Easy landscaping ideas for your garden

But there is nothing like teaching yourself and gaining the experience over the years.

Learn your plants

Perhaps a good starting point is deciding on the plants you want before tackling the design aspects.

Building up a good knowledge of plants goes a long way when designing your garden – their names, the flower colours, the variable foliages, their growth habit and the size they reach when fully grown, suitability for your particular climate and, of course, the category they fit into.

Are they trees, shrubs, climbing plants, annuals, perennials, succulents, indigenous or exotic?

There are a few steps to consider when designing your garden such as:

Choosing a style

There are numerous styles to choose from – Italian, French, English, urban, suburban, rural and many more. To enable a decision to be taken, you need to take into account the location, climate, soil type, slopes, if any, and function of your garden.

There is no use deciding to have an English-style cottage garden if you live in an arid area with little water for irrigation where rock and murram are in abundance.

Here in Kenya, we have extremely diverse climates depending on where you live. Even around Nairobi, there are big differences in soil types.

Function is important and needs to be considered carefully, as the garden for a family with young children will be different from that required by a top executive in his 50s who does a lot of entertaining.

Planning your space

There are two ways of going about the planning – the “drawing board” method, where your garden area and features are carefully measured and then plotted on to a large sheet of paper (graph paper is most useful), so that the hard and soft landscaping can then be drawn onto the plan; or, for those with the artistic eye, the planning can be done in the mind with perhaps a sketch or two, before setting out the lawns, hedges, flower beds, borders and the many plants.

Fitting all or some of these into your garden requires careful thought because, unlike anything that is planted, these features cannot be easily undone.

Soft landscaping should also be considered together with the hard landscaping. The lawns and hedges, the flower beds and borders, shrubs and trees make up this aspect.

As we are on the equator and the sun is overhead most of the time, those who want a beautiful, planned garden need not concern themselves with the problems faced by those in the northern or southern hemispheres.

What you need to know are the east and west directions, where the sun rises and where it sets, as these can influence the way you use the garden and how you layout some of the above items.

Creating structure

Having taken decisions on which of the hard landscaping items mentioned above are to be incorporated and where they are to be positioned, the next step is to decide the materials to be used.

As with most things there is a wide choice, for example the choice of materials to use for the paving, paths, steps and walls.

Whatever your location in Kenya, the choice is wide, as natural stone, bricks, tiles, concrete, pebbles, timber and much more can be found in most places.

Look around in your area to see what appeals and consider the cost, as this can be a deciding factor.

Plants and planting

Now the fun really begins as we all love choosing the plants for our garden and deciding the best position for them. The choice is infinite but perhaps maybe slightly reduced depending on the garden style adopted.

The decision on the tree species to plant is one of the first considerations. There is a move to plant more indigenous species and move away from the exotics, which have become dominant in many gardens.

There are many beautiful indigenous tree species that can cope with most climates and positions in the garden and nurseries are increasingly stocking more.

Colour is one of the most important aspects of gardening and can make or break your garden. Form, colour and texture are very important. Plant in odd numbers with groups of 3, 5, 7 and so on.

Parts of your garden can be in pastel shades to provide a relaxing atmosphere, while others can be vibrant with hot colours of reds, oranges and bright yellows.

Blues and yellows go well together, as does blue and orange. Don’t forget plants with scented flowers or leaves. Single specimens can be used for trees and the dominant shrubs.

Have fun and enjoy watching your garden take shape and form and don’t be afraid as plants in the wrong place can usually be moved and new ones planted.

[email protected] Website: www.plantsgalore.co.ke