Planting Plans
How to draw plans To make life easy, cut out different sized paper triangles and sketch different plant shapes on them: upright, spiky, domed, frothy, and so on
- Start to arrange them on a plan of the border
- You'll begin to see which shapes work well next to one another
- Do the bed bit by bit
- Triangles and pyramids work best for me
- Make different sized triangles: large ones for upright tree shapes, bushy shrubs and spreading perennials; smaller ones for perennials, bulbs and bedding
- Then it's a matter of putting the triangles together until the whole border is filled in.
Whatever kind of bed or border you're designing, it's a good idea to have a plan. It will save you time and money. It will also save you going to garden centres and buying a load of plants that you can't fit into your garden or returning when you find you haven't got enough!
Preparation
You don't need lots of expensive equipment to make a planting
plan. Just get yourself a decent sized sketchbook (A3 will
do), a sharp pencil and some coloured pencils, crayons or
watercolours. Most importantly, you'll need a rubber.
Think geometric
Sketch out your plan by drawing triangles of varying heights
and widths overlapping each other.
Triangles are the perfect shape for creating an interesting
composition.
Try to achieve a good balance across the page.
Sketch in the plants
Now sketch in the plants based on your knowledge of their
basic shapes, sizes and spreads.
Don't worry too much about detail for now - just fill in
the shapes with a variety of plant forms.
Start with a low mass of short and fluffy grass and then
contrast it with spikes and spires.
Colouring in
When you're happy with the range of plants and their composition,
start to colour them in.
Again,
you shouldn't worry about details. A blob of colour can
easily represent a flower when viewed in context with the
rest of the plan.
The bird's-eye view
So ther you have it!
Your border is almost ready to begin planting.
Now you know what it will look like from the side, it should
be easy to translate this plan to a bird's-eye view. Just
line up the plants and scribble away.
Colour schemes
We have compiled a range of colour schemes to aid you in
creating your own flower beds complete with lists of the
appropriate plants matching each scheme.
Please select a colour scheme from below:
|
|
Blues |
| Blues/Purples | |
| Greens & Blues | |
| Greens & Yellows |
|
| Yellows |
|
| Yellows & Oranges |
|
| Oranges & Reds |
|
| Reds |
|
| Reds & Blues |
