Secrets of Good Garden Design - Part 1
4 questions to ask yourself before you start to plan your garden. With the garden season almost upon us, we had the opportunity to host a wonderful free master class event focused on some of the secrets to moving forward this season with ease and confidence. The genesis for this gathering was reflecting on some of the common feelings many of you have shared with us both privately and publicly.
An Invitation to Let Go
We know that many of you:
Have felt overwhelmed with garden planning
Feel the pressure to have a perfect-looking garden
Compare yourselves to other gardeners on social media
Don’t know where to start with the garden planning process
Our free master class was conceived to release some of these negative brain patterns and help our garden students channel their creativity into practical solutions for their gardens. We all come to the communal table with lots of habits both good and bad that we have picked up along our gardening journey.
As we anticipate the coming season, we want to invite you to shed your preconceived notions and expectations about what garden design looks like and to come into this new season with an open mind and heart.
To move forward with a clean slate we encourage you to ask yourself
What garden baggage you are bringing with you into this season?
Are you still miffed about a plant failure from last year?
Are you frustrated with an aspect of your current garden design?
Did you bite off more than was reasonable last season and did you feel overwhelmed at the work your garden was?
Is comparison the thief of joy and are you comparing your garden to someone else's in real life or on social media?
Leaning Into Your Intuition
Clarity comes sometimes when we least expect it, but it is also the product of setting intentions around our practices. In the case of garden design, leaning into our intuition and letting go of old ways and habits that no longer serve us can help us achieve more functional and rewarding garden plans.
Our garden visioning approach has been honed by years of working with students and clients to design functional and joyful garden spaces. Our goal is to:
Bring clarity and ease
Help you develop confidence in your garden planning abilities
Get you zoned in on what to grow and why
As part of our onboarding process with new A Year in the Urban Garden Master Class students, we review your intake form, vision and garden plan. We review and provide feedback to improve your unique and one-of-a-kind plan. If you are looking for support this growing season, we encourage you to consider joining A Year in the Urban Garden.
The 4 Questions to Ask Yourselves
We invite you to ask yourselves four simple 4 questions in order to start the process.
Question 1: What need do you want your garden to fulfil?
This is the most personal of the questions we ask our Master Class students and clients. There is no wrong answer and when answering you should fight the urge to quickly answer.
Our gardens can fill emotional, practical and aesthetic needs and desires. What words do you feel intrinsically represent YOUR space and your garden?
Question 2: Is your garden in alignment with your viewpoint?
Before you can start the design process, you have to reckon with your true garden desires. Are you growing the garden you want or the garden you're told to want? If in step one of this process you answered that you want your garden to fulfill more emotional needs, you might reflect upon what plants might support that desire.
For instance, growing herbs such as lavender, chamomile, mint and lemon balm might create a sensorial experience for Melissa that supports her emotional well-being. Whereas for Luay, growing Za'atar, heirloom tomatoes and basil might trigger a generational connection to the garden of his grandparents and make him feel emotionally fulfilled. Alignment and balance look different for each of us.
Question 3: Do you know your current garden situation/conditions?
The practical considerations of your garden space are often parameters that are set for which you have no control. These include:
Length of your growing season (your growing Zone)
Size of your garden
Some practical garden parameters have limited flexibility:
Amount of natural light (for instance you could prune overhanging trees)
Soil condition (possible to amend over time or create raised beds)
Budget
Some practical parameters are malleable:
Managing pests through integrated pest management
Improving yield through succession garden planning
Learning how to improve your soil and plant health by increasing the organic matter in your soil and mulching
Being clear on your existing conditions will help you craft a plan to address the practical strengths and limitations of your garden.
Question 4: How much time can you dedicate to your garden in 2023?
This question is one we all struggle with as time management is ever-challenging in these modern times. Carefully contemplating and answering the question of how much time you have to spend in your garden on a weekly basis leads to informed and thoughtful design. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers to this question.
Here are some of the common time constraints we hear from students and clients that we keep in mind when considering design:
Caregiver duties
Travel for work or pleasure
Having a 2nd seasonal residence (cottage)
Having to travel to reach your garden location
Having a physical limitation that restricts time/movement in the garden
Being honest about the time you can dedicate to your garden is one of the best ways to avoid feeling overwhelmed and defeated in the garden.
Now that you’ve moved through the four questions, you’ll want to consider the budget and some non-negotiables. We’ll save that for part 2 of this engaging series!
