Consult an Expert Even if you're convinced that you have what it takes for do-it-yourself landscaping, it may be worthwhile to budget a small fee to have a landscape professional help evaluate your ideas and come up with a concrete plan. It's a shame when folks do a small area and later think, 'Oops, I put that in the wrong place.
Consider a Hybrid Approach It's a newer approach but one that Miller finds more and more landscape designers and homeowners using: a combination of professional installation and do-it-yourself landscaping. So you really need to think if you want to spend your next ten weekends breaking your back, or have someone help you.
Break Out Pricing Some landscape tasks may cost less than you think; some may cost more. To figure out what fits into your budget, ask a designer to break down an overall plan by section and price so that you can evaluate what you can and can't afford to do professionally.
Divide and Conquer Just because you've come up with a plan doesn't mean it has to be implemented in a single year. In fact, most homeowners should look at an overall vision that's phased in over several years at a minimum, says Miller. To gain the most in curb appeal, start in the front yard and work your way back.
Phasing in a project may also allow you to pay for some landscaping tasks in later years while doing some yourself up front. Don't Be Impulsive "People have a tendency to go buy something and plunk it in the backyard, and they wind up with clutter and pieces that don't match because they got it on sale," says Miller.
Use the same thoughtful approach to hardscaping as you would with plants: Evaluate your choices based on budget to buy, install, and upkeep as well as time you have to maintain it yourself. Allow Your Garden to Change A garden for a family with little kids may not be the same as a garden that empty nesters desire -- and that's OK.
That translates into a more fluid approach to do it yourself landscaping. For example, when your kids are little you may not have lots of time to maintain gardens; instead you want a tough, durable, low-maintenance approach to landscape.
As your kids grow, you may have more hours and willingness to devote to small and large projects that you do by yourself. Do all of these and your lawn will be verdant before you know it. And don't mow it too short! The best garden designs start with structural plants infilled with pretty, flowering plants. So use evergreen shrubs at the end of each border and as punctuation along the way. Include small shrubs such as box balls , or large evergreens, for example mahonia, for bigger areas.
Once you have this frame, fill the gaps with pretty flowering plants. Try to stick to just five or six different types and arrange them in repeated patterns for a coordinated and harmonious effect. A metre or more in depth is a perfect size for a border, giving you enough space to put smaller plants at the front with taller ones behind.
Remember, narrow, low-planted beds can define seating or dining areas, as can lines of planted-up troughs — choose evergreen scented plants, such as lavender or Mexican orange blossom. Containers offer the most flexibility though, allowing you to move them around however suits.
If you don't have room for metre-deep beds, you could place climbers at the back of the border so you can still get height in the planting.
In terms of climbing plants, opt for an evergreen like clematis , which provides a beautiful and colourful display. When you're choosing flowering plants, try to make some of them 'out of season' performers so you have some year-round colour , or put in spring and early summer bulbs to get the garden off to a great start.
Concerned about the environmental impact of your garden? If you're looking for ways to make it more sustainable, The Samphire Garden by Sue Townsend demonstrates how you can create a garden that benefits the planet and is still bursting with texture and visual interest. Set amongst paving of locally reclaimed York Stone, the coastal garden in Suffolk uses a rich palette of drought-tolerant planting, including native seaside plants, grasses and Mediterranean shrubs surrounded by a stone mulch in different sizes.
Plants include verbena bonariensis, eryngiums, euphorbias, lavender, achillea, ballota, miscanthus nepalensis, pennisetum, verbena and thymus. Ensure you use permeable surfaces to allow water to be released naturally into the ground.
Mature trees can be a starting point for building a scheme. They block the glare of the sun and can also be used as an anchor for shade sails, a hammock , pendant lights or hanging decorations. Trees can also screen an unattractive view or help to filter noise and air pollution if you live near a busy road. And they benefit nature significantly, providing pollen for insects and shelter for birds, and converting airborne carbon dioxide into oxygen.
In fact, a growing trend is multi-stem trees — planting these can create an architectural showpiece, with the elegant canopies lending themselves to layered underplanting or, if planted exclusively, creating a striking structural statement. As seen below in this modern Suffolk garden by Caitlin McLauglin, multi-stem trees and soft planting creates a deconstructed woodland environment in a front courtyard garden.
The colour and style of your paving and the way it is laid can provide a strong design direction for the entire garden. For instance, grey or white stone laid in a random pattern will set the scene for a French country look; black or silver paving organised in a regular design will form the perfect backdrop to a sleek and modern scheme; while golden stone arranged in a mixed pattern creates an English country feel.
Need some inspiration? Butter Wakefield created an elaborate paving design of 10 interlinking circles in her Ribbon Wheel garden, each one different in design and size and connected to one another by a 'ribbon' of York cobblestones.
The circles, created from a combination of limestone and York stone are laid in a mix of setts and cobbles creating a stunning effect. If you want to create the garden of your dreams, attention to detail is everything.
Create a beautiful scheme by coordinating your plants with your choice of paving. For example:. Porcelain absorbs no water so requires less cleaning than traditional type of paving meaning less pressure washing and much less hard work when multiplied over future years.
Regardless, it's a good idea to create a flow of movement from your property into the garden. Is your garden on different levels?
If you don't like the idea of incorporating stone steps, you can achieve a seamless look with your existing lawn, for example, by enabling the flow from one space to the next. As seen in the below photo, garden designer Helen Elks-Smith used grass treads, integrating them into the existing lawn to connect the lower patio to the small sun terrace above. Looking for decking ideas? If you have an uneven or sloping garden , decking is an ideal and cost-effective option for levelling it out.
Decking can also have split levels and include steps, making it the ideal space for dining furniture, and due to its use, a decked garden area typically needs to withstand heavy foot traffic. This wood-free decking has a non porous outer layer, so it essentially self-cleans so the rain will do the hard work. For smaller courtyards and patios, go for folding furniture, or bench seating that can be tucked under a dining table when not in use. L-shaped sofas can be surprisingly compact, while larger spaces can take full-on seating sets, with matching chairs, sofas and tables, sun loungers and day beds , or on-trend hanging egg chairs or swing seats.
Invest in a good garden furniture set that will last for years to come. Consider the space and allow enough room for each person to be able to sit comfortably and pull out their chair without bumping into anything. And remember, you'll also need room to walk around the table with everyone seated. It takes up much more space than you might think! According to Claire Belderbos, director of garden landscaping specialists, Belderbos Landscapes , 'a dining table works best in the area of the garden that has early afternoon full or partial sun.
Put a smaller seating area where you can enjoy the evening sun'. If, for example, you can't move your three-piece set indoors over winter, buy furniture covers to protect and extend its life. And whatever garden furniture you buy, don't forget to accessorise with outdoor cushions for extra comfort. And let's not forget other garden must-haves, including fire pits and chimineas , patio heaters , barbecues and pizza ovens — planning space for these is key, as is where they will be stored or protected once it's winter.
In a small garden , boundary walls, fences or hedges may be the biggest element in view, so it's really important for them to look good. They don't have to all be the same but try to provide visual links between them.
You could have the same type of fence, for instance, and grow climbers up them in in coordinating colours. If you aren't able to change the fences, whitewash them or clad them with battens or trellis. Check with your neighbours first to establish whose fence it is and ask permission before doing any work. The materials you choose are key, too. For example, timber posts don't have to be confined to fencing a garden off from the neighbours.
Carefully positioned within a garden, they can be used to frame plants or seating areas and add extra interest to borders or paths. They used reclaimed oak posts to frame the view along a meandering path at its centre, positioning them at different heights and angles so that new aspects of the space open up to visitors as they make their way through.
You should also think about screening areas of your garden to create separate 'rooms'. Introduce hard landscaping in the form of pergolas or fences, or through plants. Imparted by Ralph Snodsmith, my first official gardening teacher at the New York Botanical Garden and talk radio host a character whose working uniform was always a forest green three-piece suit , there is no greater planting wisdom.
No matter how brilliant a plan one conceives, if the plants are not well planted—at the right height, in a sufficiently sized, and properly amended pit—the results will likely be poor. This plant had been banging around in the back of my truck for weeks so I asked the client if they wanted it. With a well-dug and amended hole, it flourished. And the range of prescriptions about how it should be done—from conventional wisdom such as planting tall plants in the back of the border and short ones in front, to the ironclad strictures of codes, covenants, and restrictions—will stir the rebel impulse in any creative soul.
Faced with a building code that dictates a inch limit on planting, I will make it a point of honor to go higher. I am all for a healthy anarchistic impulse in the garden. But I am also formally trained, the product of a prestigious East Coast graduate landscape architecture program—deemed ready to design gardens when I moved west to Los Angeles to begin my career.
In fact, as I see it now, I knew only a few things then, and those in a largely theoretical way. Everything was different: plants, climate, construction technologies—everything.
It was some years later—working first in a large office, then in a wonderful nursery where I got an intensive course in appropriate planting for Southern California—that I migrated towards residential garden design. There, personal involvement seemed the highest, and the experience of landscape the most intimate—just the thing that had drawn me to the field in the first place. Read about five more landscape design rules on LandscapingNetwork. Get expert advice for creating the garden of your dreams when you sign up for our newsletter.
Sign up now and get the guide! This article, adapted for the web, originally appeared in the Early Spring issue of Garden Design Magazine under the title "Rules of the Game. Get plant information, gardening solutions, design inspiration and more in our weekly newsletter. More about the newsletter. Copyright All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Subscribe No Thanks. From tools to furniture, these garden products are sure to delight.
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