Garden Layouts
Choosing garden layouts from among the many styles and types can be difficult. You can even create your own garden layouts using graph paper and pencil to note beds and planting schemes. You can choose a book of plans, a single plan, or a kit from a gardening catalog that includes a garden plan. The hardest part of garden plans and layouts is choosing just one.
Garden Layouts Overview
There are all sorts of garden layouts to choose from depending on the size, the style, and the type of garden you desire.
Vegetable Garden Plans
Vegetable gardens include small backyard plots, raised gardens, and kitchen or potager gardens. Vegetable garden plans typically group vegetable together by height, placing tall vegetables such as corn and tomatoes near the back of the garden and smaller ones such as lettuce and radishes near the front. Another method to create a vegetable garden plan is to use companion planting charts to group vegetables and herbs that support one another's growth together. This old-time gardening method supposedly results in healthier vegetables and abundant harvests.
You can find simple vegetable garden plans online and in books. Another good source is the County Cooperative Extension agencies. Your local horticultural extension office may have plans available in pamphlets or handouts at no cost, and many include vegetable varieties that grow well in your area.
Kitchen Gardens or Potager Gardens
Another common garden layout is the kitchen or potager garden. This mixture of vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit hearkens back to the time when gardens tucked near the kitchen provided the housewife with medicine, seasonings and food for her family. These gardens tend to follow a formal pattern for the beds with colorful mixes of heirloom vegetables and herbs interspersed with small fruit plants and flowers.
Flower Gardens: Sun and Shade
Flower gardens range from rambling cottage-style gardens to formal garden beds. Most flower garden plans are marked for sun or shade, with corresponding plants chosen for the available light conditions.
Garden styles for flower garden plans include:
- Historical gardens, such as Colonial, Victorian or other eras
- Sunny borders filled with perennials and annuals
- Shade gardens, with plants selected that will grow under trees and in shady spots
- Butterfly and hummingbird gardens
- Wildflower gardens
- Monochromatic color schemes, such as white garden or all-blue gardens
You can find garden layouts in books, magazines and online. Spring Hill Nursery sells garden kits which include garden plans for sun, shade, butterfly gardens or other gardens and all the plants you need to create the garden. The plan includes a little schematic with each variety of plants noted with a symbol. Check to make sure you have the right amount of garden space before purchasing such kits; you may need to buy two kits to fill a big space or choose another method if you have a small area.
Ideas for Gardens
As you can see, there's such a great variety of garden layouts that choosing just one for the garden is difficult. In fact, your garden may feature several layouts, such as an island bed filled with drought-tolerant perennials, a walkway with border plants, and a lovely butterfly garden. Decide first what the overall appearance of the garden should be. Do you crave the symmetry of a formal garden layout, or the blowsy carefree look of a cottage garden? Once you choose the style that suits your home's architecture and your own personal tastes, you can begin exploring the wonderful world of garden layouts.
Other resources for garden layouts include:
- Better Homes and Gardens, which offers many free garden layouts and plans for sun, shade and everything in between.
- The Landscape Design Site offers over 100 plans for the home garden.
- How to Design a Potager Garden which offers tips for creating a kitchen garden.
- How to Design a Butterfly Garden offers ideas to design a garden that attracts butterflies.
No matter which garden layout you choose or the purpose of your garden, creating a great garden begins with a plan. Design your own, purchase a kit, use a free plan or hire a landscape designer to create your dream garden. The choice is yours.
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