How to design amazing gardens
How to design amazing gardens
Thank you for visiting PlantPlots and we hope you find this advice on how to design amazing gardens useful. Our aim is to make gardening easier especially if you aren’t an expert gardener. Brilliant Design Advice to help you make your garden better; Predesigned Planting Ideas making choosing plants for the garden easier. Plus there are Style Sheets to help decide on a planting style and an amazing Design Servicse to create the garden you have always dreamed of.
Eye-Candy ideas – this stuff is just a little bit different!
but you never know; something might spark your creative streak! 🙂
Paving is easy to be more creative with – and anyone can do it! 
Screens for the garden can be made with natural materials too 
Stack these around a pergola for a stunning log feature 
Turn fencing into a feature 
This would make anyone smile! 
A simple screen made from wood blocks – fab! 
More costly, but these double up as seats too 
Any garden would look good with this – but it is a bit expensive! 
Yes – want these bad boys! 
Garden Screen as a piece of art 
Time needed: 8 minutes.
How to design amazing gardens
- Remember it is your garden and no-one else’s!
so the garden needs to have only those elements important to you. Adding fancy ‘design’ features will not make it feel amazing!
- Create a list of how you want the garden to make YOU feel
Gardens aren’t just functional spaces they are emotional places too. How do you want the garden to feel. It’s a great way to start thinking about the design.
- Decide HOW much of a gardener you CAN be
‘Amazing’ gardens only look really amazing if they have dedicated owners. Instead, think; how much mess will the garden make, how much time can you spend gardening each week. and does that match the time you can give to the garden.
- Write a list detailing how you intend to USE the garden
This could be you want to spend time sunbathing or maybe you love walking amongst plants. You might prefer to sit on the patio and watch butterflies or create a sheltered night time seating spot . Decide what is most important to you.
- Plan around your ‘Must Haves’
Whatever those choices are, these are the most essential elements of your design. For example a BBQ space or secret sunbathing spot. Start by deciding how each choice can be added to your garden, and how you are going to get to that those areas. Gradually a plan for the design will begin to emerge.
3 Stages of Garden Design:
There are 3 main phases when you are planning a garden
- Creating the layout
- Planning the planting
- Adding finishing touches – the ‘eye-candy
Here at PlantPlots, we aim to show how YOU can make YOUR garden better, rather than just showing lots of images of gardens that have been designed and maintained by professionals (or at the very least dedicated garden lovers). We explain how you can change your garden.
Creating the Layout
Garden design can seem quite complex.There seem to be so many factors to consider – form, function, flow, balance, proportion. But, these are all words that designers tend to use when describing garden design. But we don’t think it help you much!
These professionals do create amazing gardens, but these are also amazingly expensive and labour intensive gardens too. You want to design a garden that you think is amazing. To help you we have broken down the design process into a few simple steps to guide you in the short video below. And not a mention of form, function or flow!
Planning the Planting
This is undoubtedly one of the hardest areas to plan, especially if you don’t know much about plants, but fortunately you have found us – and our aim IS to make gardening easier for you. There are some simple ways to help you plan and choose plants for the garden.
- Work with your weather.
- Check the Size in 5
- Fill the 3 dimensional space.
All is explained in the short video below, but essentially if the plants will grow happily in the garden environment and grow naturally to the size you need them to be, then the plants will look after themselves more and that means you won’t have to.
Happy contented plants look better and grow better – which means it’s easier to keep the garden looking amazing. Visit the shop to see the range of pre-designed border planting ideas created to make garden planning easier for you in case you still can’t decide. See we really do try to make gardening easier!
Gardens don’t have to cost thousands to be amazing, or do they have to be expensively designed themed spaces. It just needs to work for you.
In terms of choosing the style of planting, this is where the planning lists you created at the outset come into play. The lists already tell you how you want to feel in the garden. If your idea for the garden space is based on a soft, cool calming garden then clearly, hot colours and spiky plants are out. You have created a mood board; which makes choosing plants more simple it is just is a case of looking at different plants and choosing which plants make you feel a certain emotion.
Obviously, the plants need to fit the garden environment, but using a mood board is a much easier method of deciding which plants to choose. You can simply wander up and down the aisles in a garden centre to see which plants make you fell calm or happy. All you need do is check the label to see if it’s suitable for your garden.
Garden design advice written with you in mind
- Fabulous pre-designed planting plans for every corner of the garden
- Realistic design ideas for normal sized gardens
- Garden makeovers
- Advice to help you understand how to design YOUR garden
- How do you choose plants for the garden
- What to do if your garden has….
- Garden design principles you really need to know
- Beginners guides to making a garden
And not forgetting our amazing new book – helping you make your garden better.
This could be the best garden book you ever get!
And finally those gardening finishing touches; Eye-Candy Garden Art!
Welded pipe rings make a great small structure for any garden 
Natural objects and natural shapes always work well in any garden sculpture 
Sculptures should fit the space and not look out of place 
Sculpture for free – driftwood or garden trimmings with the bark removed Create the effect of more room with garden mirrors 
Lovely but don’t have too big a mirror or the birds fly into it 
Garden sculpture by Spencer Byles 
Little sculptures are also great 
Natural sculpture by land-arts.com Daft but fun. Something for the kids to do perhaps? image by entity art 
By Ella Robinson 
OK, a bit ‘out there’ but cheap and stunning feature! 
Sculpture can be witty too 
Beautiful and free garden sculpture 
Be creative with pebbles, on a wall or on the floor 
Kitsch but fun! 
Dancing frogs – why not? 
but I want one of these too! 
outdoor mirrors are a must Fish in grass look great but here is a way you can have glass sculpture Have a shoal though 
Upcyling works well too 
‘floating’ balls of stone maybe
Eye-Candy ideas – Garden Objects
Topiary, this is Ingwe my pet leopard! 
but I want one of these too! 
outdoor mirrors are a must Fire Pit sculptures. How about polished concrete stones these – amazing Outdoor lighting – thats a bit different How beautiful is this ok, rolling the dice will form part of your get fit program – but it is rather lovely Oh it’s so much nicer than a fence panel or willow pears…. Fish in grass look great Beautiful but not cheap! Glass in a garden setting is lovely; if you can afford it but here is a way you can have glass sculpture laser cut screens are definitely a great idea Have a shoal though 
and wha said gardens have ot be sensible! 
Upcyling works well too
If you are just browsing, there are lots of other lovely pictures to see from plants that make you go “oooh!” Ideas for garden makeovers gardens we’ve redesigned and also our blog The Plotting Shed
Use the search bar above to type in your query and I’ll bet it’s in here somewhere…. if it’s not, you can always ask and we’d be happy to help.
Email rachel@plantplots.com
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