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Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of garden and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. Most professional have some training in horticulture and the principles of design. Some are also landscape architects, a more formal level of training that usually requires an advanced degree and often a state license. Amateur gardeners may also attain a high level of experience from extensive hours working in their own gardens, through casual study, serious study in Master gardener programs, or by joining Garden club.
Elements of garden design include the layout of hardscape such as paths, walls, water features, sitting areas and decking, and the softscape, that is, the plants themselves, with consideration for their horticultural requirements, their season-to-season appearance, lifespan, growth habit, size, speed of growth, and combinations with other plants and landscape features. Consideration is also given to the maintenance needs of the garden, including the time or funds available for regular maintenance, which can affect the choice of plants in terms of speed of growth, spreading or self-seeding of the plants, whether Annual plant or Perennial plant, bloom-time, and many other characteristics.
Important considerations in the garden design include how the garden will be used, the desired stylistic genre (formal or informal, modern or traditional, etc.), and the way the garden space will connect to the home or other structures in the surrounding areas. All of these considerations are subject to the limitations of the prescribed budget.
Traditionally, garden soil is improved by amendment, the process of adding beneficial materials to the native subsoil and particularly the topsoil. The added materials, which may consist of compost, peat, sand, mineral dust, or manure, among others, are mixed with the soil to the preferred depth. The amount and type of amendment may depend on many factors, including the amount of existing soil humus, the soil structure (clay, silt, sand, loam, etc.), the soil acidity/alkalinity, and the choice of plants to be grown. One source states that, "conditioning the soil thoroughly before planting enables the plants to establish themselves quickly and so play their part in the design."Brookes, John (1991). The Book of Garden Design. New York: A Dorling Kindersly Book, pp.213. However, not all gardens are, or should be, amended in this manner, since many plants prefer an impoverished soil. In this case, poor soil is better than a rich soil that has been artificially enriched.Brookes, John (1998). Natural Landscapes. New York : Dorling Kindersly Limited, pp.54.
The main types of boundary within a garden are hedges, walls and fences. A hedge may be evergreen or deciduous, formal or informal, short or tall, depending on the style of the garden and purpose of the boundary. A wall has a strong foundation beneath it at all points, and is usually – but not always – built from brick, stone or concrete blocks. A fence differs from a wall in that it is anchored only at intervals, and is usually constructed using wood or metal (such as iron or wire mesh).
Boundaries may be constructed for several reasons: to keep out livestock or intruders, to provide privacy, to create shelter from strong winds and provide micro-climates, to screen unattractive structures or views, and to create an element of surprise.
Surfaces for paths and access points are chosen for practical as well as aesthetic reasons. Issues such as safety, maintenance and durability may need to be considered by the designer. Gardens designed for public access need to cope with heavier foot traffic and hence may use surfaces – such as resin-bonded gravel – that are rarely used in private gardens.
In Asia the asymmetrical traditions of planting design in and Japanese gardens originated in the Jin dynasty (266–420) of China. The gardens' plantings have a controlled but naturalistic aesthetic. In Europe the arrangement of plants in informal groups developed as part of the landscape garden style, and subsequently the French landscape garden, and was strongly influenced by the picturesque art movement.
Planting can be established by directly employed gardeners and horticulturalists or it can be established by a landscape contractor (also known as a landscape gardener). Landscape contractors work to drawings and specifications prepared by garden designers or landscape architects.
Light regulates three major plant processes: photosynthesis, phototropism, and photoperiodism. Photosynthesis provides the energy required to produce the energy source of plants. Phototropism is the effect of light on plant growth that causes the plant to grow toward or away from the light.American Horticultural Society (1980). Houseplants. Ortho Books and the Franklin Library, Photoperiodism is a plant's response or capacity to respond to photoperiod, a recurring cycle of light and dark periods of constant length."Phoroperiodism." The Merriam-Webster Dicrionary Online.
In some cases, the amount of available sunlight can be influenced by the gardener. The location of trees, other shade plants, garden structures, or, when designing an entire property, even buildings, might be selected or changed based on their influence in increasing or reducing the amount of sunlight provided to various areas of the property. In other cases, the amount of sunlight is not under the gardener's control. Nearby buildings, plants on other properties, or simply the climate of the local area, may limit the available sunlight. Or, substantial changes in the light conditions of the garden may not be within the gardener's means. In this case, it is important to plan a garden that is compatible with the existing light conditions.
A French formal garden or jardin à la française, is a specific kind of formal garden, laid out in the manner of André Le Nôtre; it is centered on the façade of a building, with radiating avenues and paths of gravel, lawns, and pools ( bassins) of reflective water enclosed in geometric shapes by stone coping, with fountains and sculpture. The French formal garden style has origins in fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance garden, such as the Villa d'Este, Boboli Gardens, and Villa Lante in Italy. The style was brought to France and expressed in the gardens of the French Renaissance. Some of the earliest formal of clipped evergreens were those laid out at Anet by Claude Mollet, the founder of a dynasty of nurserymen-designers that lasted deep into the 18th century. The Gardens of Versailles are an ultimate example of jardin à la française, composed of many different distinct gardens, and designed by André Le Nôtre.
English Renaissance gardens in a rectilinear formal design were a feature of the stately homes. The introduction of the parterre was at Wilton House in the 1630s. In the early eighteenth century, the publication of Dezallier d'Argenville, La théorie et la pratique du jardinage (1709) was translated into English and German, and was the central document for the later formal gardens of Continental Europe.
Traditional formal Spanish garden design evolved with Persian garden and European Renaissance garden influences. The internationally renowned Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, built in the Moors Al-Andalus era, have influenced design for centuries. The Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 World's Fair in Seville, Spain was located in the celebrated Maria Luisa Park ( Parque de Maria Luisa) designed by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier. Sevilla-Parque de Maria Luisa. accessed 8 April 2010.
Formal gardening in the Italian and French manners was reintroduced at the turn of the twentieth century. Beatrix Farrand's formal Italian garden areas at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., and Achille Duchêne's restored French water parterre at Blenheim Palace in England are examples of the modern formal garden. The Conservatory Garden in Central Park of New York City features a formal garden, as do many other parks and estates such as Filoli in California.
The simplest formal garden would be a box-trimmed hedge lining or enclosing a carefully laid out flowerbed or garden bed of simple geometric shape, such as a knot garden. The more developed and elaborate formal gardens contain statuary and fountains.
Features in a formal garden may include:
The earliest cottage gardens were far more practical than modern versions—with an emphasis on vegetables and herbs, along with fruit trees, beehives, and even livestock if land allowed. Flowers were used to fill any spaces in between. Over time, flowers became more dominant.Scott-James, The Pleasure Garden, p. 80. Modern day cottage gardens include countless regional and personal variations of the more traditional English cottage garden.White, p. 95.
The kitchen garden may be a landscape design feature that can be the central feature of an ornamental, all-season landscape, but can be little more than a humble vegetable plot. It is a source of herbs, vegetables, fruits, and flowers, but it is also a structured garden space, a design based on repetitive geometric patterns.
The kitchen garden has year-round visual appeal and can incorporate permanent perennials or woody plantings around (or among) the annual plants.
Signs near the plants usually provide relevant quotations. A Shakespeare garden usually includes several dozen species, either in herbaceous profusion or in a geometric layout with boxwood dividers. Typical amenities are walkways and benches and a weather-resistant bust of Shakespeare. Shakespeare gardens may accompany reproductions of Elizabethan architecture. Some Shakespeare gardens also grow species typical of the Elizabethan period but not mentioned in Shakespeare's plays or poetry.
The usual form of a rock garden is a pile of rocks, large and small, aesthetically arranged and with small gaps between, where the plants are rooted. Some rock gardens are designed and built to look like natural of bedrock. Stones are aligned to suggest a bedding plane and plants are used to conceal the joints between the stones. This type of rock garden was popular in Victorian times, often designed and built by professional landscape architects. The same approach is sometimes used in modern campus or commercial landscaping, but can also be applied in smaller private gardens.
The Japanese rock garden, in the west often referred to as "Zen garden", is a special kind of rock garden which contains few plants. Some rock gardens incorporate bonsai.
Rock gardens have become increasingly popular as landscape features in tropical countries such as Thailand. The combination of wet weather and heavy shade trees, along with the use of heavy weed mats to stop unwanted plant growth, has made this type of arrangement ideal for both residential and commercial gardens due to its easier maintenance and drainage.
Native plants suit today's interest in low-maintenance gardening and landscaping, with many species vigorous and hardy and able to survive winter cold and summer heat. Once established, they can flourish without irrigation or fertilization, and are resistant to most pests and diseases. Many municipalities have quickly recognized the benefits of natural landscaping due to municipal budget constraints and reductions and the general public is now benefiting from the implementation of natural landscaping techniques to save water and create more personal time.
Native plants provide suitable habitat for native species of butterflies, birds, , and other wildlife. They provide more variety in gardens by offering myriad alternatives to the often planted introduced species, , and invasive species. The indigenous plants have co-evolved with animals, fungi and microbes, to form a complex network of relationships. They are the foundation of their native and , or natural communities.. Such gardens often benefit from the plants being evolved and habituated to the local climate, pests and herbivores, and soil conditions, and so may require fewer to no soil amendments, irrigation, pesticides, and for a lower maintenance, more sustainable landscape.
Planting style is bold but simple with the use of drifts of one or two plants that repeat throughout the design. Grasses are a very popular choice for this style of design.
Garden lighting plays an integral role in modern garden design. Subtle lighting effects can be achieved with the use of carefully placed low voltage LED lamp incorporated into paving and walls. With the combination of increasing demand for more efficient lighting, increasing availability of sustainable designs, light pollution considerations, and aesthetic and safety concerns, the methods and equipment of outdoor Lighting have been evolving. The increasing use of LEDs, solar power, low voltage fixtures, energy efficient lamps, and energy-saving lighting design are examples of innovation in the field.The Landscape Lighting Book
Some early residential gardens include the Donnell Garden in Sonoma, California. The garden was designed by landscape architect, Thomas Church, with Lawrence Halprin and architect, George T. Rockrise, which was completed in 1948. The garden is currently regarded as a modernist icon and has been applauded for its well maintained garden of its time. The garden was recognized for its unique and organic forms that represented a modern style of California. The garden is on top of a hillside overlooking the northern area of San Francisco Bay.
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