Garden Design and Planting Schemes
Planting design tips
- Try massing plants rather than have one of everything.
- Plant in odd numbers; though once you reach ten plants you can drop this rule
- Make a nice composition of plant forms (add a little variety by mixing different forms, yet make sure you still have repetition)
- Mix plant textures. Combine plants with large leaves and plants with small leaves to make your garden pop
- When choosing colours limit your choices by picking a theme (monochromatic colours, complimentary colours etc)
- Consider all plant heights.. especially those itsy bitsy plants (12” or less) for the front row.
- Plan for scale. A big house, for example, will work better with wider and fuller beds and tall distinctive, a smaller garden will work better with a series of more compact beds and lower height plants
- Fill your beds with plants! This not only keeps down weeds but makes your garden lush.
- Layer your plants. Why not have two, three or even five rows.
- If you have a long border to fill create a pattern with your plants.
- Consider winter interest too (berries, interesting twigs and bark, flowing grass.)
- Most importantly experiment and have fun. If something doesn’t work, try a new combination… until you fall in love with it.
