For many of us coming up with a layout for our garden is a speedy and routine process. In most cases we will go with the normal design conventions that gardens tend to feature (a patio, a lawn and perhaps some flowers around the edge) and will be happy to keep our garden pretty much the way it was when we moved into the property.

Of course doing this though means that we won’t be taking full advantage of the space, and would mean missing out on many of the great opportunities that a garden presents. Here then we will look at some ways that you can come up with a garden design that will be more creative and that will help you to take full advantage of the space.

Look Around

Of course the first thing you can do to get ideas for your garden is to look around other gardens. This will mean visiting friends, looking around garden centres, or just browsing images of gardens online in order to get a feel for the kind of thing you like and that you might want for your garden. You may find a garden that you want to practically replicate for yourself, or you might just spot particular features and items that you want to use instead. Either way, this is a great place to find inspiration.

Use a Mood Board

In any interior – or in this case exterior – design, a mood board can be a very useful tool for coming up with a design you’re happy with. Essentially a mood board is a collage that you create by taking images, photographs and words and attaching them to the page. This way you can start to come up with a general ‘theme’ that you want for your garden and start to get an idea of the colours, the features and the ‘style’ that you want to employ. If nothing else this is a great way to communicate to your landscaping contractors the kind of feel you want for them to work from.

Research

Researching what’s possible in a garden and the kinds of additional features and things you can get for them is another way to expand your horizons and to come up with new ideas. For instance you may never have heard of the ‘office pod’ which is essentially a pod that you can place at the end of your garden to create an enclosed working space. It’s very modern and very cool and completely changes the way you view what’s possible in your garden. Likewise researching the plants you can grow in your climate and your soil can help you to get a realistic idea of what you want to grow in your garden.

Sketch

Less involved than a mood board but just as useful is to simply sketch out some ideas, and as you start to find the features and the items you want for your garden you can use a sketch to come up with an actual layout and a plan for where you want them all and how they’ll work with your larger design.

Attached Images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source

Sharon King is a home improvement expert and says that it is a great idea to try new things while designing. She also says that you can take help from landscaping company while designing your garden.