Garden Design - Make a great garden by planning a great garden!

Making a great garden takes some planning. This could mean a detailed design by a professional garden designer, or something more basic, but having some sort of plan makes a big difference. If you want to get the most out of your garden, then spend some time thinking about what you want, and how to get it.











Maybe this blog will help. Get some ideas, and make a plan, and then you can gradually work at creating the garden you want. It's much easier if you have a plan of what you want it to look like, whether this is a drawing, or a list of what you want to include and where it will go. It also helps to make a plan of plants or plant types that you want to include, and what you want the garden to feel like at different times of the year. 

I am addicted to gardens, and I can't help wanting a bit of everything in my own garden. I love visiting the big stately homes that have huge gardens divided into many sections: formal, informal, natural, perfectly manicured, modern, traditional, dry gardens, wet gardens, rock gardens, flower gardens, single colours, many colours - I love them all.

Garden before Green Fingered Blog
My garden before...


My garden is about 35 metres by 10 metres, so finding a way to include all the things about a garden that I love is a challenge. This is where a garden design helps massively. When we moved in it was quite overgrown and neglected and I couldn't wait to create an overall design. I didn't want to completely transform it. I like the idea of adapting what is already there, plus I was too impatient to get rid of everything and start from scratch!

GREEN FINGERS TIP: Start with a list of what you want to include in your garden and how you want to use your outdoor space. This should be your starting point. But be prepared for the possibility that you won't be able to include everything!



My mission was to create a garden with a little piece of all the garden styles I love, whilst making them merge together as seamlessly as possible to make a whole which suits its surroundings and has variety, interest and fun, all year round. Oh, and it also needs to include enough entertainment for our three children. That took a bit of thought, but within a few weeks I had the layout planned, and then I created the basic framework and got started. Hopefully you can see that how it looks now more or less matches my design above. 
Garden Design Green Fingered Blog
...and after

Have you transformed your garden? Did you start from scratch or adapt what was already there? Please share your before and after stories using the comments link below. 

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