the elements of garden design
sun/shade
One of the very first things we need to consider when working on a garden design is the Sun’s journey. The easiest way to start tracking how the Sun moves around our space is to find North. It is very helpful to make a simple drawing of your garden area and mark the North as N.
Knowing where the North point is located will help you find South, East and West. This is a very important information because it will determine all the microclimates in your garden and it will have an impact on your overall garden design.
We need to think about all the aspects around your garden and make a note where are the most sunny and open areas. It is also important to distinguish and mark the areas which will be more in the shade.
It is important to create shaded areas in your garden design, especially for hotter days, which will not only benefit us but also the wildlife.
soil
Soil is another very important factor in understanding your garden. Your soil plays a key role in influencing the plant choices for your entire garden design.
It is very important to familiarise yourself with the soil in your garden, touch it when it is dry and when it is wet. Make a note how your soil looks, how it feels.
Is it sandy soil, clay, loam, free draining, it is damp, boggy?
Also, you might want to purchase a very simple soil pH test to further inform your plant choices.
As always don’t fight the soil conditions in your garden. Select plants for your garden design that grow in the similar conditions in the wild.
purpose
When thinking about the concept for you garden design it is worth asking the question relating to the purpose of your garden, how you would like to use it and how you would like it to make you feel.
Would you like to create a vegetable/kitchen garden making the space more productive, or you would like to create an ornamental, garden with many flowering perennial plants. You might want to combine these two ideas in your overall garden design concept.
It is always helpful to draw a very simple plan of your space and, already knowing the Sun’s journey through your space, start distinguishing zones, that will play a particular role and function in your garden.
Creating a simple bubble diagram is a good exercise that will help you better visualise ideas for the spaces that you would like to have.
Beth Chatto's garden, a winding path in a garden encourages exploration
I would encourage you to walk around your garden and collect information related to how certain areas make you feel? In which areas you like to be? What feels good? Trust your instincts and use this knowledge to design your garden.
movement
One of the many factors involved in the process of designing a garden is the flow. The flow simply means how we move around the garden. It is important to make the journey through the garden interesting, always bringing an element of surprise.
We want to think about the tempo in a garden, how our body moves in the space, how it experiences it.
If we want to slow down the journey in a garden, we might want to create a winding path. This will slow down our progression through the garden and will invite for immersion and more tuned in exploration.
Creating a few stops in a form of a hedge or a secret door will add an element of mystery into our garden design, opening up slowly the horizon or the threshold to another space/zone.
conclusion
There are many elements to consider when designing a garden. It is entirely up to us how we want to combine these elements to create the space that works best.
Nevertheless, when creating a garden design, we should always consider a bigger picture, a wider landscape, and think how our garden will contribute positively to the biodiversity in the area, how it will encourage wildlife and make a minimal impact on the already present microecosystem.