Do You Need Grass?
Some gardeners get pretty emotional about their lawn and feel that it is a necessary part of the landscape. Others are perfectly happy without it. Grass takes a good bit of maintenance, but it offers benefits in return. It looks good and makes a nice, soft surface to walk and play on. Grass makes a nice contrast to pavings, beds of flowers and ground cover, and shrubs and trees. However, given paths and paved areas between the garden beds and features, gardens without grass are pleasant and successful, especially in smaller spaces. Many gardeners prefer to quietly care for garden beds and containers of flowers instead of noisily mowing the lawn. In some shady gardens, moss is used for the carpet instead of grass.
Garden Placement
When planning your garden, your calculations will have to take the physical limitations of your site into consideration. What are the actual pros and cons of your conditions? Does the land slope or is it level? Is the site sunny or shady? Filled with tree roots or not? Certain kinds of gardens can only be placed in certain kinds of exposures.
For instance, you may want to plant an herb garden, which needs full sun, near the kitchen and the deck. But if this area is heavily shaded by an important tree that you wouldn't dream of removing, you'll have to change your plan and either give up on the idea of herbs or place them in a sunny area in another part of your landscape. Sometimes necessities like this lead to wonderfully imaginative solutions. Those herbs could be put into a large planter next to your front door, where you can brush by them every day and enjoy their scent when you come and go.
Be sure to match the flowering plant to the site. Most flowers are high-performance plants, especially sensitive to inadequacies in light, moisture, soil, or other elements. Give them exactly what they need to thrive.
In the following section, we shall take a look at how to develop your ideas for your garden design and make them workable with the space that you have.
