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| Photo Credit: Tres Fromme |
| Use surveyor’s flags to mark out the area where you imagine your garden beds will work. |
Good relationships – they’re not just important to your personal life. They’re vital to your garden. How your garden beds, sidewalks, patios and home relate is one of the most important elements to good design. Your garden needs to be proportionate to the architecture, and the plantings need to be in balance with each other. Unfortunately, there’s no universal formula for determining the ideal design. It just takes some trial and error to achieve the “right” effect. But I can offer some ideas to help you get your garden off to a good start.
My main tip: Take your time. Patience is a virtue when it comes to garden design. (And good things come to those who plan.) I’ve found one of the best ways to create a great garden design is to take some time to think things through, then use the “flag and paint” method. (I used this technique for my own garden in Dallas, in fact.) I spent several weeks just living in the space – viewing it from the house, walking through the yard and watching where the sun and shade went throughout the day. Once I had that that down, I skipped drawing my ideas on paper and went right to sketching a design directly on my lawn. Here’s how I did it: I purchased some surveyor’s flags (those little plastic neon squares on wires) and outlined my first “draft” beds directly in the lawn. I simply walked along and stuck flags in the ground at 2- to 3-foot intervals to create an outline I thought would work. Then I walked around and took a look at my results from various locations in my yard – from the patio, the living room, second-floor windows, etc. I also checked to see if the paths between the beds were wide enough for comfortable strolling and service access. This preview let me evaluate the design in “real time.”
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