Raised Bed Gardening Compilation for Beginners and Experienced Gardeners by Peter Shepperd

Author:Peter Shepperd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Green Fingered Gardener

Figure 6. A pyramid bed used to maximise the strawberry harvest.

Always be on the lookout for inspiration, and you will be surprised where you find it. Landscape architects designed many of those desiccated looking beds you see in shopping centre car parks. Beneath the sad looking plants there is often a creative structural plan, and there may be ideas there that help you develop the skeleton for your garden. Garden magazines and the internet are teeming with design ideas, and by now you are probably already addicted to some of the many gardening shows on television. What you will need to do is sit down with the photocopied plans of the garden skeleton and draw out different options until you come up with a design that pleases you. Don't expect this to be a one attempt and all is done process. It requires numerous re-workings and even the most experienced of garden designers draws and redraws before he gets a result that he is ultimately happy with. That is why I suggested taking several photocopies of the plan you measured. You can sketch away to your heart's content and then start a new plan if you don't achieve a pleasing enough result.

The drawing may be two dimensional, but that doesn't mean the garden needs to be. Think about beds of differing heights as well as arbours between beds or trellises up which climbers and vines can scramble. If you have the room, then throw in a water feature or a couple of nice outdoor sculptures. It doesn't matter if you don't have any or can't afford them right now. If they are built into the plan, they can always be added at a later stage.

At the end of any design process, my kitchen floor is covered with balls of paper that bare testimony to early failed drawings. Hopefully, however, somewhere on the table is a pristine design that perfectly adheres to both my desires and the practicalities of the garden I want. Each of those failures on the floor added a little something to what turned out to be the end result. For many of my gardening acquaintances and me, the design process is one of the more creative parts of gardening so wallow in it rather than shy away from it.

In my use of the pen and paper approach, I am something of a dinosaur. Today there is a myriad of garden design computer programs that eliminate the need for piles of paper and go a little way toward saving the planet at the same time. Unfortunately, as far as my abilities are concerned, the planet will have to suffer a little longer because I simply lack the computer design skills. Those that have patiently tried to train me in that direction have all eventually had to accept that I have the computer abilities of a somewhat dim-witted King Charles spaniel.

Whatever route you choose to follow in the design process, always have practicality in the back of your mind. Some materials lend themselves freely to curves and bends while others don't.

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