Gardening Sweet Spots
By Donna Hessel
The skies are gray. The vista is bleak. It’s February and the gardens are snow-covered, with only the dried brown stalks of perennials or ornamental grasses left standing for winter interest. It’s the perfect time of year to consider the “bones” of your gardens — their basic shapes and how they fit into your overall landscape design.
I’ve found that sketching a layout of your property on paper — a view as though you were looking down from a high window — is very helpful when deciding what changes or additions would be an improvement. Your sketch at this point doesn’t have to be to scale; it is just to give you a basic idea of where various elements of your garden are. Note the position of your house/deck or patio and any storage sheds or other major structures, large trees or groups of trees, fences, etc. Then add your garden plots. How do things flow? Here are some suggestions to consider if you see a need for redesign, or to design new garden areas.
Establish a Focal Point
Where does your eye go first? To determine where it is, walk around. Stand quietly in different areas and feel the mood each one generates. When you have decided where your focal point is or will be, you’ll want to define it by clearing a space around it, highlighting it with a large piece of garden art, a large rock or a bench. Make it a destination by incorporating a path in your overall design that leads to it.
Create Views
Most of us don’t have interesting long-range vistas stretching beyond our property. With a few tricks, however, you can create views that provide depth and perspective and lead the eye through your landscaping. Use perspective to enhance views. Picture train tracks that seem to converge in the distance. The same visual cue creates a sense of depth in any outdoor space. You can use this trick in a small outdoor space by slightly angling the lines of a walk inward, making it appear longer than it actually is. You can do this also with a garden bed or pergola. The key is to angle it in very slightly to simulate a natural perspective. You can apply this trick to plant beds that border a lawn. If the bed borders angle inward, the lawn between them appears a little deeper than it really is.
Carefully positioned structures like sheds and screening walls can “edit out” neighboring houses or other unwanted views. A partially blocked view can give the impression of unlimited nature surrounding your home. You can hide parts of your garden by planting a leafy shrub in a strategic spot, angling a walk or set of steps or locating a mounded plant bed in front of the view.
- Borrow scenery. Incorporate a view beyond your garden by placing plants or fencing to frame a distant rooftop or a neighbor’s tree. Keeping low shrubs along your property border will enhance nearby and distant views and your garden will appear larger.
- Frame a view. Developing “windows” in a garden breaks up monotony. Take advantage of a long view. A long view may involve looking diagonally across your yard or down a slope. Emphasize its length with a straight path and dramatic focal points at each end.
Personalize Your Garden
Make it yours by incorporating your favorite plants, colors and garden art objects. It’s tempting to select the “perennial, shrub or annual of the year,” but if those don’t fit with your personal tastes, feel free to ignore what the various plant organizations are promoting this year.
Select the “Right” Plants
We love gardening, but easier maintenance would be a plus! To enjoy a garden with less maintenance, keep it simple. Pick a few (deer-resistant) plants, make sure the light and soil conditions assure they will be happy growing there, and allow them to grow. Native plants require less traditional maintenance such as pruning, fertilizing and watering. Mulch to keep the weeds at bay. Edit as needed. Repeat plants, colors and shapes to provide a sense of calm and visual unity. Create balance with fine and bold, dark and light, soft and hard plants. Don’t forget foliage. Clumps of various shades of green add texture and allow colorful blooms to be the accents. If some of the plants are evergreen, it will extend visual interest into fall and winter. Include plants to support wildlife. Plants with fragrance, movement, and texture will satisfy your senses. Create a landscape that you can maintain without resorting to using chemicals.
Keep Size and Scale in Mind
Proper proportion is key to a successful garden design. Proportion refers to the comparative size and scale of the different features in a garden in relation to the size of the house and other elements in the landscape. When all the elements are in proportion, a garden feels comfortable and inviting. Strike a balance between plantings, built elements and nature. Consider the amount of space for a lawn. A well-proportioned landscape doesn’t require a sweeping expanse of lawn.
Designing Garden Areas
I always build curved borders into my gardens. Grassy or pebbled curved pathways can be used to unify the spaces between garden areas. The eye cannot help but follow a curve and a curved path or walkway invites people to explore. What’s just beyond the bend? Curving walks and steps invite a slow and thoughtful journey. People move faster in a narrow path and slow down or pause when they arrive at an opening. So, when you lay out a walkway, think about the areas where you might want people to stop and enjoy the view. Widen the path or create a larger stopping area there to encourage them to pause. If you want people to move rapidly through a space, keep the walks fairly narrow.
To establish the lines for an even, sweeping curve, use a radius and a tape measure (not a hose). Hold the end of the tape measure in place with a stick or screwdriver and make consistent, even curves by forming a radius and marking the curve with paint or powdered lime. Uneven curves are also attractive and are more informal.
Create Transitions
The sketch you’ve created of your property and garden layout will give you a good idea of its current flow. You may want to plan some transitions to visually connect the various gardens or feature areas in your layout. These change points are perceptible, but well integrated — an opportunity to pause and appreciate the beauty of one area before moving on to another.
Paths are obviously an excellent connective solution, but you might also consider the following: Contrast darker gardens (those covered by tree canopy) with light-filled spaces. Use bridges, stairs, trellises, or narrow passages surrounded by container plantings. Screen views with tall trees that hide other areas from sight and provide only a glimpse of what’s beyond.
The most effective gardens create a complementary relationship between the indoors and out. Match (at least the front yard) garden to your home’s architecture. Traditional style house? Design a traditional garden. Likewise for a contemporary style. More tricky if your home is a hybrid, in which case a mix of styles can be incorporated. Create an entry point in the front landscape; perhaps a courtyard garden at your home’s front door. A hedge with a gate bridges the space between inside and out. Check out the view of your landscape from indoors. Which window do you look out of frequently? Align a focal point with that window view and you’ll enjoy the view whether you’re indoors or out.
I’m reaching for my pencil and tablet right now to follow up on my advice! It’s very cold and sunny with a light snow cover on the ground — a perfect day to redesign my garden plots on paper, plan some transitions that will move the eye around my yard, write up an order from the plant catalogs that are arriving daily, and dream of Spring!
Many of the tips in this blog are from a PDF document created by gardendesign.com. You can download the document at this url: https://www.gardendesign.com/pdf/how-to-design-your-dream-garden.pdf. It also includes many inspirational photos of gardens.
Garden design from hearthdesigns.co.uk
