The Secret To A Stunning Garden Design
Part 2:
What makes a garden truly stand out? Is it the vibrant colors, the clever layout, or the unique features? While all these play a role, the real magic ingredient is cohesion—the ability to tie all elements together into a harmonious and unified design.
Cohesion is what transforms a collection of plants, paths, and furniture into a space that feels intentional and balanced. It’s the subtle thread that weaves through every element of your garden, creating a sense of flow and purpose. Without it, even the most expensive plants or intricate designs can feel disjointed.
So, how do you achieve this magic ingredient in your garden? Start by defining a clear theme or style. Whether it’s a minimalist Zen retreat, a cozy cottage garden, or a modern outdoor lounge, your theme will act as a guiding light for your choices.
Next, focus on repetition and balance. Repeating certain colors, textures, or materials throughout your garden creates visual harmony. For instance, if you use natural stone for a pathway, consider incorporating it into edging or as a base for planters.
Finally, don’t overlook the importance of scale and proportion. Ensure that each element, from the tallest trees to the smallest accessories, feels like it belongs in the space. This is especially crucial in small gardens, where every detail is magnified.
Remember, great garden design isn’t about cramming in as much as possible—it’s about creating a space that feels inviting, cohesive, and uniquely yours. With cohesion as your secret ingredient, your garden will not only look stunning but also feel like a true reflection of your style and personality.
You can create lots of interest, make the garden feel bigger, and create a sense movement from one point to another. With really tiny gardens, creating a sense of movement may not be possible but you can certainly make the space look larger and more interesting. So now that you know just how vital a good design shape is, even in really small gardens, let's now get going with what to do with your garden. Where to Start With Your Garden The first thing you need to do is work out exactly what it is you want. If you're muttering under your breath, "A bigger garden!" that's fine; add it to your wish list. The point of the wish list is to find out what you really, really want. Whilst achieving everything may not be possible, you'll be surprised how much you can achieve with a few cunning design tricks that I'll show you later on in this book.
You might really want a half-acre plot where you can grow fruit and vegetables and have a secluded seating area for sipping your favorite beverage in. Your actual garden might be only a tenth of that size but that doesn't mean to say you can't achieve all of the things on your wish list, just on a much smaller scale. The point I want to make here is not to discount what you want just because your garden in small. In the rest of this book, I'm going to show you how to utilize every last square inch of space,and achieve amazing results no matter how small your garden is.Obviously if swimming pool and tennis court are on your wish list, that may be a tough one to do, but who knows, perhaps a hot tub and table tennis set will work instead! I want you to allow yourself to fantasies about your dream garden. Let your imagination go and play with it. This is a creative process as well as logical and it's important you allow it to happen. As adults we can often block creative processes with lists of why things can't be done from lack of space, time, budget, expertise constraints to a whole host of other 'can'ts'. As children we were all creative beings, even if you're silently telling yourself, "I wasn't". Trust me, you were.
Designing your garden using nothing but logic will work, but it will be a million times better if you can let your creativity off the leash. To do that you need do what comes naturally to children - play. If you're shifting about uncomfortably in your chair now, don't worry, I'm not suggesting you go outside with a bucket and spade and find the nearest sand pit. The play I want you to indulge in is the fantasy world of 'What if I did this'... kids do this all the time. The world in their heads is much more interesting than what is actually around them and that's the creativity I want you to tap into to. We will also cover practical and logical design techniques in addition to the 'play' part. A logical approach is as important as the creative one. No point in designing something 'really creative' that can't be constructed or is totally impractical for everyday living. Get Inspired If you have no clue about what you want, it will help to look at some pictures of gardens.
So, look through books and magazines and start a folder of gardens you like. Don't limit your choices to the size garden you have. Just collect images that you like. You'll often find that the elements or essences of what you like can be translated into a smaller form. So, for the time being, just find what you like and make a note of it. There are also some picture galleries on the ideas page on the Successful Garden Design website you can view. Garden Types Now you've got an idea of what you like, you need to get specific and narrow down precisely what it is that draws you to certain gardens. Is there a particular garden style that you like eg. modern, formal, cottage, natural, etc? Know What You Want Yet? Now, at this stage, please don't worry if you don't know every last detail of what you want your finished garden to look like. You may have found that you liked lots of different styles of garden and didn't have a particular 'type' that leapt out and said, "This is the one for me!" Designing effectively is a bit like cooking. Some people will have a specific result they want to achieve, like a lasagne. They will find out which ingredients they need and then read up on how to put them together to get the desired results. That's all fine and good, and works well. However, there are those of us that like to do more experimental cooking. We like a lot of ingredients and are willing to mix and match, experiment and play with them a little.
Now obviously we need to take a bit of care not to shove every last one of our favorite ingredients into the pot at once - a little restraint is a good thing here - but we can still create a wonderful end result, even if we didn't know precisely what we were aiming for at the beginning. The experimental cook gets away with their creative meals because they understand the principles of cooking and combining foods. The aim of this book is to give you an equally good understanding of how design works so you can emulate our creative chef's skills with your garden. For those that like to follow recipes, don't panic. The formula I'm going to show you will be step-by-step, just like a recipe, and then you can decide how much you play with it to suit your needs. The Critical Key to Success If you've been skim reading up to now, apply the brakes and read this: Regardless of the type of garden design you want, there is one thing that will really trip you up if you don't get it right. Not working to scale. I know that may sound terrifyingly technical, but I promise it's not. A scale plan is just about getting your garden to fit onto a piece of paper in the right proportions. For example, if your tape measure says your left-hand boundary is 5.60m long, then at a metric scale of 1:100 you would draw a line 5.60cm on the paper. The imperial 9 equivalent of that is 1/8" = 1'0". You might think you're garden is so small that there's really no point in measuring it, it's a waste of your time putting it on paper properly. It isn't. What will be a waste of you time (and most likely money) is not working from an accurate scale plan. In a well-designed garden, EVERYTHING interlinks. If you change one thing, it will have a knock on effect to everything else in the garden.
So, if, when you're at the point of building the garden and you have to change something in order to get it to fit, the whole design will be affected (and not usually in a good way). Working from a scale drawing allows you to check that your ideas will work BEFORE you build them. It takes the guesswork out of the process. If it works on paper it WILL work in real life. Trial and error gardening is an expensive hobby and very rarely brings the desired results. So think of your garden like a living jigsaw. The size and shape of each piece from your patio or deck to lawn is critical to the success of the overall picture. You (hopefully) wouldn't dream of hacking bits off some jigsaw pieces to 'get it to fit'. The same applies to the elements of your garden design! OK, I'm nearly done on the importance scale, but there are two last things to mention. One thing that will come to light when you've measured your garden and put it on paper is the shape. You might think that your garden is a perfect square or rectangle but very few actually are. You'll often discover angles that you never knew were there. So you may well discover that one or several of your boundary fences are at an angle to the house. These will affect your design and needs to be taken into account whilst designing, no matter how subtle and unimportant they may initially appear.
The final thing I want to mention in favor of having your garden plan to scale is it will enable you or your landscape contractor to not only accurately build the garden but also order the correct quantity of materials because you can measure it straight off the drawing, rather than trying to guess how many paving slabs to buy. I could fill this entire book with the mishaps I've witnessed when people either haven't bothered to measure their garden or have measured it, but incorrectly. I've also had a few mishaps of my own; so I can speak from personal experience here. When I was 19, before I trained to do this professionally, I designed my first garden (for my brave parents) and I could not be bothered to measure the garden because I was lazy and also didn't know how important it was to do..Let's just say on that one, please don't be as daft/optimistic as that 19-year-old and go get a tape measure already! 10 How to Accurately Survey Your Garden Now, as you have a small garden, hopefully it will be pretty easy to measure and won't take you long at all.
