How to design your garden

One of the difficulties of designing a garden is knowing where to start. Many students complain to their tutors that the process seems somewhat vague and mysterious and why can’t they just be given a step by step guide. John Brookes, the father of modern garden design, tried to address this problem in the 1960s by introducing a method called pattern analysis. This, put simply, involves imposing a grid on the garden and then creating a pattern of overlapping shapes.  Well that’s solved it then.

Here’s my take on the process and the closest I can come to providing a step by step guide based on my experience over the last 10 years. 

Step 1 - Look at what you have

Before you can start building up a scheme for your garden, it is important to take your ‘canvas’ back to a starting point. This means deciding which elements of the existing garden are fixed. At the least this will be the footprint of the house and the boundaries of the garden. In addition there may also be one or two trees you want to keep.

Once you have decided on your starting point, take some basic measurements and plot a scale plan on which to sketch and doodle. On that scale plan jot down some notes about aspect, levels, views and access points.    

Step 2 – Decide what you want

Step 2 - make a mood board 

These are the hours spent pouring over a vast array of books and magazines, and pulling your hair out as you go round and round in circles with the seemingly endless possibilities. Don’t despair, this is normal. Enjoy your research, take your time, draw up a wish list as long as your arm and take lots of cuttings. By collecting images and ideas you will begin to get a better idea of the style you are after, how you want to use your garden and the things you want to include in it.

Remember that less is definitely more and eventually you will probably need to ‘prune’ your wish list and focus your priorities. Ultimately, to create a harmonious space you don’t want too much going on.

Step 3 – Making a framework

This is the skeleton of the garden, the structural, and largely vertical, elements like trees, hedges and walls that give shape and definition throughout the year. These are the bones upon which you hang the gardens finer seasonal clothes. This framework will be strongly evident in winter when all else has faded but can be largely hidden in summer by foliage and flowers.

Hedges and planted areas can be used to divide the garden up into different areas, channel or block movement, frame views and focal points and create intriguing glimpses into other parts of the garden. Trees will add structure and height, their trunks acting like doorways or corners that anchor areas in place.

Tree canopies, as well as pergolas or arbours, will also give overhead definition to a space much like the ceiling in a room, and give it human scale. So some overhead structure near the house will help soften the transition from house to garden. And remember to bring structure and height into the middle of the garden, away from the edges.

Step 4 - Planting

Enough of observing, foraging and structuring, it is the plants that will probably have the biggest impact on how your garden feels and will help emphasis the style that you have begun to layout. Restrict your palette, and plant in bold swathes. Choose a colour theme if you like, but remember that green will always be the predominate colour. Mix up a variety of shades of green, as well as different foliage shapes and textures, to create long-lasting interest.

And don’t forget scent, an invisible but powerful presence that, at times, will take your garden to another level.

5 – The finishing touches

Much like the accessories that go to finish off an outfit (so my wife tells me) – jewellery, a belt, or a scarf – the finishing touches in your garden will make it your own. If the framework makes sure the space ‘works’ and the planting creates the essential mood of the garden, it is the finishing touches that will give it its personality. From furniture to a piece of sculpture to things found or collected on travels, it is these objects and incidentals that will give your garden individuality. Again being restrained will help ensure the garden doesn’t become over-cluttered with ‘stuff’, unless of course you are not restrained by nature in which case go for it.

When it comes to designing your garden you may find that it is not just knowing where to start that is a problem, but where to finish.