Colour plays an integral role in garden design. From flowers and foliage plants to non-living objects like brick pavers or patio furniture, colours can alter the mood of any space they inhabit.
Garden books can provide excellent sources of garden inspiration, but the key to creating genuinely remarkable gardens is understanding their design principles. Gardens that stand out feel cohesive and well-planned – this makes the most amazing impactful impression!
Decide on a Theme
A relaxation garden or Oriental garden theme can add structure to a landscape, help guide plant and material selection, and design principles like proportion, repetition, emphasis, and simplicity unify it all together.
Lipanovich suggests thinking carefully about where you will view your garden from. A well-placed focal point, like a trellis supporting frilly echeverias or arching branches of a tree, will draw the eye around the landscape and draw you in further.
First, draw up a ‘bubble map’ of your garden to mark where structures and plants will go. Consider wall space and any eyesores and where sunlight hits throughout the day to determine your colour palette; vibrant hues should energize and activate, while pastels and whites feel calm and serene.
Identify Your Needs
Whether it’s a small courtyard garden or an expansive country idyll, the principles of good design remain constant. The logical progression of spaces and strategic focal points are just two components that will ensure your garden feels cohesive and memorable.
Recording light patterns throughout the year can help identify which areas are bright or shaded at different times of day and consider shadows cast by surrounding trees, buildings or walls.
Lipanovich suggests that garden boundaries should refrain from dominating visually and suggests breaking them up using taller-than-fence plants to move your eye around without continually looking back towards its source. Focal points such as sculptures, striking trees or groups of shrubs can also help draw the eye in to unify a landscape and draw visitors in.
Measure Your Yard
Garden design should focus on creating spaces that suit you, ensuring your garden can be enjoyed and used according to your needs. This requires considering all of the ways a garden may be utilized – for instance, providing seating or spaces for activities.
First and foremost, take an in-depth survey of your yard, from its boundaries to any possible hazards or features, such as trees. Conduct a site inventory, including noting which parts receive full sun versus those receiving shade – then mark any areas with an arrow towards the north.
If any areas are curved, taking offsets to mark them accurately accurately can help plot them. Once this step is completed, drawing a floor plan becomes much more straightforward, and shapes can be swapped out to see how they interact.
Create a Floor Plan
As part of your garden floor plan, consider hardscaping features like paths and walkways and softscapes such as gardens, beds and borders – then arrange and orient them according to their horticultural requirements.
Directional lines are helpful tools in drawing the eye towards focal points and helping to establish spatial structure. They may be straight or curved – straighter lines tending toward formality, while curvier ones appear more casual and informal.
Successful garden designs reflect principles of symmetry and balance, whether creating a Mediterranean courtyard or an English country idyll. Auto-align tools, an extensive library of symbols, and helpful tutorials simplify designing your garden floor plan. Get started by downloading our free software and exploring professionally designed templates – click More Symbols in the floating toolbar for additional options!
Design a Layout
Garden design is determined by combining hardscape features and plantings, considering their ecological requirements to form a coherent whole.
Directional lines can draw the eye around or through the landscape and emphasize specific parts. Straight lines evoke formality and can precisely direct movement towards focal points, while curvier directionals suggest less formal exploration and encourage discovery.
Colour can be used to add contrast and emphasis. Warmer hues can make objects seem more significant and closer together, while more fabulous shades cause them to recede further. Textures also contribute significantly to landscape designs: rough or coarse textures can add visual weight, while fine textures provide more of an understated aesthetic.
Create a Budget
Garden design may seem daunting at first, but you can make plenty of affordable DIY updates to improve your outdoor space.
One coat of paint can quickly transform a shed or fence and add an eye-catching splash of colour that draws the eye through your garden.
Plants with multiseasonal interest are another effective way of cutting costs by providing year-round beauty. These landscape workhorses can act as an alternative to pricey flowering shrubs while offering year-round privacy protection.
Even small gardens can benefit from having a focal point, like a bench or small tree placed midway through their garden. This creates visual resting places and fosters further exploration. Grouping plant species into odd numbers rather than even ones is also advised; evening Primrose flowers paired with climbing roses make an eye-catching pairing!
Select Plants
As part of your garden design process, you must consider all the practical needs of the space you’re creating. This includes considering any shade or sunlight requirements, soil type, and watering needs. Selecting plants explicitly adapted to your climate and soil conditions can help ensure a healthier, self-sustainable garden experience.
At the same time, choosing an array of flowers, foliage, fruits, and bark is essential – this will add interest throughout the year while helping create a balanced and harmonious design.
Make your garden stand out by including a mix of short, medium and tall plants in different textures and heights. Also, look for shades of green to bring more vibrancy into your garden – human eyes tend to perceive multiple tones of green as attractive over one solid hue; also, try including odd numbers of colours like odd pairs of yellow and purple, sure to draw the eye!
Create a Landscape Plan
Garden design can be improved when flowing pathways throughout its landscape connect various components logically, usually via hardscapes and plants. To accomplish this, garden designers often combine hardscapes with plants.
A focal point may take the form of a sculpture, pond, stately tree, bed of blooms or any other feature which draws our eyes and draws us inwards to a new area. Plants can also act as barriers by blocking views or providing direct access to certain areas; low-growing ground covers like bugleweed, Corsican mint, and creeping phlox can help soften pathways by acting as buffer zones between pathways and their edges.
A landscape design must start from an overall concept that fits with its environment – home, topography, and regional climate – such as Tudor or Spanish homes. At the same time, crape myrtles work best with Colonial architecture. For instance, azaleas complement Tudor homes, while crape myrtles pair nicely with Colonial designs.
Design a Water Garden
Water gardens bring romance and tranquillity into any yard or space, be it an intimate container garden or an expansive pond. Their soothing shimmer of water, lit by plants, the sound of moving water and the presence of wildlife attract birds, butterflies and other creatures, drawing birds into your garden space.
Water plants don’t just consist of lilies and pondweed; numerous aquatic species are growing in shallow waters or on floating rafts to filter water, cut down on algae growth, and provide habitat for fish, amphibians, amphibians and other animals while providing play spaces and learning experiences for children exploring nature. A water garden can even serve as an educational space.