Pictures of landscape design
I find that having pictures of landscape designs or little snippets of landscaping ideas are the best sources of inspiration. Pictures say a lot because it helps you visualise the final outcome and gives you something to aspire to.
Pictures of landscape design give you an overall perspective of what you can achieve. I sampled the online landscape design function on the Better Homes and Gardens site and have found it easy to use (just sign up and it's free to use) - it gives you pictures with a broad outline of what you can achieve in your garden. And whilst it's not as sophisticated as other landscape design software, it's fairly simple to use, does the job and gives you a birdseye view of your general garden layout plan - all free of charge. Visit BHG then go to their garden/lanscaping section to try it out.
After you printed out pictures of your bare bones landscape design, fill in the places for shrubs, trees, groundcovers etc with suggestions from the 27 garden plans they have available. Or customise the landscape design by choosing plants from their encyclopedia that suits your climate.
Other magazines with inspirational garden landscape design pictures give you before and after pictures of landscape design - a great motivator if you ask me. I tend to like to pick and choose - after all everyone is different in their tastes. Great ideas for different settings, different outlooks, different styles. Above all, remember that gardening isn't about getting it right first time - so relax, a garden continually evolves just as you do in life and that's the beauty of gardening - it's for a lifetime! Read more about the basics of garden design.
Take a look at these landscaping articles for more inspiration.
Christmas
ideas for the garden -
how to enhance your garden so that it brings in the festive cheer.
Halloween
ideas, props for the garden - spook your
garden up in time for the ghoulish Halloween season.
Landscape
and garden edging -
rocks, borders and garden edging, what are you options?
Bamboo
fences - how to build your own bamboo
fences
Garden
design - planning a garden? Then
read up about the general rules to follow when it comes to good
garden design.
Garden
tours
- get inspired by gardens worldwide, listings of open gardens, garden
tours available in US, Australia, UK and Scotland.
Bird
feeders - which ones suit your garden
best? How do you attract birds into your garden?
Hammocks
- which suits your garden and how do you hang a hammock?









