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Garden Design

With today’s trend of outdoor living, a well designed garden can bring hours of enjoyment to the whole family. Whether you use your garden for entertaining or for relaxing, designing the garden around your needs will ensure that there are no wasted spots or dead areas. With a mind boggling array of plants, colours, textures and other hard elements (paving, decking etc), a professional designer will help you navigate the confusion and give you exactly what you want.

New Trends

While it is good to design a garden around classical, long lasting elements that can be easily updated, there are some new trends that are developing. Water features are still in fashion, whether large or small. Garden art such as sculptures are popular.

Pots are big, with container gardens growing in popularity due to more people living in apartments and on smaller properties. Metallic pots are in fashion with finishes such as rust and verdigris in style. Indoor gardening is also popular and can bring life to dull rooms.

Good quality items and materials are in fashion, with long lasting, well designed garden furniture and accessories eclipsing cheaper versions. Colour-wise, the trend is towards creating harmony within the garden rather than using bold, contrasting colours.

As garden spaces are becoming smaller, they are becoming more multi-functional and lower maintenance. Individuality is also becoming a consideration. It is still a massive trend that gardens are part of the living area, and are a part of the modern living room.

Design Considerations

The first thing to consider when designing a garden is what you will be using it for. Will it be for entertaining, for relaxation or for heavy use? Also think about what style of a garden you want – relaxed or formal, modern or traditional and so forth. Finally, consider the amount of maintenance that you are prepared to undertake on the garden, as this will dictate your choices when it comes to plant selection, pools, water features and so on.

When designing your garden, try to have elements of mystery. You should not be able to see the entire garden at once. Try to create some small “rooms”, different areas that work together. Make sure that you have areas to sit and for the children to play. Also consider storage for garden implements – a garden shed of suitable size, for example.

It is a good idea to choose one particular colour scheme and stick with it. This will stop the garden from seeming chaotic and overwhelming. Perspective is another important consideration and can be achieved by using plants of differing heights that lead your eye through the garden.

Principles of Design

There are some design principles to following when designing your garden. These include:

Repetition – having elements of the garden repeated to create a sense of order. This is the thread that links the garden together.
Variety – having contrasting elements helps to hold attention however you must be careful not to have too many different elements as this results in chaos.
Balance – all the elements of the garden should balance each other out.
Emphasis – emphasis is created by elements of the garden to which the eye keeps returning to. There should be areas of the garden that are more visually interesting than others.
Sequence – refers to movement and it occurs by using different elements to draw the person through the garden.
Scale – the garden should convey the size of the garden as a whole when looking at its different parts.

Colour

Choosing colours in the garden can be a confusing process. However, there are some tips for making it simpler. You can use green as a base colour with occasional highlights of another colour. This promotes serenity and Japanese gardens are a great example although any design can make use of the monochromatic approach.

You can also take inspiration from nature. Choose a theme from a naturally occurring garden such as a meadow, or a particular type of plant (such as the bright colours of a bulb).

Take inspiration from your favourite colours or from a tool such as a colour wheel. Contrasting colours (for example red and blue) or complementary colours (green and blue) work best together.

No matter what you choose, the colours should be something that you enjoy as you are the ones that have to look at them!

Texture

Texture is a great way of creating visual interest in a garden. Textures include soils, mulches, leaves, bark, branches, pebbles, rocks, water, flowers and so forth. If you want an informal garden, then rough, coarse textures may suit you well. Formal gardens benefit from finer textures.

In the garden, using rougher textures can make an area appear smaller while smoother, finer textures make an area look larger. Use texture in the garden to provide interest and contrast.

Form

Form is created by lines and is the most enduring element of the garden design. Lines create a sense of direction and movement and define the entire garden. Lines can be the edge of a path, the outline of a water feature, the shape of a plant, the look of a deck and so on. Smooth, flowing lines create a tranquil feeling, while sharper lines create tension and excitement.

Lines should be clear and serve a purpose, whether it is to create a visual image or for utilitarian purpose, such as a clothesline or a path.

Using Professionals

It can be daunting to create a garden that both looks good and serves your purpose yourself but there are professionals that can help you and make the whole process much less traumatic. Some professionals include garden designers, landscape designers, and architects. There are even specialist firms that will provide a complete service – designing and installing the garden.

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