I posted another topic earlier, but no one responded, so I'm trying again!! We've just purchased our first home, we move in 2 weeks (I'm sooo excited!!!). The house is almost in the middle of the lot, so we have 4 yard spaces to work with. To plan my garden should I start with one spot and work my way around? Or, should I try to make a plan on paper and go from there? How do you decide where a flower bed will look best and what shape to make it? Is it easier on the eyes to coordinate the colours of the plants, or does anything go?
Help!!!!!
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Your persistence will pay off in the garden!
Just a thought - when you plan the whole thing on paper, start with a few trees and shrubs. They will provide the basic "bones" of the garden, and act as background to the perennials and annuals, as well as showing some shape when everything else is covered with a blanket of snow. They can provide screening of things you don't want to see looking out of your yard, and privacy from people looking in. You may want some shade from the hot summer sun, and shade gardens can be wonderful - there's lots of information out there about gardening in shade. Happy planning!
Glad it's working! We were just at the house last night. The current owners wanted to show us where the water and gas mains are, as well as the septic bed etc. She only has the two beds in the front of the house, under the windows, and the vegetable patch over the septic bed. So I pretty much do have a clean slate to work with.
I guess this picture was taken some time ago. Only the beds under the windows exist now.
Hi! I figured it out! Persistance does pay off, hopefully the same is true with gardening! This is my "drawing" of our yards layout. It, obviously, isn't to scale. The property is 66ft X 120ft if that helps to visualize.The brown square, with the line on it, is the swing set. the reddish circle is the fire pit. The cream coloured square is the shed. The 2 green circles to the left of the shed are pine trees. the purple circle in the front yard is a lilac. the turquoise squares in the front are horse shoe pits. I've put red lines where the doors are and light blue for windows. The brown square attached to the back is the deck and the grey beside it is a concrete slab patio. The fence, in grey, is chain link.
There are 2 gate in the fence both in dark blue. The brown rectangle on the left side is a smaller deck for the side door.
again
crossing my fingers! No luck,
of the yards layout for you to see. Well this one didn't work!!
Hope it works! Nope. I can get the pic. onto the site but it goes on as a link. When I open the file it's in picture viewer and other things that I've been looking at online (or my C/L husband, think-inappropriate) are there for viewing too! Does anyone know how to prevent this? Why do some pic's go on fine and not others?
Maybe I'll try again though!
I check back now and again.
Computers can be very frustrating, cant they?
once more
amy79, I'll try to help out. Send the original pic to webmaster@canhomepub.com and I'll see what I can do.
Cheers,
Jason
Crossing my fingers! Nope! Every time I try to attach a picture it posts as an item to click and open, then ther are all these pictures of stuff from the internet that are inappropriate on there too! How do I fix this problem???
This one should be clearer,if it works. It didn't work.
Hope this works! I had to take a picture of me holding the picture to get it to work so it is a bit fuzzy. The current owners have redone the siding since this was taken so it's all cream.
hi
here goes
a picture of the house.
I finally figured out how to shrink the byte size! I'm going to try to attach some photo's for you to see. I'm also trying to draw a picture of the properties layout.
That is picture is somewhat distorted (shrunk) that "walkway" is the driveway. I tried to post a better picture but I can't get the them small enough (in bytes). Do you know hpw to do that? It's a gravel drive so I could probably extend it to the left and put in a bed along the house.
looks like it has lots of "cottage" potential! I wonder if it is possible to create a bed between the walkway and the house? It would be best if you could move that walkway some distance from the house. I think it would be nice to see some tall plants right along the foundation - you could plant gladioli bulbs right away, for flowers later in the summer. Some delphiniums grow 5 feet tall, keep them in mind, too.
Some flowering, climbing plants would be great too. With that cottage feel, if I were you I would be very tempted to begin a collection of climbing roses to grow up along the sides of the house, or clematis (or both?). Plants are expensive, so if you like the idea of climbers, you could start sweet peas from seed and have those until you can fill in with the pricier climbers!
If you have a survey or Real Property Report, you could photocopy and enlarge it, so that you can use it as a basis for your plan. Then you would have the property lines, dimensions and permanent structures laid out for you. You could "draw" different garden plots and paths on copies of the plan to see how everthing fits together. I think curving beds would be great. I would try consulting someone at your best local garden centre. Bring your plans! Lots of people that work at garden centres are trained or at least ar very dedicated garderners. You might get some really great free advice.
You will love your new home even more when you can surround it with flowers. Maybe you can make beds for the kids, for flowers or veggies, according to their interests. Little ones like to watch things grow and you might find that capturing their interest will buy you some time to work on your own beds.
Post a plan, if you can!
here's a picture of the house, the angle it was taken on makes it look too narrow.
I don't know about envy! I think I have my work cut out for me (not easy with 3 young boys!). Thank you very much for the good advice, I really appreciate it. I'll post some pictures of the house and a drawing of the layout of the property for you to see. It has a lot of "country-cottage" potential!
I think it looks nicest if a garden is "all pastels" or "all brights" - I couldn't stand to limit myself to too few colours! If you are starting from almost nothing, you could chose perennials on that basis. I would look to the colours of the house to decide whether brights or pastels would look best.
If you already have beds, and the angular shapes look wrong, then you should change them to curvilinear. Again. I would look at the house - I like to see curved beds with country styles, angular with more contemporary houses. You will need to decide if you will "hardscape" the beds (using rocks, wood, bricks etc... to outline the shape of the bed) or if you will just cut the sod. My suggestion would be to match the hardscape material with finishes on the exterior of your home. I would definitely start on paper!
You need a good book on perennials to help you choose the right ones for your zone and the varying exposures the different beds have. I think it helps to try to find a book written by someone local, if at all possible. A good book will give advice on organizing your plantings as well as advice about plants. I don't think you should fill one bed before you move to the next. I would "hardscape" everything first, then start shopping for plants. Remember the rule that repetition unifies everything!
I am envious. I would like to start with a clean slate!
Wouldn't that be nice! Unfortunately, that isn't an option for me. Are there any good books that teach beginner gardening design? The home isn't new so there are quite a few things to work with/around, like a shed, horseshoe pits, a jungle gym. There's also a large bed I would assume was a veggie patch, along with other border type (think big rectangles) around the house. From the pictures I've seen of last summer, the gardens are sparse and not very attractive.
a person starting with a clean slate might want the help of a landscape designer. They could create the plan, you can execute it, over time if need be.