So....How do you really design a garden?

By now you should have all the information that you could possibly wish for (maybe even more than you could wish for!) about your garden and what you'd like to see in it.

We can now begin the process of designing your new garden! Bet you thought it would never happen, hey?

Using all of the information that you have collected you can start to develop some design ideas - you probably have already got a few seeds of ideas floating about inside your head waiting for exploration. We need to understand a few principles that can "make or break" a design. Being armed with this knowledge will allow you to come up with the perfect design for your garden. You will need to understand the concepts of unity and balance, scale and proportions, simplicity and harmony. I'll go through the importance of all of these soon but for now though...

...in the words of this blogs title...

How do you really design a garden?

Rather than going head first into wonderful sketches and colour-rendered plans, it is advisable to break the design process into stages. At whatever stage you are at, you will find it helpful and inspirational to display as much of your research around you as you can, especially your site photographs. Don't try to work on just one piece of paper throughout the design stages. You're a creative designer now and as such, can be flamboyant and "arty- darling". Therefore, use lots of "throw away" paper and draw, write or sketch whatever ideas pop into your head. You can discard the ones that won't work and develop the ones that might.

Don't rush things. Take your time and develop the ideas you have in a non-pressured, relaxed environment. If you get excited about developing certain design ideas at this stage, chances are you'll get excited using those ideas in your actual garden when you've built it!

The first stage of the process is to create and study a "functional layout plan". This is a freehand drawing that will act as your first rough working plan. It will consist of "bubbles" that divide your site up into different areas to detect how the space in your garden flows. No intricate details are permitted at this stage. All we are trying to deduce is where abouts you would like to position certain features so that the garden will best serve your requirements. Look back at all of your research and your design brief (your interview) to decide what it is you most desire in your garden.

Here are some site conditions or requirements that might affect your functional layout plan:

The site has an ugly view that needs screening.

You want a seating area in the sunniest position in the garden.

You have small children that require a play area that needs to be within view of adults.

You have a shady area that you want to incorporate a water feature into.

This list is, of course, only a few examples of factors that will contribute to the plan. Consider your data and make your own list of the important things that you need/would like in your garden. Rank them in order of importance to you so that you can focus on those points. Any extras can be a bonus to the design if you can incorporate them into it. Your ideas and rankings may change as your design develops. This is normal and to be expected as you find the design that best works for you. Don't worry about it, just go with the flow. You can make as many functional layout plans as you need to until you are happy with the layout.

Got your list? Right then, lets put it into a functional layout plan then.

Set up your site survey and analysis plan onto your drawing board or table top. Lay a piece of tracing paper over it and trace over the boundaries and baseline of your site in pencil. If you have any fixed features on the site survey plan that are intended to remain in place, trace these onto the tracing paper as well.

You now have the outline of the garden in which to work. Looking at your list, choose the most dominant features that will need to be close to the house and then work outwards from there. Roughly divide up your garden into areas - using free-hand with a pencil. You can use a scale rule to help give you an idea of size of each item, but you should not have any straight lines in your plan.

Start by deciding where the major divisions need to be and how, if at all, they will be linked. Don't worry about actual details at this point- you don't need to know that a hedge will be dividing the play area from the lawn, etc - just draw each area so that they are almost touching (see diagram).

With your list of requirements, decide what the function of each one is and decide where it would best be positioned in your garden. Make sure that the conditions in the garden match the function of your requirement - putting a cool seating area in the sunniest part of the garden wouldn't work! Knowing how different shapes influence people's feelings and behaviour is important when creating the layout of the garden. The shape should be tailored to the function. For example, if you want an area where lots of people can relax together, then you would create a square or rectangle with almost equal sides to make them feel at ease. A narrow strip would not be conducive for people to socialise with one another.

Try putting your main features into your plan and experiment with different shapes and sizes. Later we'll look at the other important concepts to consider whilst creating your functional layout plan including, desire lines and focal points.