Garden Design Ideas

(HIT) - When it comes to designing an attractive flower garden, creativity should rule the day. All too often, the beauty of nature’s floral gift is lost to man’s propensity for straight lines and symmetry. Think outside the "box" when planning your next garden—or upgrading an existing one—for added visual appeal and the inherent attractiveness of a natural garden design.

Straight lines and symmetrical planting strategies may seem easier to pull off, but the formality of this gardening style often looks out of place in a residential setting … and the constant attention required to reign in nature’s randomness can easily outweigh the extra time needed to plan a less formal garden design. Besides, a less formal, flowing, assymetric garden design is not as hard to accomplish as you might think. And once you’re done, nature’s tendencies will be working with you instead of against you.

Shaping Your Informal Garden Design

Start your informal garden design project by doing a little research. Browse your neighborhood for garden designs created by professional gardeners. Hotels and office buildings frequently employ professional landscapers and gardeners, and they’re easily accessible for viewing by homeowners.

Note how the professionals use existing landscape contours to guide the creation of garden edges. Pay attention to border plantings, use of anchor points like walkways, trees and shrubs, and the variations in plant height they use to allow taller, darker foundation plants to form a showcase for smaller, lighter and more colorful plants ahead.

Informal, mixed border designs frequently incorporate trees, shrubs and ornamental grasses as visual anchors for a garden, with garden edges flowing naturally around these focal points. Flowering annuals and perennials are interwoven around and in front of these anchors in a way that mimics nature’s own design strategies.

A garden hose is a wonderful tool for defining your garden edges. Lay the hose out in natural, sweeping curves, and tweak the shape until it looks just right.

Choose Plantings Carefully

Once you’ve defined a shape for your garden, evaluate its anchor points. You may want to add shrubbery, small trees, a bird bath or an outcropping of boulders to form focal points for the garden. Or you may want to move an existing anchor to better fit your new garden design. Once that’s done, you’re ready to choose flowers.

Flower varieties should be chosen with local climate and growing conditions in mind. A shady garden spot will never look good if you plant sun-loving flowers that are constantly struggling to stay alive. Likewise, plants that are intolerant of excessive moisture won’t look good in a low-lying garden area that never quite dries out.

Whatever flower varieties you choose, plant them in small groupings, rather than scattering them indiscriminately throughout your garden. This will provide a more natural appearance and can help keep your garden attractive and interesting throughout the growing season. A mixture of early, mid-summer and late blooming flower varieties contributes to seasonal interest.

Watch your new garden design as the growing season unfolds, and feel free to move perennial plants around to improve on your design. Make note of shortcomings in the placement of annuals and build on that information to improve your garden design when you begin planting for the next growing season.

Another technique, known as the "American" garden style, uses large swaths of a single flower or plant variety to create structure and interest in sloping areas of a yard that may be too shaded for thick grass growth or too difficult to mow. Coneflowers, sedums, and ornamental grasses are often used in this way to simplify yard maintenance.

Whatever garden design ideas and techniques you finally decide upon, keep in mind that a good garden is never "done." Experimentation and constant improvement are hallmarks of any great garden, and many hours of gardening pleasure can be had in the process.

Courtesy: Home Improvement News and Information Center