Choosing how to landscape your garden

 
When deciding to landscape your garden there are lots of factors to consider, to help you achieve the garden design that best suits your needs.

Where does the sun rise and set in your garden?

Where the sun rises and sets can influence where you site patios and seating areas as most people would like to be sat in the sunny part of the garden. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west so, if you are lucky enough to have a south facing garden the sun will be on the garden all day. If it is north facing the garden may not get that much sun and it could be that the only part to get sun is the bottom. If that is the case you would more than likely put the patio there.

What garden styles do you like?

There are various styles of garden to choose from. Start by looking at the style of your property and think which suits it best. A stone cottage may well suit a cottage style garden using lots of vibrant planting, pea gravel and York stone paving. Modern houses may go for a contemporary style garden involving straight lines and dressed paving stones like granite and black limestone or timber decking.

Other garden styles to have a look at are formal gardens, Japanese gardens, tropical gardens, water gardens, informal gardens and herb gardens.

Do you have time to mow the lawn and look after plants?

In this day and age spare time is rare. Think about will you have time to mow the lawn, weed the borders and cut back those shrubs? Or are you looking for the low maintenance option so you can relax and enjoy your newly landscaped garden? If you want a low maintenance option you can consider using weed membranes covered by pebbles, more paving or decking and less borders and planting areas. If you are feeling green fingered and have time on your hands you could add large planting beds and lawns.

What materials and textures do you like?

There are lots of different paving materials available from manmade paving like pressed concrete to natural paving like granite, Indian stone, York stone, slate and limestone all of which have a varying look and texture. Other materials are available to create seating areas such as decking or aggregates. When it comes to walls you can use railway sleepers instead of brickwork to give your garden and softer feel.

Budgets – how much do you want to spend on your garden make over

It’s always useful to set a realistic budget on any home improvement project you may be considering. This way you won’t get carried away with your spending.

The most expensive part of a landscaping project is usually the hard standing such as paving and decking and the cheapest part being turf lawns. To give you an idea of costs you can purchase 10m2 of turf for the same price as 1m2 of Indian stone paving. So to keep your project in budget you simply adjust the ratio of paving to lawn.
 

Author Bio - Richard Barton is a landscape gardener based in Sheffield.

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