Typically when our clients first engage us to design their garden they are embarrassed by their existing garden when they walk us through it! Time and time again we see common mistakes that people do when they design their garden. We have put together a list of our best 5 tips for how to design your garden to try and combat these common mistakes.

1. Get To Know Your Garden

This is where you need to look at your garden and think about its current problems and then the great opportunities it has. Current problems might be lack of privacy from your neighbours, bamboo that is going CRAZY and taking over the garden or a drainage issue. Great opportunities might include room for a swimming pool, a sloping garden that you can install retaining walls into to create a terraced garden or an existing shady tree that would be perfect to place a seat under. Once you have had a look at your garden start mapping out these problems on a plan to create a site analysis drawing.

2. Get to Know You

Such an important part of your garden is you! We design personally tailored gardens for our clients that reflect their personality - creating amazing unique spaces. Think about what activities you would like to do in your garden. This might include having a kick about space, outdoor entertaining for bbq parties or a quite corner to curl up and read a book. Think about what is missing in your garden. Is your garden super hot and lacking a cool shady spot? Maybe shade trees are missing!

3. Style & Inspiration

Many times we have visited our clients gardens before we have started helping them with their design and their garden is a wild mess of tropical, coastal, cottage and random arid plants. We get it, you see a cool plant at a nursery and you just have to buy it! STOPPP! Pick a theme! Choose to stay with tropical, cottage, coastal or another theme you love. You can mix plants together of different themes to create interesting designs - we advise to leave this to the pros or ask them for advice! For inspiration of garden designs you can use the internet, magazines or one of our favourite things to do is to go for a walk! Go for a walk in a neighbourhood you love and look at peoples gardens or go to the botanical gardens.

4. Design Layout

Yay time to start designing! To start grab your site analysis drawing from tip 1. Then sketch a garden plan by answering the problems to your site, one might be to hide the neighbours view into your garden by planting screening plants. Think about the opportunities you thought of, draw in that swimming pool you always dreamed of! Map out different areas such as where you would like garden beds to be and where you would like pathways to go.

5. Planting Design

Using your drawing from tip 4 start researching plants to place in your garden beds and to use as your screening plants. When choosing plants make sure that you pick plants that suit the shady or sunny location you have. Check how big they grow - will they fit in the space you have allocated for them? When mixing plants together think about how you would like to use their different textures, colours and sizes to create a harmonious design.

Tip 6!

Yes that's right! An extra tip! If this all sounds too difficult, you need help or would love guidance for your garden design - let us know! We would love to help you design your garden to be a beautiful place live within and to create memories.

Have you ever been in doubt as to what to grow on your balcony?

The good news is there are many plants you can grow on your balcony! They need to be site responsive though – suitable for how much sun, shade and wind your balcony gets. For watering they need to fit in with your lifestyle and the drainage design of your balcony. If you have drainage on your balcony and you are able to install an irrigation system you can grow almost any pant, as long as they are site responsive to your balcony. It becomes tricky if you can’t, you will need to hand water your pots from your closest tap. If there is no drainage remember your neighbours under you, we don’t want to water them too – so it’s best to pick succulents!

What to plant!? We have listed a few plants to get you started for your balcony garden:

Sunny to part sun balconies:

Trees -

Plumeria obtusa – Singapore FrangipaniOlea europaea 'Tolley's Upright' – Olive TreeDracaena draco – Dragon TreeCitrus trees

Shrubs -

Sun loving bromeliads like Alcantarea imperialis ‘Rubra’Carissa ‘Desert Star’ - Natal PlumRadermachera ‘Summer Scent’ – Fragrant Jasmine TreeRhaphiolepis ‘Oriental Peal’ – Indian HawthorneKalanchoe ‘Copper Spoons’ or ‘Silver Spoons’Agave’s like Agave Attenuate or Queen AgaveCrassula ovate or Crassula arborescens – Jade PlantsKalanchoe ‘Copper Spoons’ or ‘Silver Spoons’

Vines -

Bouganvilla bambinoMandevilla vineTrachelospermum jasminoides – Star Jasmine

Shady balconies:

Trees –

Ficus lyrata – Fiddle Leaf FigFicus elastic – Rubber Plant

Shrubs & Groundcovers –

Rhapis excelsa – Lady PalmRadermachera ‘Summer Scent’ – Fragrant Jasmine TreeAsplenium nidus – Birds Nest FernAspidistra elatior – Cast Iron PlantSpathiphyllum ‘Petite’ or ‘Sensation’ – Peace LilyPeperomia obtusifolia – Baby RuberplantNeomarica gracilis – Walking IrisPhilodendron congo

Vines –

Epipremnum aureum – Devil’s IvyHoya carnosa – Wax FlowerTrachelospermum jasminoides – Star Jasmine

Lastly remember less is more! To avoid the ‘Frustrated Gardner’ look that Mr Hoppy has from the movie Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot with many pots that cramp the space, choose a few large pots instead. Larger pots will also make the space look bigger, we recommend using fibreglass pots as they are lighter for weight restrictions on the balcony. Not only will a collection of larger pots look more stylish, plants need adequate soil to thrive so if they are planted in a large pot they will be better off. Last tip – Trees need to be planted in a pot close to a meter wide and a meter tall so they get enough soil and root ball space.

Image Credit: Chris Barbalis

Our recent collaborative project with Zen Landscaping Queensland - Dirranbandi Rail and River precinct has made the local papers! The Dirranbandi Arts Council loved our landscape master plan, they have now actively started seeking funding and they are not being shy about it! This design is such an exciting project and we at Porter Designs can not wait to see it built. It will be an absolute community and regional asset!

This month we took a trip to outback Queensland with Zen Landscaping Queensland to a town called Dirranbandi! Our role is to design the parkland in the heart of town, that will rejuvenate the town for the locals with the secondary outcome to encourage tourists to stay longer. While in Dirranbandi we ran two community workshops to meet the locals and gather their ideas to design the prescient. The locals were so friendly and made us feel so welcomed!