Designing gardens involves two main phases: structural planting and ornamental planting. Structural planting includes the trees, shrubs, and groundcover that provide a function. Ornamental planting is devoted to choosing plants (trees, shrubs, and flowers) to provide interest, beauty, and ongoing creativity.

Structural Planting

To begin designing gardens, first consider the structural planting. The structural planting will provide the consistent framework for your garden while the ornamental planting will provide the daily and seasonal changes.

When considering structural planting, think about what functions you would like your garden to provide. Some common functions of gardens are to provide:

• Shade
• Privacy
• Wind reduction
• Noise reduction
• A play area for the kids and dog
• An area to host outdoor parties
• An area to grow food
• An area for wildlife
• A place to get away from it all

After you determine what you would like your garden to provide, sketch out where you want each area to be.

Then, determine the details, beginning with the trees. Trees will provide such things as shade, privacy, and noise reduction. For more information about structural planting with trees, see Designing Gardens with Trees.

After you plan for trees, then consider shrubs. Shrubs will provide privacy, wind reduction, and boundaries. For more information about structural planting with shrubs, see Designing Gardens with Shrubs.

The structural planting phase also includes groundcover. Groundcover can be something you walk on, or something intended to fill up the space. It can include hardscape (decks and patios) and softscape (lawns and low-growing plants).

If you don’t plan to step on the ground cover, consider using shrubs as ground cover. Using shrubs as ground cover is ideal for areas where you won’t need to walk and areas where you don’t want to spend any time tending to flowers. Shrubs can do a great job at “choking out” weeds and can be an evergreen landscape that requires minimal maintenance.

Ornamental Planting

After you determine the structural planting, then it’s time for the ornamental planting. Ornamental planting includes the focal points (eye-catching plants and garden artwork) and seasonal changes in the garden (foliage and flower colors). When planning the ornamental phase of your garden, consider using a mix of trees, shrubs, flowers, and garden artwork to provide interesting forms, foliage, and colors.

You can design functional and artistic gardens with these basic guidelines. If you would like to explore more aspects of garden design, visit other articles on this website devoted to the ornamental planting phase of designing gardens, such as Design a Meadow Garden, Create a Focal Point, and Vertical Gardening Ideas. Enjoy!

When considering gardening as a hobby it is important to remember that the beauty of this pastime lies not only in the look of the finished garden but in the many pleasurable hours spent in the pursuit of this perfection. Gardening involves all the senses, and a carefully planned and executed garden is certainly something to be proud of.

Many gardeners seem to enjoy the planning of the garden as much as the actual time spent making those plans come to life. Sketching out the proposed look for the new landscape can be a great deal of fun, especially when working with a new patch of land. It can be great fun determining just where the flower beds should go, which trees would be perfect for the landscape, and which shrubs would best accent the color of the home.

In addition to the traditional garden and landscape elements, such as trees, shrubs, bushes, plants and flowers, many artistic gardeners like to spice things up a bit by adding additional elements to the landscape. These additional artistic touches often include things like garden statuary or sculpture, and there are a great many sources for fine reproduction statues, sculptures and other artistic elements that can provide just the right finishing touch to the artistic garden.

Another great artistic touch for the gardener is water, and water elements in the landscape are becoming increasingly popular. From fountains and waterfalls to ponds, water in the landscape can provide a remarkably calm and serene environment. Water elements can even be combined with garden statuary and sculptures to create an even more complete artistic landscape.

For the artistic gardener, the plants themselves are works of art, and nowhere is this more evident that in the topiary garden. The art of sculpting hedges into the shapes of various animals and people is a long tradition, and a well kept and well sculpted topiary garden can be breathtaking.

No matter where your artistic passions run, chances are good that the gardening hobby can provide an important outlet for your creative talents. There are few hobbies as amenable to the artistic mind as gardening, and it is no wonder gardening attracts so many aspiring artists. If you are looking for a hobby that makes use of your mind as well as your hands, gardening may be just what you have been looking for.

Designing with shrubs

When designing gardens, shrubs are part of the structural planting phase. (Before choosing shrubs, make sure you have first considered designing with trees.) Most shrubs provide year-round interest and a green background for flowers.

When choosing shrubs for your garden, choose evergreen shrubs first. If you like shrubs that are deciduous or have variegated foliage, that is fine. Save those plants for when you consider choosing shrubs for a focal point. You’ll want your shrubs to provide year-round interest and provide a nice backdrop and sense of order for the flowers that you’ll plant later in your garden design process.

Screening

If you’d like to provide a boundary, garden wall, or screening for privacy, you can plant tall shrubs. Keep in mind that trees can provide this function as well; it depends on your need and space. If you want to block something at ground level, then shrubs are the best choice.

When you are trying to hide an object or provide walls, choose shrubs with small green leaves so that they do not attract attention. If one shrub is not enough, plant the same type of shrubs next to one another to form a wall.

In backyards that already have fences, you can plant shrubs along the fence (unless the fence is attractive). A wall of shrubs will provide a more lush feeling and a prettier backdrop for flowers than an ugly wood fence—especially if you can see through the fence panels.

Shrubs planted near the foundation of a house will enhance the curb appeal (unless the house has beautiful stonework or some other nice architectural feature). In fact, a shrub with sharp leaves, such as Holly, may even help deter unwanted visitors from accessing windows.

Provide Boundaries

You can plant shrubs to provide boundaries for separate garden “rooms” or areas. You can also plant small shrubs to provide boundaries in flower gardens. For example, if you have a long side yard and want to plant flower gardens, you can use shrubs to separate different garden themes and color combinations.

You can also plant shrubs that are below eye level but above knee level to limit access to certain areas. For example, if you find that guests walk on your lawn to visit your front door, you can plant a wall of low-growing shrubs to help guide visitors where you want them to walk. This type of planting won’t obstruct your view but will provide boundaries. You can also use this method to limit access to water, a steep slope, cars, and other areas where you don’t want to block the view, but you do want to help guide or prevent direct access.

Shrubs planted close together to form a wall is considered a hedge. When choosing shrubs for a hedge, choose plants that have a fine texture so that you can easily trim them with a hedger to keep it in shape (shrubs with large leaves should be pruned at the branches because the large leaves will brown if cut in half with hedgers—too time consuming for a hedge).

If your hedge is tall, be sure that the bottom of the hedge is a bit wider at the bottom than at the top. This is called being “cut with a batter” and allows sunlight to reach the entire hedge.

A great shrub for formal hedges is Yew. Yew has a fine texture, dark leaves, and is non-reflective. It makes a great background for ornamental planting.

A great shrub for low hedges is Boxwood. You can shape and clip Boxwood to suit most any garden.

When designing your garden, be sure to allow space for you to walk around and clip your hedges.

Wind Breaks

If you don’t want the height of a tree, you can use shrubs to help provide shelter from wind.

Focal Points

Consider placing a “special” shrub to serve as a focal point in a garden. You can also place a few of these in several parts of the garden. Using a shrub as opposed to a tree as a focal point will call attention lower to the ground. (Keep in mind that you can also save the focal point to be flowers or garden artwork.)

When using a shrub as a focal point, choose one that has sculptural interest; for example, one with a strong form, distinctive habit, or bold foliage. You can also create your own sculptural interest by clipping a hedge into a topiary shape, such as a globe, spiral, or animal.

Next Steps in Designing Gardens

The next step to consider in your garden design plan is groundcover, which can include cement, pavers, rocks, turf, and more.

by Shannon Mendez

Shade Trees

When selecting a tree for shade, consider if you want it to provide shade all year round (evergreen) or to allow for the winter sun to come through (deciduous).

Evergreen trees (ones that do not lose all their leaves during the winter) provide many benefits. Evergreen trees provide consistent shade, privacy, wind breaking, and focal points throughout the year. They provide an evergreen backdrop for flower borders and focal points. And they don’t cause as much maintenance during the fall months because they don’t dump their leaves all at once.

Deciduous trees (ones that lose their leaves during the winter) also have many benefits. By losing their leaves in the winter, the tree allows sunlight to warm a house and grounds during the cold months. Most deciduous trees have leaves that will display a beautiful fall color before dropping the leaves. And deciduous trees will allow for early spring bulbs to receive direct sun before the tree leaves begin to emerge again.

Also consider the tree’s habit and size at maturity.

Keep in mind that trees provide different levels of shade. Some trees (such as a Silver Birch) have a light canopy and will allow filtered sunlight to come through while other trees (such as a Norway Maple) have a dense canopy and will provide solid shade underneath.

Screening with Trees

To provide a screen for privacy or for blocking an ugly view, plant a group of trees together. You’ll want evergreen trees so that you’ll have continual screening.

An interesting way to use trees for screening is to use pleached trees. Pleached trees have bare tree trunks, but their canopy of branches and leaves are clipped like hedges. In The Complete Planting Design Course, Hilary Thomas writes that they “are like a hedge on legs.” To make a pleached hedge, plant trees with enough room to let their roots grow and thrive, and let the trees grow to about 6 feet–or however high you need the trees to be. Then, cut off the leader branch. Train the branches to grow sideways with wires and plant ties.

Wind Breaks and Shelter from Trees

Too much wind can cause plant damage, water evaporation, and soil erosion. Trees can help reduce wind damage and provide a sheltered garden space. You can find more information about using trees as windbreaks at FunctionalGardens.com.   

Trees as Focal Points

After you have selected trees for structure and function, consider using  some trees for focal points.

When considering a tree for a focal point, understand its form and texture. Also consider how it will look with the other plantings in the garden.

If you have a small garden and are choosing one tree as a focal point, be sure that it looks interesting for multiple seasons. An ideal focal point tree for a small garden has spring flowers, summer foliage, fall color, and interesting branches in the winter (Japanese Maple is a nice choice).

Other tips for focal point trees:

• Plant a tree with fall color in a flower bed with blue, purple, and gold fall flowers.
• Plant a tree with interesting winter branches and bark with early blooming spring bulbs.
• Place garden artwork near the base of a tree to call more attention to it.

After you have decided on the types and locations of trees in your yard, you’ll know the function and sunlight situation in order to continue designing your garden with shrubs and flowers.

by Shannon Mendez