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Planning your garden design:
How to create a satisfying flower garden

"When you started your flower garden,
did you just dig in without thinking much about garden design?"

I did - I just kept making my beds a little wider each year to put in more flowers. It was a matter of learning by doing.

Like most gardens - yours too, I'll bet - my first one grew, bit by bit, without an overall plan.

I now believe any landscaping project becomes more successful when you think it through first.

My four-square garden in early summer. The more formal, the more
a garden benefits from a plan on paper -Photo: © Y.Cunnington

By the time I got to my second garden on an acreage, shown here, I did draw a plan.

The project was so big and had so many parts that we had to take quite a bit of time to consider what to do with each area before we started planting.

Planning your flower garden is a way to avoid the classic dilemma: wandering around with the plants you've just bought, wondering where the heck to plant them.

Do I have to get a design on paper?

No, you don't have to draw out a plan, showing where every single perennial plant goes.

Mapping out a garden design
Photo: © Y.Cunnington

I was trained in landscape design, and most of the time I don't have the patience for that!

The pros do it to figure out the exact number of plants to order, but home gardeners usually don't work that way.

When I make a drawing for myself, it's generally a simple one to show the layout of a bed, and a basic planting plan that shows the most important plants only.

A logical planting scheme to follow

More design tips:

Garden planning basics: Garden style, island bed or border, sun or shade?

Flower garden planning tips: Bed width, spacing of perennials, garden accents and focal points

Color in the garden: How you can create great color schemes

All-season bloom: How to plant a garden that's colorful from spring to fall

Need landscape design help from a pro? Tips for hiring landscape professionals

A lot of folks see gardening primarily as getting color into their yards. But if you focus on colorful flowers first and foremost, it's a bit like arranging the lamps, accessories and pictures before your house has even been built.

I once took a landscape design course taught by the British garden guru John Brookes, author of John Brookes Garden Design.

He advises planning and planting in the following order: First, the "specials", usually large deciduous trees that serve as focal points; next the "skeletons," evergreens or hedges for year-round structure.

Then come the "decoratives", flowering shrubs or tall grasses. And, finally, you get to the "pretties" – spring and summer-blooming perennials and fillers such as bulbs, annuals or biennials.

According to Brookes, many gardens lack structure and coherence because they were started with the "pretties."

Working on a design for your garden

Planting your garden will be easier if you take a little time to plan before you buy plants. Remember: nobody creates a prize-winning flower garden the first year — but you weren't going to invite the garden club over for coffee — not just yet anyway?

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