Images and text from Garden of Your Dreams by Charlie Albone, photography by Cath Muscat, except page 51 by Mark Vessey
Garden of Your Dreams is an inspirational and practical guide to complete outdoor transformations – from the smallest urban courtyard to a rural paradise.
Let award-winning garden designer and landscape expert from Better Homes & Gardens Charlie Albone walk you through the process of turning your outdoor space into your own personal oasis. Start by identifying your dream design style, then learn how to make a plan that works for your site, budget and aspirations. Create an entertaining space you are proud of, prepare the soil and then the real fun begins – planting!
Packed full of ideas and inspirational how-to as well as Charlie’s personal plant guide, Garden of Your Dreams is the ideal first step to dreaming up your own outdoor transformation.
Read an extract from Garden of Your Dreams below!
Chapter 2: It’s All in the Planning p. 50-3
Charlie Albone
When you’re starting an exciting project like a garden renovation, it’s tempting to jump right in, pick up a shovel and just get digging! But my experience has taught me that good results come from good design, and for that a process needs to be followed. Trust me: I have tried both approaches, and the one that takes a little more time gives exponentially better results.
Corralling all of your ideas into one space can be tricky. It’s great that you have a wish list, but how do you get it all into your garden? What you need next is a base plan: a kind of mud map drawn to scale to make sure everything fits properly, that you can eventually develop further into a landscape concept plan. This concept plan will allow you to assess all of your individual ideas to make sure they’ll work in practice, and to eliminate items that may not work or are not as important to you as other elements
Having a plan will also give you a reference point to go back to, so you don’t veer off track during the construction stage. I often see this happen when projects aren’t planned properly: different ideas get introduced along the way, and you end up with a Frankenstein’s garden of mismatched styles, ideas and finishes.
The good news is that drafting a base plan is easy, and you need very little skill to do it – just a good imagination.
PULLING TOGETHER YOUR BASE PLAN
Before you get started, you’ll need a few basic tools on hand: a scale ruler, two tape measures (preferably one long and one short), plus plenty of paper and pencils.
It’s crucial that your plan is drawn to scale. Using a proper scale ruler allows you to take a measurement outside, and then translate that onto paper inside. If everything is measured and then translated at the same scale, then you’ll have a drawing that correlates exactly to what you want to happen outside. For example, you might choose to work at a metric 1:100 scale, which means 1 metre in your garden will correlate to 1 centimetre on paper.
You can work to whatever scale fits the paper you are drawing on, but I would recommend making your drawing as big as possible – perhaps A3 size – so it’s easier to see and use. It also means that you don’t have to be as detailed with your drawing – which is perfect for a non-drawer like me!
To start, you’ll need an outline of your garden perimeter. If your project or garden is small, you can have a go at drawing this up yourself, otherwise you can engage a professional surveyor who will give you an accurate result. In 20 years of drawing plans, I think I’ve only ever drafted one garden that was perfectly square, so simply measuring the fence line won’t do. You need to take your long measuring tape (or a piece of string) and run it down the middle of the garden from one end to the other. Then start at one end and measure out to the boundary on both sides of the tape. Try to work at a right angle to the centre line, as this will make your measurements more accurate. Do this at intervals of 50 centimetres (20 inches) along the tape, all the way to the end. Then when you come to putting this on paper, draw a straight line down the middle of the page that correlates to the length of the garden, and mark up every 50 centimetres (20 inches) in scale, drawing out all of the measurements you have taken.
You’ll also need to plot any fixed items that can’t or won’t be removed from the current garden. This includes buildings, trees, walls, easements, gas and water outlets, sewers, powerlines and underground pipes. Measure these off the same central line, and then transfer them to your base plan.
Once every item is plotted on your base plan, make as many copies as you can. You’ll be scribbling ideas on the paper and reworking them over and over again, so you may need a few spare plans.
CALL IN THE PROFESSIONALS
A professional survey can be well worth the investment, and will save you from a huge headache if you’re not confident with all that measuring and drawing. Not only will you get accurate results, but the survey will also include useful information such as heights, easements, sewer lines, gas and water outlets, and windows in buildings (so you can plan your view out from the house). If your renovations require council approval, then a survey from a registered surveyor will be required.
—This is an edited extract of Garden of Your Dreams by Charlie Albone, (Murdoch Books) is out now! Photography by Cath Muscat, except page 51 by Mark Vessey.
Garden of Your Dreams
A practical guide to your best outdoor transformation ever
Garden of Your Dreams is an inspirational and practical guide to complete outdoor transformations - from the smallest urban courtyard to a rural paradise.
Let award-winning garden designer and landscape expert from Better Homes & Gardens Charlie Albone walk you through the process of turning your outdoor space into your own personal oasis. Start by identifying your dream design style, then learn how to make a plan that works for your site, budget and aspirations. Create an entertaining space you are proud of, prepare the soil and then the real fun begins - planting!
Packed full of ideas and inspirational how-to as well as Charlie's personal plant guide, Garden of Your Dreams is the ideal first step to dreaming up your own outdoor transformation.
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