Before you create a garden, you should plan the garden by drawing it to scale to ensure you have enough space for everything you may want in your garden, while still creating clean lines. This will help establish a general format of the garden. Be sure to follow the plan carefully, while making sure it flows with your personal taste.
There are many garden settings to choose from, and all work well and create a pleasing view, so long as general principles of gardening, planning, and cost are kept in mind. There is not a concrete guide to design, and some plans are better for larger areas, while others are best for more intimate spaces.
Here are some things to consider:
- Grass is confined to compact areas, with means of access to them at more than one point.
- Trees are placed so as not to cast shadows on the borders.
- Principal borders are in full sun.
- The summerhouse entrance is in shade or partial shade.
- Symmetry in the main features of the plan can be ignored.
- Path space is reduced to a minimum, so far as is consistent with achieving a picturesque effect.
- When grass space is divided, the two areas are not of equal size.
- The vista from the summer house is made as interesting as possible.
- No curves or angles other than right angles are introduced into the garden lines, except only where they may serve some useful purpose.
The following conventional indications apply to all garden plans:
- Beds and borders: Full black
- Grass: Shaded
- House: Hatched
- Paths, drives, and vegetable spaces: Unshaded
The working gardener creates a practical garden. Plants are placed into the soil in way that is most suitable for growth, referring to nourishment and the external environment.
This means the gardener must have knowledge of the plants. You simply cannot just dig a hole and plant, but you need to understand the needs of the plants. The hole needs to be dug to the proper depth, the plant needs to follow the needs regarding shade or sun, and the soil must be carefully compacted around the plant.
Nevertheless, the gardener has a very real concern in the planting operations, because it is in the placing of the plants that the garden picture may achieve its highest development, or be utterly ruined.
When planting a bed or border it is necessary to consider the flowers in respect to:
- Color
- Habit
- Period of Bloom
- Succession
The best feature of any flower is without a doubt the color, and the success of getting as plant to flower depends on the skill and taste of the gardener.
When old-fashioned flowers were removed to make room for that unfortunate quartet, scarlet geranium, scarlet sage, canna, and coleus, it signaled the loss of good taste amidst the new-born enthusiasm for vivid contrast in primary colors.
The rage for these flowers has somewhat declined, but this fade still lingers in many gardens, and gardeners continue to plant as if the acme of good effect depended upon the accomplishment of a series of garish contrasts in the most brilliant gamut of color at command.
The question, for the gardener, becomes if they want harsh contrasting colors or similar, somewhat dulling harmonious colors, or a mixture therein. Harmony can be achieved using bright and bold colors, allowing for a richer, broader, and less contrasting display.