Charlie Albone

In my previous blogs I have discussed base plans and garden styles; the next step to designing a garden is the setting out and laying down of key areas. These key areas will define what you want in your garden, examples are; entertaining areas, kids play areas, space for pets, swimming pools or water features. The list goes on and on.

The placement of these areas relates directly to the style of garden you want. For example with the placement of an entertaining space: If you want a wilderness type of free flowing garden then you may want to wonder through the garden before reaching the entertaining space, thus connecting you with the wilder greener side of the garden. Or if a formal more regimented garden is more your style then placing the entertaining space off an existing structure such as the house you will get the effect of the lines of that structure continuing into the garden and this will add to its formality.

To get the right placement of these areas you need to first sketch them out on a base plan. I find it best to come up with three or four completely different concept sketches. By forcing yourself to come up with different ideas you will experiment with shapes and scale. This will also confirm what it is you really want from your garden as well as (and as importantly) what you do not want.

During this process it is important to keep in the back of your mind the overall feel you are trying to achieve with the garden. Below is a plan I drew up for a very small internal Japanese inspired courtyard. The courtyard did not receive any traffic and was purely ornamental therefore there were few elements to incorporate. The scale of these elements used could be large to increase its impact.

The elements it needed were:
1. An impacting feature – the feature bench
2. Some water so the sound could be heard through the house
3. Softening of the hard hot house and boundry walls – The plant material and water feature
4. A Japanese influence – The pot and hanging lanterns as well as the bamboo and grasses

This process as a whole starts off with broad shapes and spaces and through the scribbles refines itself into a garden design. It is important not to rush this process and to question the placement of each key element as much as possible. The detail and refining of this is what comes next and will really add your personal touch to the garden.