Garden Design as a Vocation

Garden design is the art and process of designing the layout and planting of domestic gardens and landscapes. Garden owners showed an increasing interest in garden design during the late twentieth century and there was also a significant expansion in the use of professional garden designers. Some garden owners have enough skill and experience to design their own gardens, but this is comparatively rare. Sissinghurst, one of the most admired gardens made in the twentieth century, was designed by its owners: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West.
Garden designers usually are trained in both design and in horticulture, and have an expert knowledge and experience of using plants. Garden designers are also concerned with the layout of hard landscape, such as paths, walls, water features, sitting areas and decking.

History

The theory of garden design and landscape architecture can be traced to Vitruvius. Though he had little to say specifically about the design of outdoor space, Vitruvius put forward the influential theory that the objectives for all design projects are: Commodity (utilitas), Firmness (firmitas) and Delight (venustas).

Before the Renaissance, garden design was usually carried out by garden owners or by the professionals they employed (horticulturalists, architects, surveyors, sculptors etc). In China and Japan, gardens were often designed by scholars, artists, poets, painters and priests. In Europe, it seems likely that professional training for garden designers began in seventeenth century France. After the time of Le Notre it was accepted that both an artistic and a horticultural training were necessary. Various garden design courses were established in Europe during the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century many of them changed over to the teaching of landscape architecture. Towards the end of the twentieth century there was a re-emergence of university level education programmes in garden design.

Traditionally, garden designs were set out on the ground. With Renaissance advances in plan drawing it became common for gardens to be designed on paper and transferred to the ground using surveying instruments, including tape measures and theodolites. With the invention of Computer Aided Design (CAD) towards the end of the twentieth century it is becoming increasingly common for garden designers to work on computer screens and then print paper plans which are issued to garden builders. A range of CAD programmes is used including vector drawing software, bitmap editing software, 3D modelling software and animation software. Some of these programmes are able to 'print' 3D models as well paper plans.

Garden design courses

Education in garden design has emerged from the older traditions of training in horticulture and architecture. Horticulturalists receive a technical education with a scientific underpinning. Garden designers require a knowledge of horticulture and building construction but also require the skills in art and design traditionally associated with architectural education. This is often provided with a Bauhaus type art foundation course in drawing, painting and 3D modelling. Since garden designers draw upon the historic legacy of garden design they also require knowledge of the history of gardens. A garden design education can be obtained via a 3 or 4 year university course or by shorter, intensive courses, often run by private colleges, with a duration of around 1 year.

The Inchbald School of Design, in association with the University of Wales, offers an MA course in Garden Design. The University of Greenwich offers a Master of Arts in Garden Design and also an MA in Garden History. University College Falmouth also offers both BA(Hons) and MA courses in Garden Design. A number of part-time certificate and diploma courses are available at various private colleges in the UK, including Garden Design School and Merrist Wood College - both in Surrey.

Developing a Garden Design

Before the garden is actually built and planned, drawings would be helpful to formulate, express, and develop the sense of garden’s design. The schematic plan, which is the first drawing of the garden’s design, can be used to show the main proposed features and planting areas. It is a quick visualization that sets out the general and broad proposals for the garden. All subsequent drawings are usually based on this plan, so it should be considered important.

Selecting a Location

The main issue when constructing a garden is where to make it. Many of the great gardens in the history and today often include: a location that is topographically significant, a suitable microclimate for plants, a well-designed connection to water, and rich soil. However, a good garden design, which is well-planed and constructed, can boost up the value of the garden more than just its location.

Elements (Ingredients) of Garden Design

1. Conditioning the Ground (soil)

First, excavated subsoil and topsoil carefully need to be replaced; then, the soil should be aerated thoroughly so it can be crumbly by digging it. Also, "conditioning the soil thoroughly before planting enables the plants to establish themselves quickly and so play their part in the design."[1] Since “many native plants prefer an impoverished soil, and the closer to their natural habitat they are in the garden, the better,” a poor soil is better than a rich soil that has been artificially enriched.[2]

2. Boundaries

The look of the garden can be influenced strongly by the boundary impinges. Planting can be used to modify the boundary line or a line between an area of rough grass and smooth, depending on the size of the plot. Introducing internal boundaries, perhaps in the form of hedges or group of shrubs, can help break up a garden.
 Hedges
The hedges vary their colors throughout the seasons dramatically. The hedges, being strong features in a garden, are often used to divide sections of the garden. However, since they use the moisture and nutrient from the garden soil to grow as well as other plants, they may not be a good choice and may bring a negative effect to the other plants.
 Walls
Besides the boundaries that are made up of plants like the hedges, walls made up of various materials can be built between regions. There are broadly three types of walling material: stone, either random or coursed, brick, and concrete in its various forms. It is good to determine what color, size, and texture will be most appropriate for the garden before actually building the wall.
 Fencing
According to Brookes, fencing can offer an alternative solution, is the walls are too solid for the region of the garden. There are several numbers of fence types that can be used for a garden: animal-proof fence for country situations, peep-proof fences for the suburbs, and urban fences that provide shelter from the winds in exposed roof-top gardens and create internal barriers

3. Alternative Surfacing

Usually, a smooth expanse of lawn is often considered essential to a garden. However, a textured surface “made up of loose gravel, small pebbles, or wood chips is much more satisfactory visually” than a smooth surface.[3] According to Brookes, creating a relaxed feel to a garden is often done by loose surfacing made up of bark chips, pebbles, gravels; also, the various textures, shapes, sizes, colors, and materials of many different paving elements can contribute to making a garden plan pattern and texture, if they are mixed successfully.

4. Water

Water plays a very important role in the garden since wet conditions foster rampant growth of the plants. Water spigots and pipes throughout the garden are helpful in providing a wide range of wild life and plant habitats. The water pipes must be placed below the frost line in order to avoid them from freezing in cold weathers.

5. Garden Furniture

The garden furniture is available in a range of materials, and it may be more creative than without furniture and by making use of it. It offers to explore how things can be creative not just being visual in the gardens. The wood is the most common material to make the garden furniture. Besides the wooden furniture, metal can be sometimes a better choice than the wooden ones since it is more durable than wood. Also, more creative sources like plastic can be used.http://soils.usda.gov/survey/WSS-Brochure.pdf

6. Electrical Outlets

If there is a lead to the water pump or a fridge in the pool house, electrical outlets should be established so they can function in the garden. The cables for all these power outlets must be laid before the construction of the garden begins. At the depth mandated by local building codes, three romex direct-burial cables can be laid in a marked or known situation such as just beside a path.

7. Lighting

Since most plants require direct light for their growth, lighting is an important factor to consider when designing a garden. Light regulates three major plant processes: photosynthesis, phototropism, and photoperiodism. Photosynthesis provides the energy required to produce the energy source of plants. Phototropism is the effect of light on plant growth that causes the plant to grow toward or away from the light.[4] Photoperiodism is a plant’s response or capacity to respond to photoperiod, a recurring cycle of light and dark periods of constant length.[5]
In most cases, various types of lighting techniques may be classified and defined by heights: safety lighting, uplighting, and downlighting. Safety lighting is the most practical application. However, it is more important to determine the type of lamps and fitting s needed to create the desired effects.