Building a Garden: the drawing

Designing a garden can be simple, while building a garden can be labor intensive if you follow the right advice. If you don’t follow advice or follow the wrong ones (from a neighbor who has just finished his or from a generic information magazine) you risk lengthening and obtaining poorly satisfying results.

When is it better to redo the garden? If the garden is small, is it worth spending time and money to design and build it?

Building a garden that makes you happy isn’t a matter of large or small space.

Even two square meters can make a person happy for distribution and service. It then depends on how much a person wants to go into the matter further because keeping in mind the Feng shui advice/concepts would not hurt to develop harmony and positive energies where we need them.

The benefit of building your new garden? You can stop whenever you want

The good thing is that at any point in the project or construction you can decide not to continue on your own and get help with the project from a landscaper and with the construction from a gardener. If they then need to deepen some themes of your garden, they will decide whether to involve other professionals (in discussions with you).

Building a garden – Step 0: Do I want to make a garden?

The assessment that must be made immediately is whether one wants to embark on this enterprise.

It is true that we can give the project and the construction our times, but it is also true that the construction must only take place in spring or autumn, it is better to go in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

We therefore start the project in October or June and organize ourselves to finish the project and purchases in three months. The plants will then have to be bought when they are sold, in the sense that often those with winter or early spring flowering are sold in autumn and those with spring or summer flowering are sold in spring.

Everything must be coordinated. Planning is above all an orderly mental journey that amuses and satisfies and that must be enjoyed.

The videos published in the category will help you along this path TGi: il TeleGiardino

Garden design and construction in 10 steps, or maybe 11

Building a garden – Step 1: Take the measurements and make the plan

First you need to take the measurements of your space: the measurements of the sides must be taken precisely and you also need to take the ropes, i.e. some measurements on the corners to understand if they are at 90 degrees. 

If there are paths and paved areas that will not change those should also be surveyed.

To help you, you can consult the first of the video-tutorials that you find in the TeleGiardino category: “How to make a garden plan”

Building a garden – Step 2: Analysis of the exposure, positioning and composition of the land

The second important thing is objective data: exposure and terrain. These are constraints over which you have no power. You have to understand how the sun turns and how your garden is positioned with respect to the axes because not all plants can be in the north and not all in the south.

The terrain is also important. You need to understand what composition your soil has and to do this I refer you to the article “How to understand the composition of the soil“

To help you, you can consult the third of the video-tutorials that you find in the TeleGiardino category: “Evaluating the areas of shade or light”.

Building a garden – Step 3: Understand how to experience the garden

The third thing to do is more theoretical. For this phase, you sit down alone or with your family and decide what to do in the garden: sunbathe, swim, play cards, ball, basketball, eat with friends, etc. and for each action, a point in the garden is decided in which to do it, keeping the exposure in mind.

In fact, it will not be possible to decide to sunbathe in an area that is always in the shade. At this stage I would also decide what style I would like to give the garden: elegant, minimalist, shabby chic, etc.  

To help you, you can consult the second of the video-tutorials that you find in the TeleGiardino category: “Deciding what to do in the garden”

Building a garden – Step 4: Enhancement of spaces

In this phase, a tour of the house is done looking towards the garden and a tour of the garden looking beyond the property.

The tour inside the house is used to understand which points of the garden can be seen from inside. The tour in the garden is used to understand if there are things around the garden (outside) that I want to cover, for example a building, or enhance, for example a landscape.

To help you, you can consult the fourth of the video-tutorials that you find in the TeleGiardino category: “Views to cover or enhance”.

Building a garden – Step 5: Put pen to paper what your dream garden should look like

Among one of the 4 initial phases you can include a paper or digital photographic collage of plants, gardens and emotions that involve you. Looking at it, your taste and what you want will become clearer as well as being a good list of plants to buy later.

Building a garden – Step 6: The definition of materials, style and tasks

When we have defined all the spaces, we will then decide the routes to get there and in which material to make them. The choice of materials also depends on the style chosen.

The more elegant the garden is, the more certain things will have to be done by professionals. In fact, a gneiss path must be done exclusively by those who do this for work to avoid mistakes that are then difficult to resolve.

To help you, you can consult the eighth of the video-tutorials that you find in the TeleGiardino category: “How to pave the garden”.

Building a garden – Step 7: Establish the effective spaces and estimate how much it costs to do the work 

At this point it is necessary to transform these considerations into dimensions and insert them in the planimetry.

In this phase it is also possible to make an estimate of the costs of furnishings, paved paths and any swimming pool. The spaces in which we can insert the plants and also their dimensions will therefore become even more evident.

It is important to buy quality materials: the initial expense will turn into great future savings.

Building a garden – Step 8: The irrigation system from design to construction

At this point you have to design the irrigation system which is essential for taking care of your garden while saving water. In fact, it makes no sense to spend money and time to make a garden without making a serious plant.

To understand how to make the project, I refer you to this article “How to make an irrigation system: the project” while for the construction, I refer you to this article “How to make an irrigation system: the construction“. You will also find the related costs.

It is important to insert it even if it will then be used only in an emergency: it will keep your garden safe from drought damage and water abuse.

Building a garden – Step 9: Decide what type of plants to insert based on the spaces and exposure

In this phase the plants must be chosen and we will look above all at the size of these.

I’ll explain. Let’s take an example. Let’s say that we have a hedge around the garden and that we want to insert a flower bed in front of it. Let’s say we want to make a flower bed big enough to put a tree in it. Being about one meter from the fence, the tree will have to be small so as not to go too far beyond the property, and the plants below will be shorter, at most 80 cm and  they will hardly be full sun essences because under the tree they could have at least half a day of shade.

Building a garden – Step 10: The choice of plants

Once the size of the plants has been decided, you will have to choose them individually, but always checking their size and needs.

A hydrangea, for example – a partial shade plant – in full sun will have a much higher than average need for water and if not satisfied it will always appear to suffer. A maple will prefer a moist location. A rock garden will go in full sun and, if in the north, in a protected corner, perhaps in front of a wall.

I recommend: always consider the size of the plant at maturity, i.e. at maximum development!

Now on horseback! Work awaits us! Our new wonderful outdoor space is about to be born!

GOOD WORK and … if you have any questions please write to info@mondodelgiardino.com

For the Images we thank Pixabay and, in particular, Richard Mcall for the armchairs and swimming pool on social media, Anja for the garden in the header, congerdesign for the entrance to the garden, Manfred Antranias Zimmer for the Gazebo, Denise Husted for the window overlooking the garden, Simon for the collage of postcards, Ilona Ilyés for the path, StockSnap for the courtyard with swimming pool, Iman Nazari for splashes in the garden, Vegetal Sin and its marvelous production, casapratica.net for the hand full of earth.