Possible sources of info: Chicago Botanical Garden Chicago Garden Show (held in March, so next year) What is the size of your backyard? You say you are new to gardening. Do you know how much interest you have? Just want things to take care of themselves with minimum maintenance, or are you hoping to dig and play in your new outdoor space? It can be very satisfying to work with a combination of plants in containers as well as in the ground in a smaller space. What else will you be doing in your back yard? Meditating? Entertaining friends? Will you need some sort of seating arrangement? It can be really fun to work with a smaller space. Still makes sense to start with a drawing. Since space is at a premium, planning it to work for you may be even more critical in a way. But keep in mind that this is play. You are just playing with ideas. Sit outside with pen and paper. Or pencils? Drag a chair out if need be. Maybe bring out some of the magazines and books from the library that show patio and townhouse gardens or small parts of larger gardens that you like. What seems to draw your attention? Any pattern to what you seem to like best? Jot and scribble. Try to put your ideas into a preliminary "plan". First attempts could be simple "bubble" diagrams. What do you imagine yourself doing here? What do you imagine it looking like? Take note of what the other posts said. Indicate directions. The north side of a house gets lots of shade. Afternoon sun can be particularly brutal. So what's the orientation of your space? Put in the dimensions. Note anything you really like, or don't like, about what you already can see and hear and smell in this space. Do you feel private or exposed? Begin to get an idea of what you want to accomplish. Do you need to do more than figure out plants for the U-shaped bed? What? Improve privacy in some way? Reduce the sense of an empty, sterile space? More to create a space for you to play with and learn about plants ... or more for creating a space for you and friends? Hope this helps.

How to apply, combine, and balance the principles can be the subject of lifelong study (or, in my case, constant trial and error!), but what the principles are can be fairly easily be divined. I've posted the link below a few times as it is succinct and fairly clear. One book I enjoyed was by Joe Eck, where he makes it clear - if you can get through the fawning introduction written by his partner - that the first thing to do is establish an objective. "What are you trying to accomplish?" I think is his question. It is quite legitimate to have an objective like "create a place to grow lots of plants" or "house my fuschia collection" but it helps to name it. The most important thing for making the change in style you are trying to make is that landscape design is not all about the plants. What plant combinations to use is the last question, after you have laid out paths and sight lines and beds. And you design with plant shapes, not plant names, when you do get to that point. Remember it is LANDscaping, where what you are doing now (and I've been there, done that) is mostly PLANTscaping. Read a bit of Melle Sacto's recent threads (the cottage garden one) to get a flavour of someone else's journey in the same direction. Karin L Here is a link that might be useful: principles

amy, There are many low budget items (even temporary shelters) that can be used to extend their gardening (or at least their harvesting, which in my opinion is the best part!). Have you considered a PVC or EMT hoop house (very low investment, and it can extend the gardening season 6 weeks or more, depending on how it is used (3 weeks in the early spring and 3 weeks into the fall)? This type of structure could be built in a weekend (with a few hands), and used to warm the soil and protect the plants from wind damage. Also, it can be used to keep the soil from getting drenched in the winter and help to keep the planting areas usable for more time. Also, if your parents are interested in winter greens, the harvest could continue throughout the winter until the spring plants are ready to go. This type of structure can also add in propagating cuttings as well. By protecting them in an unheated but sheltered environment, they will go through far less of the stress that traditional cuttings go through. It can also be used to overwinter perennials. Furthermore, given the area of the veggie bed you are describing, you could actually design it to go over the entire veggie garden, which would open up a world of possibilities. Just a thought. A couple of references to consider for this suggestion: Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman and 12 Month Gardener by Jeff Ashton. (Just something to consider.)

Some of the older design books at the library probably have the old cut out furniture and graph paper in the back. You could make a copy of the furniture and then cut them out and arrange them on the graph paper. This is what my Mom has done since I was about five, well before computers. LOL