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 big 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).
Step 0 of building a garden: 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 “Designing the garden” that we will publish on youtube from Wednesday 04/26/23 will help you along this path.
Garden design and construction in 10 steps, or maybe 11
First step of garden construction: Take measurements and 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 video tutorial “How to make a garden plan” which you can find on the Mondo del Giardino YouTube channel.
Second point of garden construction: Analysis of the exposure, positioning and composition of the soil
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“
Third point of garden construction: Understand how to live 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.
Fourth point of the construction of the garden: The enhancement of the 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 and enhance them. 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.
Fifth point of garden construction: Put on 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.
Sixth point of garden construction: The definition of materials, style and tasks
Consequently, where to do what will then be decided on the paths 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, the more certain things will have to be done by professionals. In fact, a gneiss garden must be done exclusively by those who do this for work to avoid mistakes that are then difficult to resolve.
Seventh point of the construction of the garden: Establish the effective spaces and estimate how much it costs to redo a garden
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 plants can be inserted and also the dimensions of these spaces will therefore become even more evident.
It is important to buy quality materials: the initial expense will turn into great future savings.
Eighth point of garden construction: The irrigation system from design to construction
Once this is done, the irrigation system can and must be designed, which is essential for saving water and obtaining the desired results. It makes no sense to create a garden without doing a serious and well done 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.
Don’t make a garden if you don’t want to install an irrigation system.
Ninth point of garden construction: Decide what type of plants to insert based on the spaces and exposure
In this phase the plants must be chosen. The choice of plants, in the first phase, does not concern so much the choice of the single plant but the type of plant.
I’ll explain. Let’s say that we have a hedge around the garden. So the plants that we will put will go in front of the hedge. Let’s say we want to make a hail flower bed with a tree in the center. Being about one meter from the fence, the tree will be small so as not to go too far beyond the property, and the plants must be a maximum of 1.5/2m. tall so as not to cover the hedge. Lower essences will go more easily under a tree, but certainly not full sun essences because under the tree they would best have half a day in the shade.
Tenth point of garden construction: The choice of specific plants
Once the size of the plants has been decided, you will have to choose them by name, but always checking their size and needs.
A hydrangea, for example, planted in partial shade in full sun will have a much higher than average need for water and if not satisfied it will always appear to be suffering. A maple prefers a humid situation. A rock garden will go in a protected corner, perhaps in front of a wall and in full sun.
Always consider the size of the plants at maturity.
the garden world advice
Eleventh step of garden construction: Follow Feng Shui
During the planning phase, for the arrangement, also consider Feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of harmonious arrangement, to harmonize and potential the energies of your garden. In the article “Introduction to Feng shui” we give you some basic information.
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.