Garden plan: I liked these 3 examples best

Do you need a professional for garden planning?

It is said that great gardens always spring from the pen of an experienced person Garden and landscape architects. This is a person who does nothing all day long other than tampering with other people’s gardens. It goes without saying that a lot of know-how goes into this, the many years of experience in the right planting distance, the best composition of the plants and the importance of light and shade are reflected in the work results. But shouldn’t it be possible to read up on the specialist knowledge and draw up such a plan yourself? After all, there are many garden plan examples to see on the net. The options are therefore as follows:

• Just approach it with heart and soul

  Thorough planning may not be necessary if you put your heart and soul into it. But it could be that the disappointment is great, the lost nerves are numerous and the plants are not very grateful for the space allotted to them.

• Bring in the pro

  The pro will fix it! He has the necessary experience and can carry out the detailed planning down to the last detail. He also offers the all-round service and at the end hands over a list of the plants to be planted. If necessary, the planting will also be taken over and you can make yourself comfortable in the newly designed garden. Without lifting a finger! But that costs up to four-digit amounts. But the thing has one big advantage: Any planning erroras a layman likes to do, will not occur.

• For 55 euros: Have the garden plan designed by the plant manufacturer

  Who would have thought? The plant manufacturers offer comparable services as the garden and landscape architects. And for much less money! For example, staudenmix.de has an offer for garden planning from 55 euros. Why is this so cheap? The specialist nurseries take over the planning as a service and do not have to finance themselves with it. You only charge a small administration fee. For them, the garden plan is more of a part of marketing, because if you have a beautiful garden and are asked who planned it, you can name the specialist company. Never underestimate word of mouth! I don’t either and am happy about the much lower price for a service that is just as professional.

• Draw your own garden plan

  Anyone who has seen enough garden plan examples can also get to work themselves. Just grab a tape measure, pen and paper and off you go! Important: Various points such as the type of plants (groundcover, group perennials, scaffolding etc.) and the site conditions are taken into account. This variant is of course even cheaper, but also has certain disadvantages. But it’s best to make up your own mind!

Garden plan: Examples show what is possible

My wife recently reported that her from our neighbor something had been reported. Our garden is known throughout the neighborhood to be unplanned, overgrown and loveless. Why? Because I imagined I had laid out a wonderful cottage garden.

Everything grows wildly mixed up there! Unfortunately, a planned mess is probably different than my wild chaos. Ambition has now gripped me: How can our garden become a green oasis? I have been told that a garden plan makes sense when creating a garden. This one is also one clever ideaif part of the garden has already been planned and can no longer be changed.

Now I was looking for examples for a garden plan. Since I didn’t find what I was looking for right away, I looked into it myself and wanted to create such a plan. This holds unexpected pitfalls, so much has already been revealed.

The perfect garden plan: Examples are not always transferrable

There are many different garden plan examples on the Internet. Unfortunately, these are always geared to the circumstances on which the plan was based. This means that the terrace in the example was right next to the house and not separately in the garden, and that no large trees or crooked corners had to be taken into account. This in turn means that most garden plan examples are really only to be seen as a suggestion. They cannot be transferred one to one, because there will hardly be a garden that is like a copy of another.

Where can you find examples of a garden plan?

You can just walk around the neighborhood with your eyes wide open. Which garden do you particularly like? For example, I was visiting my parents. You live in one District with many villas and appropriately landscaped gardens. Hardly anyone there creates a garden themselves and if they do, everything was guaranteed to be designed on the basis of a sophisticated garden plan! However, the examples can only provide a few ideas and suggestions, because of course they cannot be transferred to my garden. Another option is to get new ideas and tips from specialist books.

So I went to the library and borrowed some of these books. Not all contained what I had in mind, so I was glad I didn’t buy these books right away. That would have been expensive and sometimes unnecessary fun! Numerous examples of garden design can also be found at garden shows or on the Internet. Here are the possible sources of inspiration at a glance:

• Specialist books from the library or from the bookstore
• Garden magazines (print or online)
• Garden shows like GaLaBau 2022
• Explore gardens of friends, relatives, acquaintances or in other cities
• specialist gardening

Implement the suggestions from the examples for a garden plan

I have to say that the implementation of my plan to redesign the garden turned out to be not so easy. On the one hand there were the high standards, which incidentally not only came from my wife and me, but also from the neighbors. Of course, they followed our preparatory work with great interest and watched with amusement as we trudged through the garden with the measuring tape. On the other hand, there were the demands of the plants, which should ultimately feel at home in our garden.

As a layman, it is not at all easy to pay attention to everything related to site conditions, light and soil conditions and the ideal choice between seeds, bulbs, perennials and the like. Already at the beginning of my preparatory work, the offer from staudenmix.de came to my mind again. A garden plan from 55 euros … But I wasn’t ready yet and wanted to try it myself.

This is how the garden plan succeeds

First I got everything ready: graph paper and compasses, pencil and ballpen, colored pencils and circle template should be my helpers. Then I did the following:

• set scale

  I chose one Scale of 1:100 decided, that seemed sufficient to me. One meter in the garden corresponds to one centimeter on paper. If the garden is rather small, that one will probably do too 1:50 scaleat least I have seen examples in so many garden plans where this scale was chosen.

• Draw floor plan and objects

  The floor plan was difficult to draw at first and I was about to give up. But then I had the great idea and used Google Maps. With appropriate magnification, the Property boundaries are simply traced. Various objects were already recognizable there, so I simply transferred them to my sketch. However, I had to draw in the newly planted trees by hand. This is where the circle came into play. With this I first deflected an arc from measuring point 1, then from measuring point 2. Where both arcs met is the tree or the object to be considered.

• fix plan

  Now I have traced all relevant lines using the ball pen (Stabilo also works). The colored pencils were also used to mark certain areas. The lawn area, for example, which should remain so even after the new garden design. I also marked the place where the wooden bench and the new table should stand.

• Copy plan

  I have been told that it is best to copy the garden plan. In this way, changes can be made again and again and the plan is always up to date. That’s a good idea, because I don’t have to redraw it over and over again.

My design in reality

I have to say there were reasons why I didn’t become a landscape architect. Somehow my drawing didn’t look like my garden. Apart from the plants, which of course I didn’t draw in because they’re supposed to be in a different place anyway, the proportions didn’t look right either. Something had gone wrong. My design couldn’t stand up to reality, even though I looked at so many garden plan examples, processed ideas and considered tips! But now I was told that the specialist nurseries another big plus up our sleeve had.

You might as well just do that detailed planning do what should be even cheaper. If I had known this beforehand, I could have saved myself a lot of work. With this variant, the customer probably only has to design planning take over, which is child’s play with a completely new garden. All you need is the dimensions including the niches and corners as well as the fixed components of the garden.

With us, the position of the terrace is unchangeable, as must the large trees and the garden shed. Now comes the trick: the specialist gardening then takes over the detailed planning. The pros know their way around and know what shadows pose for problems, but also for opportunities. They can also offer tips on lesser-known plants, too butterfly perennials or onion plants, which do not have to be taken out of the ground every year. And the nice thing: If you wish, the perennials and other plants can even be delivered to your home ready to plant. I don’t even have to drive to the garden center and look for the different plants.

Creating a garden plan using a computer program?

I still had an idea: How about using one of the free computer programs with which the countless garden plan examples on the Internet were created? I tried it and I have to say the result looked pretty decent. My best friend also liked the landscaped garden very much. But when asked exactly from which direction he had to look at the drawing, I had to pass.

The computer program had led me to so many details in the planning that the resulting garden was not mine. Also, I have to admit that it’s really tricky to use at times because the software is made for landscape architects who know how to use it.

My conclusion: look for garden plan examples and have the plan designed

I had devoted a lot of time to the task of taking the garden design into my own hands. Unfortunately, the desired result never came out and my wife was already slightly annoyed. Then I found the offer for a garden planning from 55 euros depending on the effort on the net. Using this was the best decision so far! The costs are low and in the time I save because I don’t have to do my own planning, I can relax in the garden. Of course with my wife at the side who already dreams of our green oasis. And how our neighbor will look when she asks how we were able to finance this garden.