Garden Design Tips from the Pros: Atlanta History Center
Understanding garden design helps you give your garden structure and appeal. These tips are from experts at a public garden in Atlanta—they’ll work in your home garden, too.
5 Garden Design Tips from the Experts at Atlanta History Center
1 Repetition makes a garden cohesive. Learn what grows well for you and grow lots of it! Repeat plantings of perennials or shrubs that perform well with little maintenance (see above).
2 Be bold! Surpass the “rule of three” and plant in groups of seven, nine or more (sticking with odd-numbered groupings). Large sweeps create drama during peak season.
3 Use evergreen shrubs to shape a view, screen something unsightly or obscure your boundary lines (see above).
4 Pay attention to the shape of your lawn. Odd angles and points look jarring and unintentional. Create an informal shape of gentle curves or a strong shape with straight lines and 90-degree corners.
5 Mix your borders. You’ll have a far more interesting garden if you can include a specimen tree, flowering and evergreen shrubs, perennials, a few annuals and bulbs. This gives you scale in height and textural contrast, plus a long bloom season.
Content courtesy of Sarah Roberts, Vice-President of the Goizueta Gardens and Living Collections at the Atlanta History Center. A full-length feature on garden design advice from public gardens ran in the January/February 2018 issue of Horticulture.
