How to Landscape a Garden

Landscape designs should compliment and match exterior structures and outdoor spaces.

Landscaping your garden and the areas around your home is not a weekend project, but rather one that may span over a length of time. With so many elements to add and change, you may find yourself tweaking your garden landscape for years to come. From retaining walls to fences, raised garden beds to paths, patios, boulders and garden edging, there are numerous ways to landscape your garden space. With different materials and various ideas, you can create a garden landscape as unique as your fingerprints. Does this Spark an idea?

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Pen or pencil
• Tape measure
• Tracing paper

Instructions

1. Draw the existing layout of your garden onto a sheet of paper using either a pen or pencil. Measure the space between walls, raised beds, and walks or driveways, and draw these elements to scale on the sheet of paper. This will allow you to plan for additions and renovations ahead of time.

2. Trace or print additional copies of the existing garden layout. This will save you from having to re-draw as you plan and draw different options for your landscape design.

3. Add permanent paths to your garden landscape for aesthetics, easy travel and to promote a healthier garden. Adding permanent paths ensures that you do not walk over and compact soil inside the flower or vegetable garden. Draw paths onto your design blueprint and later you can decide whether to build the paths from poured concrete, gravel, stone or brick.

4. Build retaining walls to hold back raised areas of soil or create raised garden beds. Draw these forms into place on your design blueprint, bearing in mind that walls may form geometric shapes, curves or straight lines. When you're ready to build, you may consider using stone, brick, poured concrete or wood as construction materials.

5. Create a patio space in your garden to use for entertaining guests or relaxing after tending the garden. Choose the dimensions for your patio and draw the surface onto your landscape blueprint. You will also need to choose the materials for your patio when you are ready to start building.

6. Outline patios and garden beds with edging to create defined borders between the two landscape elements and the surrounding grass or pavements. Edging typically measures under six-inches wide and may be made from rock, stone, wood, brick, poured concrete, plastic, metal or non-conventional items such as recycled glass bottles.

7. Add boulders to create a rustic landscape design. Draw onto your landscape blueprint where you wish to place the boulders and in what approximate size. When you get ready to start your landscaping project, excavate and bed each boulder so it appears natural in the finished landscape.

References

• University of Tennessee Extension: Twelve Common Landscape Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
• HomeTime.com: Landscape Styles
• HomeTime.com: Landscape Plan
• "Country Living": Garden Plans

Resources

• Virginia Cooperative Extension: The Value of Landscaping