It is planting season, and this year you are determined to make your garden into a lush paradise complete with flora and also fauna!  You will attract humming birds, butterflies, and ladybugs while keeping other bugs at bay.  You are seeing yourself, in your mind’s eye, hosting lavish backyard barbecues while regaling your neighbors with your gardening successes.  The summer evening breezes will find you in your lawn chair with a good book and a glass of lemonade by your side. Your garden will be easy to maintain yet beautiful, functional yet playful.

Unfortunately, at this point in time, your backyard is nothing but a patch of dirt with the remnants of some struggling grass here and there.  Also visible are some of the landscape failures and faux pas of yesteryear, barely hanging on to life.  What can you do differently this year to avoid the pitfalls of last year?

It is not necessary to be adept at garden design in a class with the garden artists at Sissinghurst Castle. What you do need, however, is some basic knowledge of plant needs, soils, and watering patterns in your yard. The best way to start is by drawing some plans of your yard.

What does your yard really look like?  Is it a square, an oval, perhaps an L-shape? 

Once you have your basic garden shape, decide on one or more focal points.  Yes, focal points are very important in garden design!  A focal point will draw the visitor’s eyes and allows it to highlight a particularly striking feature of the garden.  You want to keep in mind that the focal point needs to be proportionate to the overall size of the garden itself.

If you wish to entertain in your garden, decide where a good spot for a barbecue will be.  Will you simply have a portable barbecue, or will you want to build a permanent fixture?

Once you have decided on how to utilize your space effectively it is time to take a look at your soil.  Is it acidic?  Is it dead?  Is it hard?  Is it soft and lush?  Probably the best step, before planting or constructing anything, is the step of making your soil a welcoming habitat for plants and shrubs.  You will need to cultivate it by breaking up hard areas, and adding compost, manure, or other substances to your soil to make it fit for growing plants.  This is also a good time to fix any leaking or broken sprinklers to make sure all your plants will get adequate watering.

Now that your soil is prepared, it is time to sketch out the focal points.  In truth, garden design is all about focal points!  There are a large variety of items that could become focal points in your landscape:

Perhaps the soft gurgling sound of a fountain is a focal point you desire in your landscape.  Several different sizes, shapes and models are available.  You may have a free standing fountain or one that is mounted to a wall.  The latter will look stunning with discreet garden lights trained on it in the evenings, and with assorted flowers surrounding it. Since the sizes are so varied, a fountain is an excellent focal point for any size garden.

If you have a larger yard to work with, and don’t mind the occasional maintenance associated with it, then a garden pond may be a wonderful addition to your landscape. Because of the different shapes and sizes, these ponds lend themselves to become their own gardens altogether, since there are a large number of plants that love living in a pond. If you are truly ambitious, then the addition of koi fish is a possibility as well.

Garden sculptures are another kind of focal point that usually works extremely well with the addition of plants.

Since plants are a surefire way of completing a focal point, it is important to think through the different plants you are going to cultivate in your garden. You want taller plants in the background, while smaller plants are in front.  Beware of plants that send out suckers or spread widely!  Instead, focus on plants that bloom, preferably at different times of the year to ensure that you will always have something in bloom in your yard. The staff of nurseries will be a wellspring of information on the subject, and they will be able to match up your landscape conditions with plants that will thrive in them, not just survive.

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