The Art of Garden Design

A beautiful garden requires artistic design and horticultural expertise to create spaces that look good and make you feel good!

Choosing the Right Color Palette for You!

Gardens serve as a vibrant extension of your home, creating an inviting atmosphere welcoming residents and visitors alike. When selecting a colour palette for your garden, it’s essential to consider how each colour reflects your personality and enhances the overall ambiance of your home. The interplay of colours can evoke different emotions, making it a crucial element in your design.

When selecting a colour combination for your outdoor space, it is important to choose options that reflect your style. Consider pairing deep purple with sunny yellow for a striking contrast, or opt for vibrant orange paired with calm blue to create a lively yet balanced atmosphere. Soft pink, accompanied by bold purple hues, can offer a playful and dynamic visual, while the classic black-and-white combination provides timeless elegance. Each combination can enhance the overall appeal of your outdoor area and beautifully highlight your home.

Embracing simplicity in your garden can lead to timeless elegance. For instance, a garden with an array of white flowering plants exudes simplistic beauty that is effortlessly chic. White flowers, such as hydrangeas, daylilies, salvias, and even the smiling faces of daisies, can create a striking contrast against the lush greenery, creating a welcoming environment.

In addition to colour choices, consider the layout and placement of your plants to create harmony and balance. Incorporating various heights and textures can add depth to your garden, making it not just a visual delight but also an escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Every detail, from the choice of blooms to their arrangement, should reflect your unique style and enhance the beauty of your home.

It’s okay to say, No!

Designing your garden can be a rewarding yet challenging endeavour! With a dazzling array of colours, styles, and solutions at your disposal, the possibilities are endless. However, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and impulsively purchase plants that don’t fit your vision. It’s okay to say ‘No’! Successful garden design requires control and planning. Creating a thoughtful plan before you start shopping will ensure that your plant selections align with your aesthetic and keep your garden cohesive and beautiful.

For First Time Gardeners

For those embarking on the journey of gardening for the first time, selecting plants that demand less upkeep is a wise choice. Consider embracing the graceful allure of ornamental grasses, whose soft, flowing textures can add movement and rhythm to your landscape. Alternatively, explore the fascinating diversity of flowering shrubs, bursting with colour and character throughout the seasons. Easy-care perennials present a fantastic option, offering reliable blooms and greenery year after year with minimal effort. These choices beautify your garden and provide a sense of satisfaction as you tend them.

Perennial Selections for The Sunny Summer Garden

In sun-drenched gardens, consider selecting vibrant perennials like the striking daylily trumpet-shaped blooms or the cheerful coneflower with its daisy-like petals that attract bees and butterflies. Perennial geranium offers soft cascades of colour with its long bloom time, while the aromatic foliage of salvia adds a delightful fragrance and colour to the mid-summer garden.

Adorned with vibrant clusters of blossoms, Summer Phlox brings an enchanting splash of colour to any garden, especially when paired with the radiant coneflower. For a bold showcase of mid-to-late summer vibrancy, introduce the deep, warm golden-yellow blooms of Sullivan’s black-eyed susans. Additionally, the tall, stately purple spikes of Russian sage paired with summer-blooming ornamental grasses add a dynamic layer of texture and movement.

Perennial Selections for The Shade Garden

In shaded areas, transform your landscape with the lush, leafy hostas that provide a sumptuous green backdrop, complemented by the fine, lacy fronds of ferns that dance in the breeze. Delicate grasses add a graceful touch, their wispy textures swaying gently, while vibrant foamflowers bring bursts of colour and charm to the ground. These plants create a harmonious blend of textures, colours, and shapes, forming an enchanting retreat in the cool shade.

Keep it Simple!

Remember, less is more!

A cluttered garden can create a sense of chaos, so I recommend a more harmonious approach. When designing a front garden, I typically choose five or six key plants, including vibrant flowering shrubs, sturdy evergreens, graceful perennials, and ornamental grasses. These are arranged in groupings for impact, creating a sense of unity throughout the space.

In the backyard, you can expand on this by incorporating evergreen or shade trees as a structural backbone. Pair these with grouped flowering shrubs and fill the remaining areas with colourful perennial combinations. This thoughtful design creates a vibrant oasis that invites exploration and delights the senses.

Prioritizing Low-Maintenance Plants

My client’s top priority when designing a new outdoor space is a low-maintenance garden. To fulfill this request, it’s essential to choose plants that remain visually appealing throughout the growing season while requiring minimal upkeep. I start by placing long-blooming flowering shrubs and structural evergreens to create a framework for the garden. Then, I fill the spaces with flowering perennials and ornamental grasses to add colour, texture, and shape.

Consider incorporating flowering shrubs like Bobo Hydrangea, Sonic Bloom Weigela, Glow Girl Spirea, or Bloomerang Repeat Blooming Purple Lilac into your new gardens. These low-maintenance shrubs have stunning blooms and will provide structure. With a quick trim in the spring and a bit of fertilizer, they are ready to go for the season!

Additionally, plants like boxwoods, yews, and cedars look great year-round; however, they benefit from late spring trimming to help maintain their shape. Don’t forget to feed your evergreen plants after trimming.

How I Design a Flowering Garden

I see garden design as the art of crafting a stunning painting, where every element plays a crucial role in the overall masterpiece. The vibrant play of colours and a tapestry of textures are essential to this artistic endeavour. Creating a beautiful garden begins with selecting a colour palette highlighting the client’s style and home. This mindful approach allows me to cultivate a design that is not only harmonious but also evokes a sense of tranquillity and delight for the senses, inviting all who enter to experience nature’s artistry.

Lexi Dearborn

The Gabby Gardener