Design Water Gardens - $350 Per Hour

Design Water Gardens - $350 Per Hour

If you have read any of my articles before, you know I specialize in sharing my knowledge and experience in the water garden business over the past 26 years. I have shared with you before about the incredible financial benefits of offering clients digital designs. It is the most important first step of any water garden project.

Googling "digital design ponds" or "digital design water gardens" will result in seven cad cam or 3D-type design programs. These types of software produce stilted, unnatural, unrealistic results. In the past 26 years I have designed and constructed well over 1,900 water gardens for commercial and residential clients. Until recently, most of these designs were produced the "old fashioned" way, by hand drawing them.

Unless the architect is an artist, their drawing is generally a floor plan with an accompanying side view of individual components or features. Consequently, I had to charge $500 to $2,500 for a design drawing.

A few years ago I discovered that I could scan various water garden photos, then download them into Adobe's Photoshop program, and cut out objects or portions out of the photographs. By moving the item around, resizing, cloning and adjusting various aspects, I could create a virtual realistic and natural water garden that would look the actual photo of a completed project.

Soon, by repeating this process one object at a time, I created a Library of water garden related images that allowed me to create thousands of variations of an actual water garden design. Amazingly, 8 out of 10 prospective clients paid me $350 to get a digital water garden design of their back yard.

All gardens benefit from careful planning and design. Modern gardens are seen as outdoor rooms and have to fulfill many functions. When designing your garden you should have a plan of how you want your garden to look.

When designing your garden it is always a good idea to measure and then draw a plan of your existing garden. Decide what you want from your garden and make a list of any essential features such as a vegetable plot, a path or a shed. Once you have a base plan of your garden, and you know what you want, place a piece of tracing paper over it and draw another plan with all unwanted plants and structures removed. On this sheet you can also divide up your garden into different areas. There are three main areas - the part of the garden that can be seen, such as the front garden, the service part of the garden which would contain things like bins, washing lines and compost heap; and the private area. You should consider how much time you want to spend in the garden. If you are of the latter type you might want to avoid high maintenance features such as lawns and a vegetable garden may not be a good idea for you. Many aspects of organic gardening, such as no-dig systems and mulching will actually save you time.

If you are a very tidy person you might favour the formal look, while if you don't like things too regimented the informal or cottage garden might suit you better.

If you have always wanted to grow your own food you do not need a huge garden. In recent years wildlife gardens have become very popular. The best wildlife gardens will contain a range of habitats and will usually include a water feature, long grass, shrubs, trees and lots of flowers and fruit. You need to consider your planting scheme carefully. Try to incorporate meandering paths and naturally flowing shapes in order to create visual interest.

You should also consider how your garden will look from inside the house. Certain planting schemes could link the house and garden. If paths are on a slope you might want to add steps. You should also think about any ornamental features you might want to include, such as pots, urns, archways, pergolas, seats, bird baths or water features. Designing your garden not only involves creating a grand plan from A-Z, but also adding some shrubs or bedding plants to an existing composition. Whatever its scale or significance, any change in the garden should be approached with the mindset and attitude of a professional designer. While not everyone can successfully design a garden, there is nothing preventing you from seeing things as would a top designer.

A professional designer rigorously distinguishes between two separate aspects. Creating a magnificent garden that is unsuited to the homeowner is like cooking a superb beefsteak for a vegetarian. The second aspect, one that the homeowner is liable to ignore, involves choosing garden features, whether they be plants or otherwise, according to the universal and objective principles of design. The Dominant and Support Factors

A successful garden composition must have a clear motif. This could take the form of a focal point, such as a water feature, a statue, or a boldly designed flowerbed. For instance, when choosing shrubs to form a backdrop to showy flowers, if your mindset is "I like", you may choose species that have spectacular blooms.

The Sub-Dominant Factor

Let's take a water fountain as an example of the centerpiece or focal point of the garden. One possibility would be to plant ornamental grasses close to the water feature, as the billowing, fountain-like form of the grasses (and other narrow leaved plants) would echo the movement of the water! In this way, the water feature's role is enhanced, while peppering annual flowers around the fountain would weaken its role, by competing with it.

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