Growing Garden Structures - Planning Tips

Have you ever taken a walk through a well-made garden? These types of gardens are not only well tended, but there is also a noticeable structure. Small fences, fountains, or statues add to the ambience and beauty of the garden and may help to guide people along or attract their focus to an area. These garden structures are useful additions that add to the attractiveness of a garden, but there is one rule about structures in a garden. The more natural a garden is, the better.

This is why it is important to set your garden up for success and let the plants guide the person through the beautiful world of your bit of nature. The way to do this is to have a plan for your garden before it ever gets started. It's important to sit down with a piece of paper and outline how you want your garden to be laid out before you actually get to planting. Too often, people just want to go get 10 or 15 plants they like or find attractive and get to work planting them. This is a lazy thing to do if you are a gardener. If you were building a house, would you just go out and buy lumber, nails, and a saw and start building away? Of course you wouldn't, so you shouldn't do the same with a garden. Just like building a house, a solid foundation is the most important thing to get started. Figure out what kind of area and space you have to work with. You can leave room for expansion later, but for now, it is important to have solid boundaries.

Now it is time to determine the structure of your garden. You need to consider which plants should be in the garden, and where they should be positioned, to ensure that all of them grow well. It is important that you decide which plants will be harmful next to others, and which will compliment their neighboring plants. Most importantly overall is to build your garden so that it will become it's own structure.

If a wall must separate the walkway and garden, you should start with a picket fence or some artificial structure; then choose bushes that will be firm enough to trim into walls when they are fully-grown. Also, of those tools available, many are tailored to define which way your plants grow. For example, you can use a plain wire walkway to create an area for people to meander through, especially if you cover it with ivy.

Remember, nothing happens immediately. When you first set up your garden, it may look a bit cluttered, in spite of your best efforts to reduce that awkward look while small plants strive to take root. Once your plants start hitting their full growth, that unattractive stage ends and you can remove supporting structures to leave only nature. By the time plants have reached full maturity, you'll have an absolutely beautiful-looking garden.

About the author: Dennis Goinich and his wife wanted to do their garden structures right so they went to the Sacramento landscape architecture firm of Hall Design and started by looking at the online galleries of ideas from their expert Yolo landscape design. Hall Design took care of the whole process from design to getting contractor bids. For more information http://www.halldesign.info/