Why not try a chequered front or backyard?

One of the current trending designs in landscaping is the use of chequered patterns in your garden. It is not only stylish but a modern way of giving your garden that wow factor that most gardens lack.

Interestingly, the checkerboard design can be achieved using different materials with the use of hard and soft materials.

The hard materials include slabs, gravel and tiles of different colours while the soft materials include grass, flowers, vegetables and herbs.

“The slab and hard materials can either be rough tiles which are available in an array of colours, concrete slabs, gravel which is available in white, black, brown, and grey or mazeras stone which all make fine materials for the chequered garden,” says Michael Kabiah of Mika Landscapers.

Materials

Achieving the checkerboard design entails dividing your garden into your desired pattern and alternating soft and hard materials accordingly to achieve the required look.

Whether you are using hard material only or a mix of both hard and soft, the use of different colours will give you a checked theme.

“You can opt to use grass and slab or grass and gravel or substitute the grass for coloured flowers and kitchen vegetables and herbs,” says Kabiah.

A black and white garden can be achieved by the use of black gravel or slabs and white vegetables or flowers. A green and white garden will entail using white lime stones and the green can either be grass, vegetables, herbs or ground level flowers and plants.

Climate

The many coloured flowers available gives one the freedom to introduce a multi-coloured chequered garden, it can either be a checkered rose garden, tulips garden or yellow daisy garden.

He, however, says that the use of the materials will also depend on the climatic conditions of the area as well as the soil structure. In a dry area, gravel and succulent plants or small shrubs will do well.

Shape

Succulent plants make an interesting pattern for your garden if you use them for the chequered designs since they are mostly small in size and many varieties are used as ground level cover.

The pattern does not need to be square only and can be of any desired shape and size, from circles to triangles, rectangles and proportional designs. You can also alternate the shapes in your garden by using different shapes. However, do ensure that the shapes complement each other or you may end up with a cluttered look.

You can also vary the size of the shapes to make the garden more interesting for example the use of small and large rectangular shapes gives it a different effect.

A chequered garden also breaks the monotony of having a plain lawn and can be implemented on a large section of your garden, or various parts of the garden to form patches or just for the walk-way.

Maintenance

Maintaining the chequered garden is one of the reasons many will keep off this design of landscaping as it needs constant maintenance, keeping it tidy and also avoiding patches of dying plants.

Try to maintain the height of the grass and plants so that it is always well-trimmed. If it is a walkway, the grass should be of the same length as that of the slab to avoid tripping over while walking. The slabs should always be kept neat and clean without any spills or mud.

Whatever design you settle for, a chequered garden will always bring life into your garden and transform your drab garden into fab.