What Makes a Garden Beautiful?

Gardens come in all shapes and sizes, but what makes a garden beautiful?  Gardeners love being outdoors and are always striving for a beautiful garden.  While it depends on every individual's definition of beautiful, but there are certain key elements that make a garden beautiful.

Tidiness

This is one of the most challenging aspects of any garden.  Weeds, spent blooms, wandering plants growing outside of their planned confines, etc. all make for a look of  messiness.  Planning ahead makes all the difference on this - mulch all areas you don't want weeds growing; perform timed intervals of weed eradication and pruning; and be vigilant about removing plants beyond their timeline.  An experienced Gardener will have learned that a Lady Banks Rose needs more than a 4 foot trellis but a novice can react throughout the growing season as a plant escapes the allotted spot.  By honoring the goal of being tidy, any garden large or small can be beautiful.

Variety

Variety is a complex term to define.  In a backyard oasis, variety means more than just turf.  It means shrubs of different heights, colors, and bloom seasons to look beautiful year round.

A Rose Garden has variety in the different types of roses and for a rose enthusiast, there is nothing better!  But variety here is not accomplished with 3 different shrub roses... That is not a Rose Garden, it is a few rose bushes.

A vegetable garden is a mix of different plants being grown for consumption.  But imagine an entire acre of vegetables with the different quadrants for different crops.  Some are growing up trellises and poles while others spread over the ground.  What a huge variety of textures, sizes, and produce!

Think of different seasons, different heights, different textures, colors and bloom times when planting.

Combination of evergreens and deciduous plant material.

A beautiful garden changes throughout the seasons mainly due to what is being grown in the garden. If it looks the same year-round, it may be architecturally sound but boring as far as a Gardener's mind thinks. Example is a formal boxwood maze that looks the same in all four seasons.  Meh.  But if that same garden has pockets of daffodils that dance each Spring, it stuns the eye with color and happiness that you forgot was even there. Mixing evergreens that provide structure with the fun of blooming shrubs, perennials, and flowering trees shares joy throughout the year.

Destination(s)

If an entire garden is visible from one vantage point, what would be the reason to go into it?  You want to have focal points, destinations, unexpected treats that are only visible if you explore.  A meandering pathway to a bench, a potted container with annuals, statuary, bird baths, etc. are all examples of things to draw you into the garden for more enjoyment.

Louise Hodges is an award winning Landscape Designer.  She developed the Greenbug System which provides automatic all-natural pest control through an irrigation system.

Louise and her husband, Dan, own Greenbug All Natural Pest Control Products.