The only way to get good at garden design is to do it. Luckily, you can’t fail. Plants can always be moved or replaced. Even if your tastes change completely, your garden can follow suit.
What are the Elements of Garden Design?
Why You Need Bones in Your Garden.
You’ll also hear a lot of talk about starting your garden with good bones. That basically means creating a outlining foundation, with trees, structures, paths and such, for the rest of the garden to build off of. A favorite and easily incorporated technique for creating garden bones is to use evergreens, especially dwarf conifers.
How to Create a Focal Point
Every garden, no matter what its size, benefits from a focal point. Without a main feature, the viewer’s eye is more likely to flit from plant to plant, section to section, without zeroing in to examine and appreciate the harmony of the composition.
Learning to Appreciate and Use Plants for Texture and Form
Perhaps the most overlooked tool in garden design is the use of texture. Plants are so varied in texture, you could have an entirely green garden and still have plenty of interest, if you varied textures. As you start to become more discerning about the texture of foliage, you’ll also begin to notice the interplay of plant forms. New gardeners are frequently attracted to the same type of plant over and over again. Perhaps it’s feathery foliage or spiky leaves. Too much of a good thing can make your garden looked chaotic and blurred. One architectural, bold-leaved plant, like a canna, can restore order.
Making Color in the Garden Work
Finally there’s color. Actually, many gardeners like to start with color because it’s a familiar design element. But nature pulls a fast one on us. Even though we know yellow and blue look good together, orange and red will clash and white goes with anything, there are so many shades of each of these colors; even white. Experimenting is the best way to get to know what colors work for you. But the best advice for brand new garden designers is to keep your pallette limited. Start with 2-3 colors and you won’t have to worry about making your viewers dizzy.
