Planning a Tiered Garden

Creating a garden without a plan is like constructing a house without blueprints.  You may get lucky and wind up with something attractive and functional, but it's more likely you will scratch your head in hindsight, wondering why a door opens into a cabinet - or - in the case of a garden, why one plant overtakes a bed or fails to thrive, the colors don't blend, etc.

I have been ruminating about our yard for a year now.  And after sketching in my mind, I decided to put some ideas on paper.  So I drew the following:

There is a beautiful retaining wall in our back yard, which has a lot of potential.  There are plants on the middle and top tiers, but just grass at the base of the wall (which is not interesting and difficult to groom).

I know I want to keep the Japanese maple and butterfly bush, and I want to plant a golden rain/chain tree in place of a gnarly rose bush.  The rest is a blank slate.

So I made multiple copies of the above sketch to use as a template for coming up with several design scenarios.

As I sketched (both in my head and on paper), I kept the following in mind:

• Texture
• Color Palette
• Growth (influence of time on growth, spread, height)
• Hardiness Zone (for introducing new plants)
• Maintenance Considerations
• Seasons (visual appeal for all seasons)
• Sustainability (I wanted to use as much of what I already have as possible)

I spent Memorial Day Weekend implementing one of the plans, which I will reveal in a future post.

Comments

[Kristin Hutchinson]

Great sketch! I have to agree that the rosebush there has GOT to go (there was another one right across the steps - I forget if I tore it out or not, though? I always intended to!). They drove me nuts, in any case. I bet the tree there will be beautiful!

Also, the butterfly bush was from our wedding! We gave plants from my moms yard to the guests as favors!

[Hillary]

What fabulous history about the butterfly bush! I will take extra special care of it now!

As for the rose bushes... The other one is still there, and not by my choice. I have pulled several muscles trying to get it out on multiple occasions. ;)

I am going to post a photo of what I've done to the wall....will do that tomorrow evening. Can't wait to hear your thoughts...

Hope you're all well and enjoying this phenomenal weather. We can't get enough of it!

[Cristine]

Yay! I love the attention to detail. I agree that when faced with a total remake, its best to have a plan and a structure to work from - that is what I did in my yard a few years ago. Now we add things and move things and its ever changing, but the structure is in place.

Can't wait to see the new pictures.