North/south
Sun/shade
Sun Summer/Winter
Shadows
Existing trees and buildings
Wind
Views - good and bad
Soil conditions
Entrances - Front/back doors
Power lines
Underground cables and pipes
Clothes line
Fences
Sheds and garages
Paved and unpaved areas
Patio/BBQ
Lighting
Drainage - run off of storm watered
Start by measuring the area you are designing, draw
it to scale i.e. 1:100 and put all the above points onto your drawn plan. No -
one uses the paved path. So perhaps pave the desire line and make it the
official path.
The third and final plan is the planting plan and
it is preferable that it is drawn to scale as this allows you to know exactly
how many plants you will need. It is the road map which will guide you to
building your new garden.
Points to Consider
What plants will grow in these conditions? Sun
conditions
Also think about the conditions the plants require.
Are they full sun plants like roses or shade loving plants like azaleas? Wind
Making the block feel narrow, casting shadows etc?
Views
Views out your window or from your garden are very
important.
To create a well designed garden, it is important
to put the right plant in the right position. This means considering the
cultural requirements of the plant. The idea of good garden design is to follow
this philosophy, using the placement of plants to create mystery, tension and
surprise by using tricks of the eye, colours and textures.
Tension, mystery and surprise make a garden
interesting. One way to create these is to use hedges, low walls, screens,
paths, steps to make individual 'garden rooms' with tension points that
captures your attention on the way. For example a narrow oblong garden can be
made more interesting if you can't see the back fence - that there is a feature
(plant or statue etc.) that obscures the fence. A winding path adds mystery to
the garden if you can't see what is around the corner. Surprise comes when you
go around the corner and discover a focal point.
Paving can also be used to reflect the ground plane
of the house or other shapes in the garden.
Long narrow gardens have a strong directional
emphasis that needs to be broken up. A circular design distracts the eye from
the straight lines of the boundary fence. A long diagonal line will immediately
create a feeling of space. The paving near the house could be done on an angle
and high light the diagonal line of the entire garden.
Unified space is created by controlling the
movement around the garden. It is the way areas are linked together by paths,
bridges, pergolas, steps and terraces that determine whether a garden is
successful. Careless placing can ruin the flow of the garden. Ground levels are
very important when designing a garden. If a slope is too steep to walk down
safely, steps may be needed and if the entire block is on a slope, the whole
area may need to be terraced. Levels help to create interest and 'rooms' in a
garden because you move from one place to another by steps/paths/etc.
Choosing
Plant Materials
There are 3 types of gardens:- the plants man, the
garden designer and the gardener's (mix of the first two). The plants man
gardens consist of lots of singular plantings, unconnected and often rare and
difficult to source. The garden designer's garden consists of plants that are
tried and tested - they use plants that they know and how they perform. The
gardener's garden has learned that their favourite plants can be more effective
if planted in a scheme.
When choosing plants you must consider what the
conditions are of your garden. There is no point putting alkaline tolerant
plants in acid soil or vise versa. It won't work! You need to think about what
your plants you have chosen require moist soils, dry soils, shade, sun, well
drained, boggy soils. If you do your research correctly and place your plants
in the right position, you are well on the way to a successful garden.
Tall growing plants are placed at the back of the
garden bed, graduating down to the low plants. Remember some plants send up
flower spikes that may be much larger than the plant itself, so they need to be
positioned according to their flower spike height.
Colour
Another trick in the designing tool bag is using
colour. The way colours inter-react with each other depends on their position
in colour wheel. Manipulating colour is great fun and can create all sorts of
illusions. Colours are divided into 2 groups primary red, yellow, blue and
secondary green, violet, orange. You can make a space look cold or create
distance by using pale and brown colours. If you want to make a space look
closer to you, again use warm colours. White and grey also intensify blue and
pale colours.
Our hot sun tends to fade our flowers colours and
the glare at mid-day tends to wash the colour out.
If you are feeling overwhelmed about designing your
garden, divide your space up and take it slowly, completing one section at a
time. Remember gardens are ephemeral; it is a process that is forever evolving.