There is more to design than a map of your garden and if this is all you have then it will be cold and heartless. You may have more luck if you start with what the garden is for, its purpose or function, and work back towards a layout. I have to say that it is more difficult when you already have the plants because you are not starting with a clean slate. If you want to recreate what you had before then you should muster all the photographs you can.

It sounds to me like you should use the plan to set up the "rooms" of your garden- patios, walks, herb or vegetable gardens- and then just experiment and play with what you have within the spaces you've created. Gardening, when you're contrasting it with landscaping with a plan, has more of a casual and experimental meaning for a lot of people. So if that's what you're after, do it! If you want a good resource for integrating the two, check out James van Sweden's "Architecture in the Garden."

My feeling is that a garden begins to transcend just a design when it takes on the personality of its owner. This frequently happens with a personalized selection of plants - perhaps a small collection of a specific genus, pass-along or heirloom plants received from family or friends or just a few 'must-haves' that don't necessarily fit into or adhere to the grand design scheme.

It also comes about by placement, to a lesser extent, and by accoutrements or garden decor. While many designers pooh-pooh the notion of decoration, feeling it bastardizes their "vision", it is often these personalized touches that move a design from just a plan into the realm of a personal garden.

One garden that comes to mind that is far more than just a design is that of Vancouver, BC designer/nursery owner Thomas Hobbs. This is a garden that is extremely reflective of the owner's personality, featuring a bold, gregarious mix of rather diverse plants and an unashamed use of garden decoration. This garden has appeared in countless magazines and can be seen in detail in Hobb's books "Shocking Beauty" and "The Jewel Box Garden".

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:42743}}

The theme of garden vs. design has been "done" on the forum before, and I've been trying to make the transition myself from gardening/collecting to landscaping my place. As far as I can figure and articulate, there is a difference in how you relate to plants; when you garden you think about the plant first and where it would like to be; when you landscape you think about the big picture first and choose plants to suit it.

I do think though that even the landscaping process has to be done in real time and space in the garden, not just on paper - if it is to be your own.

In any design creation I have put on paper the finished construction of the designed vehicle always took on a more friendly shape or personality of its own after it was used or lived in.

This holds true for every house and landscape that I have designed, help construct and reviewed several time periods later.

Landscapes are like a house, rooms for every occasion, (groupings of plant material cohesively placed) or a large banquet or party room by itself (a large drift or meadow of certain plant(s)).

A house becomes a home after it receives the personal touch of the occupants. A landscape becomes warm and friendly after the plants have seated and grown comfortable w/ their new surroundings.

Then the paper creation you made fades away and the landscape becomes a living creation that changes seasonally as time passes. You add some and take away some. You "design" has become a "garden".

Jake

"Can design and gardening co exist?" you ask. karin's post and a question she has been trying to get her head around for a while and the implication of what you say suggests that gardening is about only plants and that design is about everything except plants. This is the problem isn't it? Jake says "Your "design" (will) has become a "garden"" There is no way that someone who gardens could choose a pattern to follow from a book or from "stinkin'" software. Yours is a personal journey and we are probably talking about a process rather than a product which most people see a 'design' as. What this means is not that design and garden are in competition or opposition, only that you may want have a plan to begin with but see it as a starting point.

I didn't really have a "garden" before. I always knew everything that had been planted had to come out and I'd need to start over. I moved my prized Miss Kim's to our cottage and my daisies and my phlox and my baby's breath. I now am the proud owner of shrubs. Lots and lots of shrubs. I am planning on filling in said shrubs with flowers but right now the budget is blown on the "bones" of the landscape. I did just pick up some little goldfinger circqu??? something that I love that will edge the driveway.
It feels not like my garden and more like someone elses but then again I've never purchased shrubs before with the exception of lilacs. I bought shrubs I liked and worked them into exsisting plans I found, lots of hydrangeas, some crepe myrtles *fingers crossed* that will hopefully winter here ok, some rhodies and two trees that I love... a royal star magnolia and a weeping cherry. I've never really had too much of a plan, just put stuff where it would fit. Maybe when/if the grass comes in it will feel better.

I think shrubs are difficult because they are usually purchased on the smallish side, at least compared to their height and width at maturity. Right now I have a lot of newish shrubs and perennials, and like you, I need more stuff.I have to look at my shrub list occasionally to remind myself of each shrub's eventual height. If I don't do this, I get frustrated because nearly everything is, about the same height. My "garden" is still mostly in my minds eye.

I went to a botanical garden yesterday. It was really helpful to see examples of mature plants in a cultivated setting. I now have a mental picture of most of my plants at maturity, so it's much easier for me to see what they will become, not how flat everything currently looks.

I went and bought 38 more tiny shrubs. I'm going to be the tiny shrub lady of Iowa at this point. Goldfinger cirquesoils to go around the new driveway. I put the few I got down when I got home and went back and bought a lot more.

Janet, you're probably right. My vision isn't looking a lot like what it's actually looking like outdoors at the moment. One of my crepe myrtles fell into a sink hole, there's mud everywhere. I think I envisioned the plants a LOT bigger because they sat in thier pots for so long and they were "taller" because of the pots.

Maybe I just need to get miracle grow? lol

It's Potentilla fruticosa 'GoldFinger' - Bush Cinquefoil. but nobody really uses that common name so just refer to them as Potentilla.

not meaning to be snarky, I just want you to know what you have.

They're great plants!

And for a little bit of gardening trivia, "cinquefoil" comes from the French, "cinque" meaning five and "feuille" meaning leaves (ergo five-leaved) referring to the 5-lobed, palmate foliage of the Potentilla :-)

I kind of knew what I had... they're in front of a lot of stores and such. I don't recall ever seeing them in beds or gardens around here though.

Good news is a neighbor drove by when I was taking yet more plants around the other side of the house (two more holly bushes) and she complimented me on my little yellow shrubs.

Technically either side of our "driveway" aka the easement/alleyway belongs to the city but we own both properties so there isn't anyone to complain :)

I'm guessing it was an American who named the pitch pine.

Design is a process and/or a representation or result of that process. A garden is a garden. And I tend to think that most gardens are derived from some sort of process. That would make a garden inseparable from the word design, but not necessarily the other way around. I just can't comprehend how one vs. the other.

I can see that a garden might not live up to the intent of the design or that assumptions in the design process do not match the reality of the garden.

If you believe design to be a process, then it defines the garden as what it is and can not be anything but what it is. One can not be any different from the other.

Design - an idea that one has in their mind and possibly puts such idea on a media.

Garden - a place where plant material grows as allowed or directed.

A vegetable garden starts w/ a design. A landscape starts with a design.

A house, a building, an automobile, a computer, an artistic creation starts w/ an idea or design of some kind.

Regardless what the finished product is, it all started w/ an idea or design from somewhere.

Only Nature creates a garden or landscape W/O a drawn or drafted design. Your garden, even after several years of being in place is still part of the original idea or design.

Design - Garden ??? Is there a defined separation ?? Absolutely. At what point in the process can one say " Â here is the true separation of design and garden".

I can only say that such a defining point or moment will be defined after several growing seasons.

Even after several growing seasons it will be a judgment call.

Was it really defined last year or is there something that hasn't quite reached the point of suspected potential or the desired appearance in the original "design" ???

Design  Garden !!? We create a design and then we create a garden. With or without a documented plan we designed a garden from our ideas and ideals of what a garden is and should look like.

Your garden may never be the same as mine but your garden is your design and not mine.

A garden is a process started form some sort of a design. Semantics. He said Â. She said. Design Â. Garden.

ItÂs the finished product that we marvel at and not so much how it got there. Gardens are living, breathing objects. Designs are fixed in our heads or on paper.

A design can change with an eraser while a garden can change as we remove and replace what we failed to see in our designs eye. Still, a design can be a garden and a garden is a living design.

Jake

The garden is the final media of its design whether it meets the intent or not. That is what I mean by inseparable.