Garden Designs

Garden design is the process of designing the layout and planting of domestic gardens. Garden owners became increasingly involved in garden design during the twentieth century and there was also a sizable expansion in the employment of professional garden designers. Sissinghurst, perhaps the most popular garden made in the twentieth century, was designed by its owners: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.

Sissinghurst Castle GardenMost garden designers are trained in design and in horticulture, and have an expert knowledge of plants, their habits and their needs. Garden designers are also concerned with the layout of hardscape, including paths, water features, patios and decking.

Garden designers usually have a vocational type qualification (for instance a HND, BA or MA in the UK), however, anyone can call themselves a 'garden designer'. Garden designers should not be confused with Landscape Architects, who have a different training, and are members of a regulated profession. The alternative term 'gardener' is usually applied to a labourer or hobbyist.

The theory of garden design and landscape architecture can be traced to Vitruvius. Though he had little to say specifically about the design of outdoor space, Vitruvius put forward the influential theory that the objectives for all design projects are: Commodity (utilitas), Firmness (firmitas) and Delight (venustas).

Before the renaissance garden design was usually carried out by garden owners or by the professionals they employed (horticulturalists, architects, surveyors, sculptors etc). In China and Japan, gardens were often designed by scholars, artists, poets, painters and priests. In Europe, it seems likely that professional training for garden designers began in seventeenth century France. After the time of Le Notre it was accepted that both an artistic and a horticultural training were necessary. Various garden design courses were established in Europe during the nineteenth century and in the twenteith century many of them changed over to the teaching of landscape architecture. Towards the end of the twenteith century there was a re-emergence of university level education programmes in garden design.

Traditionally, garden designs were set out on the ground. With renaissance advances in plan drawing it became common for gardens to be designed on paper and transferred to the ground using surveying instruments, including tape measures and theodolites. With the invention of Computer Aided Design (CAD) towards the end of the twentieth century it is becoming increasingly common for Garden designers to work on computer screens and then print paper plans which are issued to garden builders. A range of CAD programmes is used including vector drawing software, bitmap editing software, 3D modelling software and animation software. Some of these programmes are able to 'print' 3D models as well paper plans.

The elements of garden design include landform, water features, fountains, garden ponds, planting design, garden buildings, garden lighting, garden sculpture, garden ornament, garden furniture and hard landscape materials. These elements are used to make a wide range of garden types.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Garden design".