Planning Outdoor Gardens

Creating Design Programs for Home Landscapes

Sep 3, 2009

Before building a garden, homeowners should have a clear understanding of their needs and wants - their design intent.

A home landscape is a living thing, encompassing both art and utility, aesthetics and functionality. To ensure their landscape lives up to its potential, homeowners should think carefully about their landscape design - and the goals they wish to accomplish - before turning the first trowel of earth. Creating a design program is the first step in ensuring they get the landscape and garden they want.

What is a Design Program?

A design program is a written document that will help homeowners get a handle on their needs and wants as pertaining to their unique site. If homeowners look at garden design as a puzzle, then the elements, requirements, spatial definitions and materials used are the pieces that, put together correctly, make up the puzzle's solution.

Garden Planning and the Design Program

Garden design and landscape planning brings together the homeowners' design program with the realities of their property and works best in conjunction with a site analysis. Drawn to scale on a base map of the property, a site analysis is a study of the problems and potential of the homeowners' property.

Combining the results of the site analysis with the homeowners' design program is the first step in the landscape design process. This synthesis leaves homeowners with a clear understanding of the elements that should go into their garden.

How to Create a Garden Design Program

The design program is a useful tool, whether the homeowners are planning a flower garden, a backyard landscape design, or seeking a design solution for a total landscape makeover.

Homeowners should have some idea of what they find appealing about gardens in general. Driving through nearby neighborhoods and looking at the landscapes of other houses can generate ideas about how different plants work together, how spaces are defined, what materials go well with the architecture and with one another, and the sizes and configurations of hardscape, fencing and paving. Visiting garden centers and thumbing through garden catalogs and magazines is another way to mine for ideas.

Brainstorming the Design Program

Gather the family together, as every family member should have a say. Lay the base map with the site analysis out where everyone can see and refer to it.

Start the process by asking for input on the site's potential constraints. Maybe there's a drainage problem that needs to be addressed, or the neighbor's deck looks directly into the backyard. The site analysis may have identified some of these problems, but other family members may have different insights. Go over the entire property, from front yard to back yard, and identify problem areas, both aesthetic and functional.

Next, look for opportunities - positive elements that can be kept or improved that will enhance the design. This could be features like a beautiful mature maple in the back yard, or a great view towards distant mountains. Again, investigate the entire site.

Planning a Garden Starts With Asking the Right Questions

Now ask everyone how they would like to use the outdoor areas. Keep in mind how much it may cost not only to build the garden, but to maintain it. Think of both functional and aesthetic requirements.

Mom may need a flower garden for cut flowers, and a safe place for the younger kids to play. Dad might need an outside work area or a vegetable garden space. Little Johnny wants a basketball goal and room to kick a soccer ball. And an outdoor room for entertaining guests might be an appropriate use. During the brainstorm session, any idea is a good idea. In fact, using a mindmap format for brainstorming ideas can help organize the process.

Get everyone's input, and write down the desired elements. Make notes about general spatial dimensions (250 s.f. for an outdoor entertainment area, say) and material suggestions (brick, flagstone, etc.).

Typical Outdoor Uses

This list of outdoor use areas is by no means complete, but can be a starting point for generating ideas.

Landscape Character

While drawing up the design program, homeowners should keep in mind the overall look they want to achieve - either formal, informal, or natural - and what materials (hardscape and plant) they would like to use to achieve that desired look.

Creating the design program is an important exercise in identifying a family's true needs and wants. Coupling the design program with the site analysis is a necessary step in coming up with a solution to the landscape design puzzle.

The copyright of the article Planning Outdoor Gardens in Landscaping is owned by Richard Freeland. Permission to republish Planning Outdoor Gardens in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.