Planning Planting Process for Garden Renovation

Diggers Member:

Hi.

Can you please advise tips/book(s) for the Planning & Planting Process for Garden Renovation (House Built 1961) ?

The garden style we prefer is casual, small lawn area, hard edges around the lawn and relatively easy to keep tidy,  and not too formal with some lawn hard edging and steps. Provide a source of flowers for year-round display indoors and out-doors, trees providing some environment improvement, including seasonal house temperature improvement and associated reduction of power requirements, composting and worm farm operation, vegetable growing and a few fruit trees with sufficient produce for ourselves and any excess to family.  If necessary we are prepared to install some water tanks (our previous house had 22,000 litre capacity).

Any thoughts on the most appropriate process would be appreciated.

Thank you

Diggers Hort Advisor:

Hi Diggers Member,

Planning a new garden is always exciting.  If you wish to do it yourself, I would start by measuring the whole area and draw up a base footprint to scale (you may have one from the section 32 you could use as a guide) in texta so you can then draw over it in pencil and play with ideas that can be rubbed out.  Look at where the sun moves and remember winter sun is lower than summer sun.  Get to know your soil type, sandy, clay or something in between and when you dig, what is down a bit deeper so you may get a feel for how the area drains and where you may want to spend some time improving the soil with compost before planting.

Look at where you want a tree canopy to provide summer shade (usually on the North/west side of the house) and chose a deciduous tree for winter sun to be allowed through.  There are many smaller ornamental trees such as the Chinese Pistachio,Golden Flame tree, White Cedar and flowering pear that may not be too intrusive.  Have a look at our website or magazines for their full descriptions, heights and widths and take these into consideration when placing them.  I would draw the trees in first and then plan the rest of the plantings around them and the lawn area.  

Consider where you need access paths for access to the other elements like worm farm, compost and an area that will receive full sun for your veggie beds.  These can be all placed and then the remaining area can be filled with a mixture of evergreen perennials for permanent bones, and softer herbaceous perennials for fill and colour and movement.  Planting in clumps of 3 or 5 usually has more visual impact than single plantings. 

Clive's book was written specifically for Australian gardeners and covers a wealth of information about positioning plants and how each plant performs and its individual requirements.  It talks about season change and planning and might be a really useful reference for you. 

There are lots of other useful articles on the website for members only under the 'Learn" tab of the home page for you to peruse but I have placed some links to a few for you below.

Create a summer flowering perennial border

Learn about perennial flower borders

Planting combinations

Alternatives to natives

Choosing a colour scheme for flowers and foliage can help narrow down choices and starting to collate a 'Mood Board' with clippings from magazines of plants you like can be a good starting point too and something everyone can contribute to for discussion.

Select plants according to your climate zones Cold-4, Heat 10 to find ones that will be compatible with your conditions.  Consider having a drip watering system installed once the layout is completed to make life easier in the long run and reduce overhead watering which encourages fungal issues and evaporation.

Remember there are no mistakes and no perfect design.  Enjoy the process and take your time.

I hope that may have helped steer you in the right direction.