When determining the flower beds and grass plots, the difficult part is deciding how to chop up the space. Flower beds are a bit easier, because you can incorporate planters or statuary, but a grass plot is determined by the other elements of the garden plan. The key is to understand the principles of grass plots.
If your garden has boundaries that converge, the planner may find that the grassy plots become a mere wedge after the borders and beds are planted. At this point, it may be best to cut out the acute angles, adding those to the beds or border.
When creating beds and borders, it is easy to create awkward shapes in the grass, especially when using curved lines. It is best not to use acute angles, crescents, narrowing areas, or tapering verges for your grassy plots.
In the rectilinear treatment of small gardens these issues rarely come up, usually only happening in cases where the garden plot is converging into one. When the garden is of sufficient size to call for treatment in curves, the shape of the grassy plots must be more carefully done. The goal should be to never detract from the breadth of the space.
The idea of cutting up the grass space into a series of flower beds should be avoided. This results in losing breadth of space.
A garden artist understands where it is best to place a flower bed to create the most advantageous garden picture, because they are trained to do so. Without this training, it becomes important to understand the elements in your garden setting, study basic principles, especially understand breadth of effect.
The idea is to always create too few beds that have too many detached flower beds, so your garden setting is still projecting space.
Grassy verges, even those that separate flower beds, need to have parallel sides that are a minimum of 18 inches wide. Two feet is even better if possible.
If your garden is on a sloping plot, it is a good idea to allow the garden to follow the slope if it is only slight, instead of trying to level the space. Plots that have irregular contours may need modifications, or may be a great feature to provide variety in the treatment of the garden. If the treatment of the garden plot leaves spaces with hollows, these needs to be filled in, otherwise these are places that allow water to pool in wet weather.
Any curves added to your setting, need to flow, just as lines and surfaces do. This way you cannot detect where one line runs into another. Grass slopes are to be avoided, as these can be difficult to mow and suffer during droughts. If your hillside garden has more than one slope, one should not be steeper than the other.
When creating grass plots make sure they are level in relation to the adjacent paths. Often the paths are sunk below the grassy plots to expose turf. This causes soil to be washed away destroying the path, as well as creating extra work when it comes to trimming and edging.