Planning a garden landscaping project

Faced with a garden that either needs a complete overhaul or just a nice new look, there are so many questions that you need to answer before you get started and order in the granite and turf. Firstly, what are you planning to use the garden for? If it’s intended to be a nice place for the kids to play and to have barbecues in the summer, you’ll need to factor in different things than if you were planning to attempt self-sufficiency and grow fruit and vegetables.


Take a look at what you have; in particular make a note of where the sunny areas are and which parts of the garden don’t get much sun. Are there any areas that act as a sun trap or a wind tunnel? This all needs to be taken into account before you start planning amazing floral borders in places where the sun doesn’t shine. In the same way, if it’s too windy in one part of the garden, that’s no place to think about putting your fire pit.

Unless you’re calling in an expert to help you get everything looking the way you want it, or you have a large budget, be prepared to start your landscaping project on a small scale. Develop your plan slowly; working on different areas of the garden rather than planning to everything at once is a good idea and a much easier way to tackle it than giving yourself an unrealistic deadline.

Create a focal point in the garden from which you can build the rest. If you have a larger space to work with, you could create a couple – even three – but make these areas the focus for your efforts. Think about a rockery perhaps, with attractive coloured granite providing an unusual talking point. A pond or water feature can also work well. A focal point will draw the eye to an attractive feature and move it through the landscape.

Pull it all together using pacing and scale, varying shades and patterns. For example, you could plant tall shrubs or plants against a building or at the back of a flower bed that you’ve stocked with smaller plants. You can also try colour-matching or contrasting so that it looks as if the choice of plants and flowers in deliberate, and it adds a sense of cohesion rather than making the garden look a brightly coloured jumble of ideas!

Using unusual features, making the most of the space you have in even a smaller garden and careful planning are key to a well-designed garden that looks as if it could have been created by landscaping experts.