Summary: After the landscape has been graded, the bulldozer, bobcat or front-end loader has left, what are the next steps in laying out the garden landscape? String, hose, stakes and measuring tape all come into play!
When the grading of the landscape is completed, it is time to next proceed with laying out the garden.
To define a curve for a bed, lay a hose on the ground and keep moving it until the line is satisfactory. Beware of a line that is full of little scallops, which will look jumpy and fussy in the completed garden; keep the curve simple.
To make a circle, locate the center by measuring from the center of the circle on the plan to fixed points at right angles to each other, such as a window of the house, or a tree, or a stake on the boundary. Measure the radius and cut a piece of cord of the same length, with a little to spare. Tie one end to a stake and drive the stake into the ground at the center of the circle. Wind the cord around a second stake until the unwound length corresponds to the length of the radius. Holding the free stake in the hand, draw or trace the outline of the circle on the ground with the point of the stake.
Beware of Your Eyes
Don’t be dismayed if the proportions on the ground look different from the plan; an unplanted bed tends to look larger than one that is full of shrubs or flowers. If the proportions are good on the plan, they will be good in the completed garden. This is the object of making a plan; the eyes can take in the picture at a small scale as it cannot do on the ground. If you are in serious doubt, re-check the measurements.
In a big job it would be unwise to start working on the ground until every construction detail had been solved. However, our concern is with small properties, and staking out the main areas and seeing them on the ground will make it easier to visualize the next step.
Bad Plan Cannot Be Saved By Detail
Detail cannot save a bad plan, but it can wreck a good one, and it is the detail, whether it be of construction or plants, that will probably first strike the eye of the beholder. When the time comes it should be worked out most carefully, either on paper, or with a large scale model, or by trial and error. The point is that, with a plan in hand, it can be changed or corrected without upsetting the main scheme.
The good basic work of planning a garden is rather like the foundation of a house; when the house is built you don’t think about it, but you would be horribly aware of it if it were shaky or crooked. This is perhaps why so many beginners want to work backwards; when they have looked at gardens they have always reacted perfectly normally and been attracted by a striking detail; they have not thought about the careful preparation that made it possible for that detail to be right. And it is the finishing detail with which you will probably have the most fun and that will give you the greatest feeling of having accomplished something. Let it be the prize at the end of the hard row of digging, literally and figuratively, the foundation.
