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Help with designing front yard
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Posted by navy_blue VIC AUST (My Page) on Sat, Aug 20, 05 at 10:23
| Hi
I have ripped up my lawn in the front yard(was all lawn) and replacing with stone/pebbles, bark and native plants. Just struggling to come up with a design and layout at present. Anyone have any good websites that may have pictures that can get me started here? After a garden that is quite formal (ie squares garden beds and square beds of pebbles, non cluttered plants etc).
Just cannot get the right style, I will know when i see the right picture.............Have looked around the neighbourhood and the gardesn are boring, so I want to make sure mine stands out.
Thanks.
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Help with designing front yard
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Try googling "australian bush garden designs". One of the sites I found indirectly through this is Greenmark Landscapes with pictures of some of their work. Their are also the Gardening Australia factsheets that pop up on this search which give useful advice if not many pictures. You could also try your local library for The Australian Garden: Designing with Australian Plants by Diana Snape or any other design book.
Hope this helps.
Ray |
RE: Help with designing front yard
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Oh navy blue, I feel your apprehension. The best advice I can give you is to go with a look that feels right to you. When you look at a photo of a garden, do you feel as if you want to hop straight into the picture? If so, this is what's right for you. If not, no matter how fashionable it is, don't go there. I think you may have posted on the native forum that you want a native garden. It can be hard to find photos of 'designed' native gardens rather than naturalistic ones, so you will often have to ignore the plants in the pictures and just concentrate on the design elements.
I would also advise you to buy a good reference book (if you havn't already), and research everything you buy and plant. Also, accept that you will probably make mistakes, and that a good garden can take years to achieve and never be finished.
Enjoy the process. |
RE: Help with designing front yard
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| The best design tips I have picked up include: No straight lines - all my garden beds and paths are curvy. The design I have in my front yard has a path which spreads from one end to the other and it is like a snail curve, and it is gorgeous. I have no grass, so the path defines different garden areas. Some design books suggest making paths disappear so that your eye can't see the whole of the garden, but with a small garden area, this is not always achievable. So instead, I use strong curves. Also, use a strong feature plant (either in form or in colour or in flowers) and use this to tie your garden together - so for me, I have used a hedge of westringia to tie my garden from one end to another, and used common planting throughout - this helps unify the garden. You can, for example, use a common ground cover that pops up everywhere. Plant in odd numbers. Strange but true. Groups of three look better than two. Tall plants at the back, small plants at the bottom - but try not to plant so that you block out all your sun. I hope these help. |
RE: Help with designing front yard
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Hi Navy,
My Uncle who lives in Victoria did exactly what you have done. He wanted to maintain a formal style garden and use purely Australian natives. What he achieved takes my breath away every time I visit Melbourne.
He took all the ideas from a traditional Japanese garden and used natives in the garden beds. Lots of pebbles rocks water gardens and ornaments. He also took some well known Australian natives such as callistemen, grevilleas, wattles and trained them or probably just hacked away at them and made them into mop tops or standards. lots of australian orchids etc. It looks absolutly delightful and the boronias smell too good to be true.
Hope this helps. Jacqueline |
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