Rooted in solid design
The best gardens in the world have evolved over many years but they all started with the same thing: good design.
Planning a garden makeover isn’t about heading to the nursery, filling your car with plants and simply plonking them in the ground.
You need to start with a plan and the best way to do this is to get your thoughts on paper.
Most houses have some sort of base plan to scale, and if you get this copied you can jot down all your ideas and work out if they will work in the space you have.
It’s important to work to a scale when you do this so you have a realistic idea if certain features will actually fit in your garden.
Get yourself a scale ruler and for large gardens go for 1:100 or 1:200 and for smaller spaces 1:50.
You then need to work out what you want to get out of the space, so trawl the internet and magazines for inspiration.
A good starting point is to think “what is the purpose of this garden?”.
Is it a garden for children, an entertainer’s paradise or simply to make it clean and tidy and ready for sale?
Drawing your areas of hard landscaping (paving, pergolas, paths, etc) and making use of the space is the easy part about landscape design but it starts to get a bit tricky when you come to picking plants.
There are two very important stages of research when it comes to plant selection: the first is the easiest and it involves spending a day in the garden and watching where the sun moves around the space; and the second, digging a hole and taking a look at what soil you have.
Once you are armed with this information you can research what plants are best suited to your aspect and soil type.
Again, the internet and magazines are a great place to look to work out what style of planting you want.
Once you have your spaces and plants sorted out, you need to get into the detail of the plan: what will your paving material be? How will the deck level and the grass meet up? What will the finish be on the water feature?
Spend some time talking to as many experts as you can to ensure your garden has a high-quality look and feel to it.
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Think ahead: Planning makes a good garden flourish.
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