Ok folks, it's time for you to find out everything you need to know about devising the perfect plan to design and layout your Garden (according to me anyway!)
How to go about creating a Plant layout plan for your garden
This can all be done either as a full redesign of your garden, or just the redesign of certain Flower beds
Before you start sketching out ideas for layouts you should think about roughly what plants you wish to use so that you can focus your ideas rather than sketching without any clear intent
As you consider what plants to use, think about the contrasting textures, shapes and colours and how they’ll best work together.
Here I’m going to discuss how to create a garden layout, and like I mentioned above it’s best to have a fair idea of what you want, but be prepared for things to change drastically as you get stuck into actually planting for real. Sometimes you’ll find a sketch is necessary, whether a cigarette packet sketch, or full on professional rendering, but at other times the ideas will already be clear in your head so a drawing of any kind won’t be necessary. The important thing is to have a sound overall theme so that you don’t divert your attention down blind alleys, but how you choose to do this is entirely up to you.
When you turn up at the garden centre you want to be able to home in on the type of plants that fit your design, rather than being overwhelmed by the range of plants on offer, and wasting time looking at (or spending money on) things unnecessarily.
Process for Creating a Flower Bed Design
1. If you have one, create a copy of your existing design, if not it’s time to get sketching! Checkthisout for inspiration, of course you don't need to go to this extent, but hopefully it will provide you with inspiration!
2. This plan should include the extents of your flower beds/borders drawn roughly to scale so that you can accurately add the details of your flowers and plants. A birds eye view is the simplest and most effective option for drawing a garden plan
3. Remember to play the long game with plants! You’ll need to know what size they are likely to grow to in 5 or 10 years or more so that you can allow for the additional space required.
4. Label the plants you draw so that you can easily identify it later. The best way to do this is by numbering each plant and having that number correspond with a key, this way you won’t make a confusing mess of your plan by covering it in long words
5. A splash of colour can also be a useful visual indicator to distinguish between plants on your layout
6. Consider how your flower bed will look at different times of year, particularly winter time when things will look pretty bare. If you’ve got evergreen plants within you layout thing about how best to space them so that they can still ‘hold the fort’ effectively when everything else has withered for winter. Thinking in this way ensures that your design is effective all year round.
Obviously it’s possible to really go to town with your design, and longer you spend thinking about it the better the end result will be. The downside to producing such a comprehensive plan is of course it will take longer to produce, meaning the real thing will slip too. The other way to think of your plan is as an ever evolving beast that grows in much the same way the plants do. As you plant the basic plants in your design it will then inspire you to fill in the gaps, make changes, or even go for a complete redesign!
