Designing a garden or planting bed can be a daunting project without the knowledge of where to start. These steps can help you develop a successful planting design for your garden the first time around. And if you’ve taken these steps, we can give you optimal assistance when you come to Harlequin’s for your plants, soils and products. Please note that larger spaces, new builds or landscapes that need full renovations will need more preliminary work to determine placement of areas for people moving through the yard, retaining or screening views, hardscape design (patios & walkways) and other important planning steps.
1. Explore inspirations and identify goals: Explore books, especially by locals: Denver Botanic Gardens, Plant Select, Lauren Springer, Kenton Seth, Marsha Tatroe, Denver Water. Explore public and private gardens by visiting botanic gardens, attending garden tours and walking neighborhoods. Establish your goals and purposes – attracting and supporting birds? Pollinators? Beneficial insects? Maximum food and/or medicines? Privacy? Year-round interest? Shade? Meditation? Low maintenance.
2. Measure the space you want to design to get a square-footage figure. (length x width = area or sq. footage). If the area is curved or irregular, use strings tied to stakes to outline rectangular areas that approximate the overall shape, then measure and multiply each and add together for a total.
3. Gather information regarding sun exposure: in CO, 6 hours of direct sun is considered “full sun” for plants. Note whether any trees that will be leafing out in the spring will impact your current full sun area, perhaps creating part- or full shade. An area that is shady in the winter may have direct sun in the summertime due to the changing seasonal angle of the sun.
4. Find out what number the USDA Cold-Hardiness Zone map designates for your location. Most plant descriptions include a number assigned by the USDA, and though they are not 100% correct, knowing the winter temperature limitations can save you many disappointments. Check the USDA map for your community’s cold-hardiness here. The lower the number, the more limited the plant palette.
5. Decide on the level of maintenance and the amount of watering you can provide.
6. Take note of what pleases you in gardens/landscapes you’ve seen: certain colors, specific plants or landscapes you’ve noticed that you enjoy, or styles you would like to emulate. Photos, Pinterest (or other gardening sites) public gardens & landscape books are all great resources for ideas and directions for your design. If possible, determine the geographic locations and climate zones of the examples you like. If you already have some ideas for which plants, colors or styles you may want to include in your design, start a list or spreadsheet with sections for
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- Groundcovers (under 12” tall) and Perennials
- Vines
- Grasses
- Shrubs
- Trees
- Meadow
And note the full-grown width of these selections and the sun/shade exposure as well as water needs. You may want to visit a nursery or look at plant catalogs to gather plant ideas.
7. Group plants together based on sun & water needs. Some plants need little to no water once they are established, others prefer more water. Whether or not you have an irrigation system, you will need to group plants with similar water needs together in the same area. Our plants at Harlequin’s have symbols on the information signage indicating their moisture & sun exposure requirements as well as other information like size, bloom time, etc…
8. Plant placement: Think about placing smaller plants towards the front of the planting area and the larger shrubs or trees towards the back of the planting area generally. If designing a space you will be moving through, rather than viewing from outside, consider breaking that ‘rule’. It may help to look at visual examples of designs at Plant Select (plantselect.org) and at Resource Central’s Garden-in-a-Box program. These visual layouts can be helpful to organize your ideas for your own design and to think about optimal plant placement.
9. Generally, using odd numbers of plants is more dynamic and pleasing to our eyes. Additionally, using groupings of 3 or 5+ of a perennial plant, grass or shrub will have more visual impact than 1 or 2 of many different types of perennials or shrubs. Massing plants in this way creates more cohesive designs and provides better habitats for pollinators as well. Massing will also make any care/maintenance for your garden easier, as tasks will be grouped by plant type.
10. Figure out how many of each plant you will need based on the full-grown sizes of the plants you’ve chosen. You can sketch a drawing to scale with circles representing your plants. Try using a ¼” = 1’ scale to keep your drawing size easy to work with. For instance, if you have a shrub that is 4’ wide at full maturity, on your drawing it can be represented by a circle 1” in diameter with the scale of ¼” = 1’. Scale your other plants appropriately for a representative drawing of your design. Graph paper can work well for sketching at scale.
11. Make a list of your final selection of plants (and acceptable substitutes) and note the quantity of each needed.
Now you are ready to start buying your garden plants!
If you want to hire someone to help you complete the process, you can refer to our listing of local gardeners, maintenance folks & landscape designers who can assist you with your project, in our website Resources here