Garden design: Use these ideas, quick tips and examples to plan your personal dream garden – whether you want to create the garden from scratch or beautify an existing one.
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A motto is ideal for every garden
Strictly formal, close to nature, with water or a vegetable garden with a herb garden? Before you start designing your garden, you should think about which style your garden should have and also plan possible garden decorations. “Less is more” applies, because too much decoration quickly overloads small gardens in particular.
If you want little work and have a lot of space, you should think about a swimming pond. If you love colors and lush variety, you should set up a flower garden with herbaceous beds, fences and low hedges, in which flowers in harmonious color combinations provide opulence and romance depending on the season. An important prerequisite for a successful design is knowledge of the nature of the garden soil, the flowering phases and growth heights of the plants – and careful planning.
If you love simple elegance and want an easy-care, attractive eye-catcher, you should include a rhododendron garden in the design, which enchants for weeks at flowering and otherwise forms green privacy. You can also achieve this in summer with tub plants and flower boxes. A shadow garden is suitable for creative people who love the challenge and like to experiment. Because surprisingly many plants feel right at home in the shade. These include ferns, foam flowers, Caucasus forget-me-nots or mountain forest cranesbills. A garden pond enriches every garden, but a gravel garden is also an attractive alternative to the herbaceous border: economical in water consumption, ecological and yet aesthetic. And perfect for Asian style gardens!
Tips for time-saving gardening
If you create your garden from the outset time-saving or redesign it accordingly, you have all the more time to enjoy it.
- Planting ground cover plants: The A and O in the easy-care garden are ground cover plants. They look neat and do almost no work. This also applies to the front yard.
- Automatic watering: watering in the morning and in the evening? Automatic irrigation does the work for you. So you can lean back in summer.
- Laying lawn edges: Lawn can be mowed much easier on the edge if there is a solid surface all around. This should be slightly lower than the lawn.
- Mulching: A layer of 3-5 cm of mulch made from chaff or gravel prevents weeds from germinating.
- Create flower hedges: ornamental shrubs and evergreens such as bamboo, cherry laurel and rhododendron do not need to be cut or only if necessary.
Fundamental garden problems do not always require a complete redesign. If you are largely satisfied with your garden or front yard and only have a few shortcomings, you can get a handle on it quickly with a clever garden design. Whether for sunny or shady locations with moist or dry soil – we have put together some bedding ideas for you to replant for different locations.
Garden design: ideas for unused corners
Protected retreat: corners are often bordered on two sides by hedges, walls or a fence and invite you to linger.
Storage space for equipment: A garden shed offers space for tools, lawn mowers and other utensils. In front of it, a table fits for repotting.
Surprise effect: make a curved path disappear in a corner behind bushes. This gives the impression of a larger garden.
Decoration: A sculpture, a bench or a picturesque ornamental shrub receives increased attention in a garden corner.
Flower magic: It would be a shame if you looked into an empty corner. It is better if something is standing there or plants are in bloom, e.g. in poor soil in the bucket. Woody plants such as Be lilac
Robust plants: Sunny locations with sandy soil are the absolute problem area in the garden, but can also be planted. A sample bed for replanting can be found here.
Garden design: Tips for seating
A few chairs and a table often do not make a cozy seat. We will show you which garden design tricks you can use to ensure cosiness on the terrace and in the garden.
Protected from view: In the first place is a privacy screen that ensures privacy. So you can relax and forget the world around you.
Roof over your head: A pergola, a canopy made of leaves or a canvas that is stretched out protects you from the sun’s rays and drizzle.
Flat surface: So that chairs and table do not wobble, the surface of slabs and paving stones should be flat, but non-slip.
Flower scent: floribunda roses, herbs and other fragrant plants exude a wonderful aroma at the seat. The break becomes a sensual experience.
View: If possible, leave a view into the distance – in the garden, in the countryside or from the garden to the house.
Plants as design elements
Less is often more, and this also applies to the beds: Soloists – trees, expressive grasses, shaped shrubs – can have an extraordinary effect in garden design, for example as an eye-catcher on the lawn or in the bend of a path. A passage can be marked with two identical trees, with three a property boundary, with six an avenue. Climbing plants take up comparatively little space and delight on house facades or individual trees. Climbing plants also turn otherwise boring privacy screens into lush green.
Extensive plantings like this bed idea for sunny locations have a generous effect and require little maintenance. Islands of grass, for example, are an attractive means of garden design and form garden spaces without constricting and blocking the view. And: The laborious mowing around the tree trunks is no longer necessary.
Step by step: redesign and redesign in three steps
1. Inventory:
If you want to redesign your garden, you should first take a close look at it. It has a bit of a clearing out of a crowded wardrobe: what should stay, what should be gone? Go outside and examine the condition of the terrace, paths, plants, fences, garden shed, etc. and submit your rating. Use the following criteria for this initial phase of garden design:
beautiful?
makes sense?
practically?
used?
how long will it last?
place somewhere else?
Then the garden design becomes more concrete: what can remain, what bothers and should therefore be improved or removed. On a notepad, write down which elements need to be repaired and what you want to remove completely from the garden. A rhododendron that grows poorly on sunny, dry soil can bloom again in a shady place and in acid soil. So transplant it. Also note whether wooden posts or slats need painting or are better removed because they are brittle or rotten. You will see how good it is to get rid of such things!
2. Desire and plan:
After you have freed your garden from ailing plants, shaky concrete slabs and other things, there is now room for new ideas. Now your desires and your imagination are required. If you want the garden to be easier to care for, plant ground cover in difficult places and plan automated irrigation. If you want to create a garden pond, a seat or a new bed, think about where it makes the most sense. Measure and try! Use a hose to make it easier to imagine a border of the bed or take pictures of the corresponding garden corners, print out the pictures and put a film over them to outline the innovations. In this way you can also find places for garden decoration or practical elements such as elegant garden showers or worry about garden lighting. Garden planners for the PC can also be good help.
3. Bring on the spade!
In the third step, it becomes tangible. Plants are newly planted or transplanted, lawn edges laid, coverings repaired, and the garden house gets a new coat of paint. Get the help of a specialist who specializes in horticulture and can also dispose of old material straight away for demanding wooden constructions, wall construction or tree felling work.
