Learning how to design a garden can initially feel like a complicated or time-consuming skill. When designing a garden, there are an overwhelming number of moving parts to consider: plants, layout options, hard landscaping, soil type, and sunlight levels, to name a few! Whether you're a seasoned gardener or a novice enthusiast, this how-to-design-a-garden guide will break down the key design principles to allow you to create your own dream garden space.
Like many, you may be staring out at your garden whether you have lived in your house for a number of years or just moved into a new property. Many new gardeners and designers just start by plonking a patio outside the back doors or adding a shed in the bottom corner of the garden. A few flower beds emerge without any real planning, and then maybe the odd shrub in a container (for some reason, all new gardeners place shrubs like Hydrangeas or Photnias in containers).
The blank garden, like the new build below, can strike fear into homeowners, forcing you to do something, anything, to save it from being just turf and fence panels. This urgency is where most new gardeners fail when designing a garden. Youn start by just putting anything, anywhere as fast as you can!
All looks okay for the first few months, but then suddenly, the garden starts to fall apart a bit. Certain plants die, the shed is in the wrong space, your greenhouse is too small and in the shade, and you never use your patio because the neighbours overlook it. Overall, the garden doesn't get used because it's just not very appealing.
If the above sounds like your garden, putting some thought into garden design is a good place to start. Even an amateur garden design plan will create a far more functional garden than simply guessing where to put things and then planting whatever B&Q offers up one Sunday on a 3-for-£10 deal.
99% of all clients who contact me to redesign their gardens have never drawn up a sketch or considered their needs and requirements. They started to create a garden without a plan. This is the fundamental flaw of all new gardens: lack of planning and design.
If you're short on time or feel uncomfortable designing a garden, always hire an experienced designer or even take a garden design course to become more proficient. If you want to give it a go and design your first garden, this guide is for you.
This how to design a garden guide is going to save you heartache, money, and time by showing you ten steps to a beautifully considered garden design. So grab a pencil and a brew, and let me show you how to design a garden.
Before diving into the design process, take time to assess your garden space thoroughly. Draw up a rough-scaled sketch of the garden. Using a tape measure and a piece of paper, draw a rough outline of the garden. This then creates the blueprint of your garden design and allows you to make all of your mistakes on paper, rather than making them with expensive landscapers fitting a patio that's too small or adding terracing that doesn't work.
Grab a pencil and measure each side of the garden and create the basic site survey. Then take a scale ruler and apply the scale to a piece of A4 or A3 paper. 1:100 is the usual scale of most designs. So 1 meter in the garden is 1cm on paper at a 1:100 scale.
The next step before we draw up anything is to assess the soil type of the garden. Luckily, you can do this by grabbing a handful of soil using a garden spade and then simply squeezing it.
To collect soil samples, start by selecting various areas within your garden or planting site. Using a trowel or shovel, gather samples from the topsoil layer, ensuring a depth of about 6-8 inches. It's important to gather samples from different locations to get a comprehensive understanding of your soil composition.
After collecting the samples, it's essential to remove any debris, stones, or organic matter to ensure accurate testing. Break up any soil clumps to achieve a consistent texture across all samples.
Next, place a small amount of soil from each sample into separate containers or your palm. Add a few drops of water to each sample until it reaches a moist but not saturated consistency. To test the soil texture, rub the moistened soil between your fingers. The three soil types below will feel as follows:
Sandy soil feels gritty and doesn't hold its shape well when squeezed.
Clay soil feels sticky, forms a compact ball when squeezed, and retains its shape.
Loamy soil feels crumbly and holds its shape when squeezed but breaks apart easily.
Make a note of the soil type at the bottom of your survey, as this will influence the type of plants you are able to grow in your garden. Knowing your soil type is essential as it takes the guesswork out of buying or choosing plants. You will spend less time watching precious plants die two weeks after planting and more time selecting really suitable plant choices!
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The garden aspect, or the orientation of your garden concerning the sun's path and prevailing winds, plays a crucial role in garden design for several reasons. It allows you to position areas of the garden in the best place, such as patios in the sun and ponds or shade loving plants out of full sun. Without knowing which way the garden faces you're still guessing with your design choices.
The aspect of your garden determines how much sunlight different areas receive throughout the day. Understanding sunlight patterns helps you plan the placement of plants based on their sunlight requirements. For example, sun-loving plants thrive in south-facing gardens that receive ample sunlight, while shade-loving plants are better suited to north-facing areas with limited sun exposure.
The garden aspect influences the creation of microclimates within your garden. South-facing areas tend to be warmer and drier, while north-facing zones are cooler and more shaded. By identifying microclimates, you can select plants that are well-suited to specific conditions and maximize the diversity of plant species in your garden.
So grab a compass or your smartphone, download a compass app and point it towards the back of the garden. That is the main aspect. Make a note on your survey.
Every garden is a reflection of its creator's style and preferences. Whether you prefer formal elegance, wild and whimsical charm, or minimalist simplicity, defining your garden style sets the tone for the design process. Explore various garden styles, draw inspiration from magazines, books, and online resources, and identify elements that resonate with your aesthetic sensibilities.
The key to a garden style is following one style throughout your entire garden, ensuring a cohesive and consistent look. I have yet to see a garden with multiple styles or themes work well. Trust me when I tell you that carefully considering the overall theme or style you want for the garden will help create a fabulous garden design. Blending a bit of this and a bit of that from different styles is akin to having completely mismatched furniture in your home. It rarely looks good or stylish.
A well-designed garden seamlessly integrates form and function to cater to your practical needs. Without a clear function, you can't design your garden confidently as you're not sure of its use or purpose. So find out what you are going to do in the garden 99% of the time.
Work out patio positions, sizes, and what you want to do in the garden. There is no point squeezing in a greenhouse somewhere if you're not planning on growing plants and vegetables every year.
Sketch out a rough layout that includes key features such as pathways, seating areas, flower beds, vegetable patches, and focal points like water features or sculptures. Strive for balance and flow, ensuring that each element complements the overall design and enhances the garden's usability. If you find yourself shoehorning things in as there is a space left, reconsider. If you don't have a solid function or reason for it. Leave it out.
Plants are the lifeblood of any garden, adding colour, texture, and wildlife to our gardens. As a beginner gardener, picking random plants from a garden centre that are already in flower, looking gorgeous and fresh, is tempting. However, you must consider whether they will grow in your garden. This is where understanding and applying soil type and light levels come in when picking garden plants.
Choose plants that thrive in your local climate and soil conditions, considering factors like sunlight requirements, water needs, and maintenance levels. Opt for a diverse mix of trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals to create visual interest throughout the seasons and encourage biodiversity.
But remember the golden rule. Plant in groups of 3, 5 or 7. Only plant trees and shrubs on their own as a focal point. Everything else must be bought in groups to keep consistency in the garden and avoid the dreaded pick-and-mix garden. The pick-and-mix garden always looks frantic and a bit disjointed. Simply increasing the number of each plant species reduces this and brings a rhythm to the garden planting.
Hardscape elements such as pathways, patios, retaining walls, and garden structures help provide structure and definition to your garden. Hard landscaping is the firm or hard parts of the garden that provide structure. Sometimes, these elements are known as the 'backbone' of the garden.
Choose hard landscaping materials with care. If you go too heavy on hard landscaping, then your garden can look like a car park or beer garden. If you use too few hard landscaping materials, the garden may lack some firm structure to navigate you around your space.
Select materials that complement your garden style and harmonize with the natural surroundings. Whether you prefer rustic stone, sleek concrete, or warm timber, hardscape features should seamlessly integrate with the landscape and enhance the overall aesthetic appeal.
However, like plant choices, stick to a couple of hard landscaping materials to provide consistency. If you end up with three different types of paving, timber, and painted fence panels, it can start to look messy and inconsistent.
Growing with the seasons is important as it ensures that your garden is not a one-hit wonder in summer and then drab and sad for the rest of the year. When choosing plants, make sure that you have a varied group of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants that flower throughout the year. Spring bulbs can bring the garden back to life early on in the year, and winter-flowering trees and shrubs help extend the seasons.
Opt for herbaceous perennials and plants that produce pollen for wildlife, over annual or bedding plants that only last a year and are often sterile (meaning they produce no pollen or nectar for bees and insects).
Create a plan for each part of the garden and highlight what will flower in spring, summer, autumn and winter. If you are missing a plant for each season, rework your planting plan accordingly. Aim for a mix of both evergreen and deciduous plants that allows for you to witness the changing of the seasons. Whilst a garden designed solely around evergreens keeps its structure year-round, they often offer little diversity or changes throughout the season, leading to a lacklustre garden design.
Designing a sustainable garden not only conserves natural resources but also promotes environmental resilient garden leading to less pests and diseases. Embrace eco-friendly practices such as water conservation, composting, organic gardening methods, and native plantings that support local wildlife and pollinators.
Consider installing rainwater harvesting systems, home composting and permeable paving to reduce your carbon footprint and promote as much ecological balance as possible. Wildlife ponds and water features can add a relaxing sound to the garden as well as provide a home for amphibians and other wildlife.
Why buy new hard landscaping materials when you can either reuse what you have already in the garden or buy reclaimed materials? It cuts down on costs and also considerably reduces your carbon footprint in garden design.
Utilising trees even in a small garden allows birds to perch and can keep your garden cool in the hotter months, not to mention the carbon capture of planting trees in your garden! So when you are learning how to design your garden consider what the sustainability or wildlife benefits are of your choices.
Gardens are living, breathing spaces that evolve over time, responding to changing seasons, climates, and personal preferences. Embrace the joy of gardening by going with the seasons and developing your planting skills and design eye. If something isn't working, then wait until autumn before moving that plant. If there are gaps during a particular time of the year, add some more plants to fill that space and add flowers.
By becoming a hands-on gardener and learning more about the practical elements of planting, you will become a far better designer in the long term. By learning how to design a garden in your backyard, you can apply these skills to other people's gardens or even help friends tweak and design their own spaces.
Stay open to experimentation, learning from successes and challenges and allow your garden to flourish and grow with you. Take notes and keep plant lists to help you with future designs and to keep track of how much you have learnt.
Most of all, don't be too hard on yourself if one of your design choices doesn't work. You can always redo or amend it, and best of all, you will have learnt something in the process!
The above tips are going to help to avoid some critical garden design mistakes and save you some real headaches. But what if you want to create something completely bespoke or design other peoples gardens? That's where my Beginners Online Garden Design Course comes in.
The online course provides you with step-by-step tuition from me, Lee Burkhill, an award-winning garden designer and presenter on BBC1's Garden Rescue.
This course will take you from a beginner to a confident garden designer, no matter what garden or green space you're faced with. I’ll train you on design principles, planting techniques, design styles, and layout options, all of which will prepare you as a new garden designer.
Cost of Course: £345
Garden Design for Beginners Online Course: If you want to make the career jump to becoming a garden designer or to learn how to design your own garden, this is the beginner course for you. Join me, Lee Burkhill, an award-winning garden designer, as I train you in the art of beautiful garden design.
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Designing a garden is a beautiful creative endeavour to help unleash your inner creative artist. However, without a solid idea of garden design, your space can be disjointed, messy and unused. This is why learning the basics of garden design or taking my course here can help you avoid these mistakes.
Good garden design will help you create a beautiful and functional garden that you and your family can't wait to get out into. So it really is worthwhile to plan your garden beforehand.
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Happy Designing!
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