Before you can plan your garden, you need to know what you have.  You might say… I don’t have anything.   Oh, but you do.  You have sunshine (or shade – even if it’s the shade from another building).  You have soil.  True – maybe it’s clay.  Or maybe it’s under an old driveway, but it’s there.  And you probably have a few things growing – even if they’re weeds and grass.  But more than likely, even if you’ve just moved in and think your yard is a barren desert, you’ve probably got a hedge or two, a tree or two and a few unknown plants. 

Here’s how to start.   If you have a “plat” of your property (that’s the line drawing showing the size of your property and the location of the house on the property)  - Great.   Make a half dozen copies of it to use for your templates.   If you don’t have a plat, no problem.  You can draw one.  It’s just a line drawing, so it doesn’t take any artistic talent.  And a good grid paper will help you keep the dimensions in scale with the rest of the map.   You’ll need to know, either by reading a deed or by measuring, the dimensions of the property.  You’ll also need to know which way North is (use the morning sun to locate East if you don’t have a compass).  AND you need to show the house, garage, driveway, etc on your map.   Just measure from the property lines to do that.  It’s pretty simple, but if you’re measuring, it will take you a while to do all of that.  

Okay, you’ve got your plat or drawn your map.  Now you’re ready to place what you have onto the map.  You’ve already placed the structures.  Now place the trees, if you have any.  Show both the center of the tree AND the area known as its “drip line”, which is the larger circle that the ends of the branches make.  It’s called the drip line because if the tree were wet, that’s the outside edge the water would be dripping from.   On many trees (but not all), this is also the root line, and it’s best not to do much digging inside the drip line.   You’ll need to measure to get the drip line, but it doesn’t have to be exact, just close.   While you’re at it, estimate (guess) how tall the tree is and write that inside the circle. 

Now do the same thing for any shrubs that you have.  It doesn’t matter that you don’t think you’ll keep them.  Put them on the plat.  This is the “before” version.  This will let you see what you have, and how much room you have. 

Another really good thing to do right now is to take photos.  Not only will it help you visualize the plat, but it will serve as a great “before and after” once you’ve gotten the garden of your dreams.  So many people forget to take the before photo (because the yard is so forgettable), then regret it later (“Guilty, your honor”).   If you can get up on the roof to take a few photos, even better.  A nice layout shot is always useful.   Take lots of photos.  They’re digital.  They don’t cost anything and don’t take up much room. 

Mark, on your map, where your water sources are.  Our house had one outside faucet when we moved here.  We now have one on every corner of the house.  It’s difficult to water when you you can’t get a hose to it. 

Any other features to mark?  Do you have a stream?   Is part of your yard someone else’s property (an easement for instance)?   Is there a grade (hill)?   You might pencil in an outline of where the grade begins, it’s curve, etc.  And where it bottoms out. 

You’re doing all of this because you’ll probably be doing a lot of your planning at your dining room table, with piles of books around you.   If you can afford to buy a good computer gardening program, great!  Go for it.  But you’ll still need to spend time analyzing what you have and thinking about what you want.   Most of the programs I’ve seen only help you AFTER you know those things.  But there are some terrific programs out there. 

If you have other plants (flowers, etc), this would be a good time to show them on the map.   On a separate paper, you might write down when they bloom, etc. 

If you have windows in your house that look out on the garden, I suggest you write on the house part of the plat where those windows are and which rooms them look out from.  It will be useful in the planning stages to know that this one area can be seen from the master bedroom or that that flower bed can be seen from the kitchen sink. 

On another copy of your plat, start following the movement of the sun.   Where is the shade (or sun) in the morning?  Shadow in that area on your plat.  Lightly fill in all the areas that are shaded at, say, 10 a.m.   On other copies of the plat, do the same for 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.  This should give you a good idea of how much sun you have in the course of the day.  Of course, where the sun moves will change between summer and winter.  If you follow my advice and spend the first year planning, building hardscape and improving the soil, then you can do a “sun map” for all four seasons. 

Figure out which zone you’re in.   The United States National Arboretum has a clickable plant hardiness map for the U.S. and About.com has a listing for other countries.  For instance, here in Winston Salem, we’re in zone 7B.  You’ll need to know this as you get plants.   You would think that plant stores would only sell plants that would grow successfully in their area.  You would think that, but you’d be wrong.  Some stores are smart enough to do that, but many aren’t.   If a plant is rated for zones 5 to 9, then I know that I’m pretty safe planting it here.   If it’s 5 to 7, I’m still probably safe, but not as safe as 5 to 9 because every area has the ocassional unusual weather – a longer than average, colder than normal winter, for instance.  We had that this year.   So our zone 7B probably wasn’t completely accurate this winter.  We didn’t lose much, but we did lose a plant or two. 

Have your soil analyzed.   This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it’s important on several levels.  First, contaminants.  Lead and heavy metals could be present in your soil and present a health hazard.   Lead is especially common.  Second are things like acidity and nutrient content that affect the vitality of your plants.  Different plants need different conditions.  Just as some plants do better in shade, so do some plants do better in less acid soils.  It would be good to know what your conditions are so that you could adjust both the soil itself and the type of plant that will be planted there.  (Did you know that if you add aluminum sulphate to the soil around a hydrangea, that the color of the coming blooms will change from pink to blue?)   Your county extension agent will help you with this.   Or just Google “soil analysis” for commercial sites. 

This is a lot of stuff to do, I know.  And you haven’t even started planning yet, much less gardening.   But trust me, this will make it much easier and cheaper to create that perfect garden, the one you’ve always wanted.  It will help in heading off costly mistakes and in having to undo something because you’ve changed your mind or “didn’t think about that”. 

As the old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.”

Filed under: Inventory, Planning a Garden