Planning a new garden can be both exciting and daunting. Your garden should reflect your personal style, complement the aesthetics of your home, and convey the message you want to share. Are you aiming for a friendly, welcoming space, or perhaps a tranquil white garden? Maybe your dream is a vibrant garden filled with colorful flowering perennials.
Maintaining a new garden is crucial for its success. Regular tasks such as weeding and watering must be performed consistently. It’s important to remember that a new garden needs dedicated maintenance during its first two growing seasons.
What do you need to know?
Garden size matters!
Creating a new garden much like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We want a garden that is just the right size—not too big and not too small. A garden that is too large requires more plants, which means additional costs, time, and maintenance. Conversely, if the garden is too small, the new plants may outgrow their space within a few years. This is a common mistake, especially when evergreens are planted too close to the house in a narrow garden. Just as Goldilocks found what was right for her, you can create a garden that is perfect for you!
How to make it happen!
A garden hose is one of the best tools for planning a new garden. Lay the garden hose on the ground and shape it to visualize the layout of your garden space before you start digging. Take a moment to view the layout from a distance; stepping back can provide you with a fresh perspective. Does the garden fit well within your yard? If you need to adjust the size of the garden, simply move the hose.
What’s your style?
Cheerful and welcoming cottage gardens feature flowering shrubs, evergreens, and colourful perennials, creating an effortless and carefree atmosphere. Choose plants you love and arrange them in your garden while leaving room for growth. Mixing and matching colours and textures is ideal for this style.
A white garden, on the other hand, offers a more formal aesthetic and can be a great addition to your front yard. Creating a white garden is straightforward; simply select plants that produce white flowers. Some excellent choices include hydrangeas, serviceberry, magnolia, roses, daylilies, daisies, coneflowers, iris, peony, anemone, and candytuft. To enhance the design, incorporate evergreens like tall, narrow cedars alongside broadleaf evergreens like boxwood or inkberry. This way, you will achieve a simple yet beautiful white flowering garden.
Shop through the season!
You have permission to visit the garden center more than once each season! Shopping for plants can be enjoyable, but keep a few things in mind. If you want your gardens to bloom throughout the season, you need to shop at different times throughout the season. Growers usually release plants to garden centers when they are in bloom, as most customers buy them then.
If you purchase your new plants only in the spring, your gardens will primarily bloom in the spring. On the other hand, if you shop during the summer, fall, and spring, you’ll be able to find plants that bloom in all seasons. For example, peonies are typically available and blooming at local garden centers in the spring, while coneflowers are in bloom during July and August. On the other hand, daylilies are only foliage in May, but they are in bloom in June and July. Selecting flowering shrubs in late fall or early spring could be just twigs in a pot of soil with no foliage or blooms. By shopping throughout the growing season, you can see the plants in full bloom, giving you a sneak preview of how they will look in your garden.
I suggest you plan your new garden now. However, you won’t. Most new home garden plans are created as you shop and see something you like, so you pick it up. Or you see a garden design at a neighbour’s home you really like, so you take pictures and use it as the base for your new gardens. It’s okay to steal garden ideas! Even the most seasoned garden designers do!
Lexi Dearborn
The Gabby Gardener
February 2025