Retreat to a garden and patio design that’s beautiful year-round, and takes minimum fuss. What makes this possible? Carefree plants with continuous blooms, and a well-planned garden structure.

You don’t need to be a lawn and garden expert or landscape designer to do this. Here are a few tips for creating a super yet simple garden and patio design that will be a knockout!

The first step is to take a birds-eye view of your garden and patio area. Make a rough sketch of your space, and play around with a few designs until you like what you see. As you’re doing this, get some great ideas from existing garden and patio decorations. Pay a visit to other people’s gardens, or public gardens. Look through home landscaping and gardening magazines, find what you like, and develop plans of your own.

Decide what style or theme is right for you… formal, casual, rustic, Southwestern, Japanese… there are enormous possibilities. Then stay with that style and theme so the overall effect does not become confusing. For instance, you wouldn’t want to combine bronze garden sculptures of saints or cherubs with rustic wooden wagon wheels.

Imagine what your patio area will most often be used for. You may plan to entertain lots of outdoor dinner guests. If so, be sure your patio space has plenty of room for the largest number of people right from the beginning. Your patio may be more of a private, reflective retreat for enjoying the sun, reading a book, or gazing up at the stars. Determine the use of shade, open sun, or even covering it with a roof.

Now take your favorite ideas and put them into your rough plans – and soon you’ll have a design that is ready for action.

The next step is to create your garden and patio design to scale – you can use landscaping software for this, or do it by hand. Choose the flowers you intend to plant, noting how many you will need for each month of your growing season, and select the landscaping structures that will give your design its form.

Some say the secret to a beautiful garden and patio design is having a good amount of hard structure. This is what landscape designers refer to as good bones – walls, fences, garden bridges, gates, garden arbors, landscape statues, garden fountains … even a strong line of evergreen plants.

Garden structures such as these create forms and lines, giving your garden and patio design definition and dimension. Plus, in the winter when most plants are empty and bare, your garden will preserve its shape and sense of completeness. It’s amazing how just one or two structures can produce this satisfying effect.

Most garden and landscaping structures are built to withstand the elements. Treated pine, cedar and teak garden furniture, trellises, arbors, and decorative fencing are great choices. Stone, copper, and bronze garden statuary will never let you down. Garden fountains bring incredible beauty and atmosphere to any garden and patio design – in fact, entire gardens have been built around them.

Next, choose annual spring flowers and perennial plants that will give you blooms from one season to the next. For instance, select carefree roses that need no pruning or spraying, and bloom continuously from spring through fall. Fill planters with beautiful blooming flowers such as Oriental lilies or verbena for different colors all summer long. Establish flower beds in corners or along walk ways. Always consider your local climate and plant according to the sun and shade needs of your plants.

As you plan your garden and patio design, create paths or walk ways that lead from one area to the next. Rambling garden paths are relaxing and charming… and if laid out thoughtfully, will be a big help to you as the gardener. Paths can be of stone, brick, flagstone, gravel, or mown turf, although grass paths require more upkeep. Garden sculptures or sitting benches thoughtfully placed along the way provide wonderful expression.

If you want garden and patio designs that are pre-drawn, there are ready-made plans available in books and magazines. This is another fine way to get off to a solid start. Use pre-made garden plans from start to finish, or incorporate parts of them right into you own creative plans.

Copyright 2006 Robert Mosse

Robert Mosse is a gardening and lawn care specialist and author of the Easy Lawn and Gardening Book Series. Visit Robert at Lawn And Gardening Tips for great gardening info… and get the free Guide for 101 Gardening Tips.

Price : $8.71

Product Description

Japanese gardens have a matchless allureso still, and with a profound sense of beauty. All the more amazing, then, that you can construct such a special place so quickly, with this guide to planning, materials, plants, pruning, and special additions. The transformation can begin in a single weekend with a miniature Japanese garden in an old sink for display on a balcony or patio, or with trellis panels made from bamboo. It takes two weekends to add a zigzag bridge as a centerpiece to an iris garden or to put up an arbor. In less than a month, you can enjoy a vertical garden on a sleep slope, a heart-shaped pool with rockery, waterfall, or tea garden. The work lasts only a short timethe pleasure, forever.

Ketchell has compiled a realistic guide to constructing more than 20 outstanding Oriental garden features. Detailed directions combine with impeccable illustrations, and Ketchells informed explanations of construction techniques, material requirements, tools, and equipment make even the most intricate design attainable.Booklist.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-06-13
The projects look amazing and I hope they will be easy for me to complete. I am thrilled with the directions and photos.

Review date : 2008-03-05
I’m not much of a gardener and it figures that I’d choose to want one of the more difficult types of gardens to design. This book presents different projects in an easy to understand format. It lists the supplies, types of plants and spells out how to carry out each project step by step. You may need other references too but this one is a good book to have. Good illustrations too.

Review date : 2007-03-19
I love japanese gardens but this is not so easy. Great pictures and great ideas but I’m not very handy. I wish it was made a bit easier to follow. Some supplies are not easy to find in my area. But great ideas anyway.

Review date : 2003-04-21
A great run down on the essentials in a Japanese garden. From plants to design and bamboo. A great book for how-to water features and more. A great book.

Price : $9.49

Product Description

Putting delicious food on the table doesn’t get more fulfilling-or fresher-than this!Whether you have a tiny rooftop plot or a serious chunk of dirt, The Edible Garden is packed with practical advice for designing a horticultural haven that’s as tasty as it is beautiful-just think of it as art you can eat! This appealing text covers tried-and-true methods as well as more avant garde approaches to growing herb gardens, vegetable plots, fruit trees, edible flowers, and more.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-11-23
If you want to grow stuff to eat, buy this book for quick reference. It is excellent as are almost all Sunset gardening books.

Review date : 2008-07-24
I have LOTS of garden books. I LOVE to garden, especially to vegetable garden. This book has great pictures of fruit, vegetable, and herb plants that really inspires you to make your garden not only functional, but beautiful too. I feel that this book is a great addition to my library and plan to reference it many many times in the future. Because of the size of the book, it can’t go into alot of specifics about regional issues (I’m in the deep south and this can make a huge difference in what I can and cannot plant and when) although it does give basic overviews of plant preferences and maps of freeze dates etc. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much detail the book goes into on planting methods, pest problems (with lots of good up-close pictures), and other gardening topics. Great book for any fruit and vegetable gardener to add to their collection!

Review date : 2007-02-21
I am gardener in South Louisiana and though some of the cultivars mentioned in this book are difficult to grow here there are many that will work in the south.

This book is full of projects, information on cultivars, diseases, and things to plant in different seasons. Great photos too!

RH

Review date : 2006-07-08

Whether you are a master gardener or a beginner, this book would make a fine addition to your library. It is an excellent "how-to", with many color photos (distant and close-up for detail) and nicely-done illustrations.

No, this is not a "hoity-toity" book that is out of most working peoples’ price range – it covers the spectrum of gardeners out there, from the most independent "do-it-yourselfer" to those who want to give ideas to their contractor or hired gardener.

The topics cover not only traditional "in ground" gardening but also touch on urban gardening, raised bed and container gardening, not to mention cold frames and overwintering non-zoned plants. Speaking of traditional gardening, this book also covers innovations for traditional beds; my favorite being
a grid-shaped trellis for keeping the Asparagus bed neat.

The book also touches on:

* Making a "formal" garden with edibles;

* Edible flowers and scented edibles;

* Beneficial insects;

* How to make chidrens’ garden spaces (and how to get the kids involved);

* Making attractive but still very functional critter-proof fencing (deer and groundhogs, to name a few); and

* How to overwinter non-hardy plants and trees, especially in regards to growing container citrus trees.

If you’re just starting out into gardening, this would be a "must-have" book for you. If you’ve some gardening experience under your belt, this is still an excellent book to have as it has innovative but still very useful and functional ideas for your garden and yard.

All in all, five stars for the book. I just wish it was longer – 192 pages was just a teaser.

Review date : 2006-06-05
I’ve looked at a lot of gardening books in my day, and this one is the best I’ve seen for growing herbs, fruits and vegetables. It’s thin and not a page is wasted.

The bulk of the book is profiles for different types of fruits/herbs/veggies, telling you when to plant, how to plant, how to maintain, and how to use in cooking. It also includes useful tips on everything from extending your growing season and getting rid of pests, to how to arrange plants and espalier your apple trees.

Fascinating and easy to use with beautiful pictures! I read the whole thing in one sitting!