Garden design

The key to successful garden design is sound preparation and a good understanding of what you can achieve with the space you have available.

Japanese garden design

Before you do anything else, make sure you assess your land. Look at the light that the garden has, the soil type, the wind and the temperature. This is all essential knowledge for a well thought out garden. For instance, if your garden doesn’t get much sunlight then there will be no point filling it with plants and flowers, because it’s likely they’ll die very quickly. That’s just one example.

It’s also important to take a long amount of time when considering the style of your new garden. Do you want a landscape garden? Perhaps you’d prefer a contemporary design? Look into as many different garden images as you can and think about which one might best suit your needs.

If you’re a keen gardener then you might want a garden that you can spend hours working in each week. However, many people are unable to constantly maintain their garden and if this sounds like you, make sure you consider this with your garden design. Just because a garden looks fantastic when it’s first developed, doesn’t mean it will stay that way without hard work and dedication. A low maintenance garden design can still be visually stunning and pleasant to be in; there just have to be a few compromises along the way.

If you’re struggling for garden design ideas then it’s always useful to do research. There are thousands of garden design magazines, websites and television programmes that can give you all the inspiration you’ll need. Even if you think you know exactly how you want your new garden to look, it’s still worth looking around as you might see something you really like that you hadn’t previously thought about.

When you’ve thought about the style and maintenance level of your new garden, you’re ready to start crafting the design itself. In times gone by, people would often just do a crude one dimensional drawing as a rough outline. However, the emergence of garden design software has put an end to this. More people than ever now use a computer to put together a detailed digital image to portray how they want their garden design to look. Needless to say, this can be an incredibly useful blueprint to work from.

Once you have your garden design, the work doesn’t stop there. Finding the right people to carry out the work for you is one of the most important steps along the way to designing your dream garden. Unless you’re particularly handy in the garden you’ll need to hire skilled professionals to turn your design into reality. Make sure you shop around and get a number of quotes from garden designers.

Stuck for space?

Working with limited space is never easy, so if you're attempting a small garden design then be sure to check out our dedicated section for specialist tips and advice.

Contemporary

If you want a sleek contemporary garden but don't know where to start with your design, then visit our contemporary garden design section to learn all you need to know.

Flower

A flower garden design takes patience, dedicated and a wealth of knowledge to get right. Fortunately, the Garden Design Site can help you with the latter. Visit our flower garden design section to learn more.