We all have to start somewhere to create the garden of our dreams, and the principles of designing a small garden are just the same as for a big garden. Your journey begins with some basic questions you need to ask yourself.
What style of garden do I want?
If you look at the gardens we feature regularly, it is clear that many of their layouts are based on simple and straight lines dividing the yard into different sections, many with planting beds edged neatly with cobble stones or bricks. This creates a basic ‘order’ or framework to fill in with plants, a lawn and hardscaping like paving. This grid-style of design is the easiest way to go if you are a novice gardener.
Within this ‘order’ you can opt for a low-maintenance and natural look, filling intended planting areas with swathes of grasses and tough perennials or going for a collection of succulent plants and succulent groundcovers. The other side of the coin would be a double up on formality by edging beds with low hedges and filling them with things like roses, flowering perennials, bi-annuals and seasonal annuals – more expensive and more of a handful to maintain, but so colourful and rewarding in summer…
The basics to get started
Once you’ve figured out what your floor pattern should be, keeping
