This video looks in depth at finding ideas and inspiration for your own garden design.
It’s broken down into three sections:
- Garden Styles
- Activities & Features
- Resources
It’s a simple process to get the ball rolling and help you determine what you want to do or see in your backyard garden. It also explores what materials or garden design style you want to pair with your house.
There are two main resource options available to you when looking for ideas:
- Imagery: Videos or Photos
- Reality: The physical world around you
Images
You rely on Imagery to get ideas from places you can’t physically go.
Imagery is best found online:
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Design blogs
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specialty sites
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social media like Pinterest or Facebook
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Youtube
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Google Images.
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Videos
Videos are also good resources because they show the garden in motion. They offer viewpoints you won’t get from still images.
Reality
You rely on Reality to understand how different spaces and materials make you feel.
Getting ideas from Reality is very important. It gives you a better understanding of the size and scale of items. Things like furniture, trees, plants, and materials.
You also ‘feel’ spaces. When they are large, empty, isolating, and cold. Or warm, inviting, mysterious, and intimate. Some spaces evoke contemplation (like above). Others promote fun and play.
By using your body to measure a space you, will understand the what spaces you find comfortable. Then you can try to replicate that feeling in your garden. It also tells you what you don’t like – what to avoid.
Be careful of falling in love with generic ’38 Garden Design Ideas’ type articles. These articles offer “solutions” to problems, but are very inflexible. They don’t answer your specific questions. Or tailor the answer to your specific situation.
Use them to help generate ideas. But be sure to let your environment determine how they come together in your design.