Do you want to decorate a small square by the front steps with a few annuals, or do you long instead for a sweeping border bursting with perennials? When do you want your garden to look its best? Will a brief but spectacular spring or summer show suffice, or do you want a garden that looks attractive from early spring until hard frost? How much time, energy, and money are you prepared to devote to the task of planting and caring for a garden? Do you want a garden that you can dig and plant in an afternoon and that requires little effort to maintain, or do you prefer a more ambitious project, a garden that will usurp at least a weekend at planting time and require regular attention throughout the growing season? You're unlikely to realize your dream if you're not sure what your dream is. The first step in designing a garden is to decide exactly what sort of garden you want. Have fun, and if fun happens to coincide with "rules" of design, fine.
This brochure is meant to help you make choices, not to paralyze you with the fear that you're not doing things just so. Your taste and desires are what matter, not what your neighbor is planting or what a gardening magazine says you should want. Most experienced gardeners follow guidelines similar to those we offer here, but others ignore them-sometimes to glorious effect. We want to emphasize at the outset that there is no single "right" way to make a garden. You may be familiar with annual beds and perennial borders, but most gardeners (ourselves included) get greatest satisfaction from what are known as "mixed borders," gardens that contain the gamut of plants-annuals, perennials, bulbs, shrubs, and small trees-for variety and a long season of interest. When we say "flower garden" or "border" in this brochure, we mean an ornamental planting, one with well-defined edges and often (but not always) a backdrop of some sort-a house, a hedge, a wall, or a fence. If you already have a garden but are not satisfied with it, we suggest that you review the first four steps, then study Steps 5 through 7.
Flower garden design series#
We present this process as a series of steps-seven in all-that takes you from the mere notion that you want a flower garden to a finished plan. The aim of this article is to help you select a site, size, and shape for a flower garden and then to fill it with a harmonious combination of plants.