Designing a garden

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Hi there

I’m working on some garden designs, and wondered if any of you might have stories or tips? Things that have worked well in the garden for yourself or even people you know… or even worked terribly.

Do you think a garden can be designed better in any way when considering autism? Across the spectrum?

You're being very vague.

The best reward for a gardener is to have planted what thrives in it's spot. Thrive; meaning not only survived and increased, but that it fits visually; harmonizes with it's surroundings. That's actually often not as easy as it may sound. Plants have different colored and different textured foliage at different times of the year, they bloom at specific times and that goes, also, for the plants surrounding them; they're also a changing kaleidoscope.

The garden designer needs to take into consideration; scale, both the size of the palnt and the size of the flowers and foliage, color, texture, light requirements and water issues (some tolerate wet feet others like it on the dry side).

The least rewarding for the new gardener is planting favorite plants where they struggle and fail due to (usually the wrong light conditions).

All this makes garden design difficult for the novice.

When I started gardening 30 years ago, a gardening neighbor suggested that I look at the gardens in our area and find what I liked (thus basing my choices on plants that do well in our area; at the very least.) That advise still holds well for me.

I have settled into a style of gardening termed; Slow Gardening. See the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/garde ... wanted=all

What about a labyrinth?

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

Thanks for the replies - I thought I'd get an email if anyone had replied, so wasn't expecting this - a nice surprise.


Hi Marcia. What would you like to know? Happy to give more details. Basically I'm a designer and have been asked to look into redesigning a garden at a house where several people with autism live. They also have some learning difficulties, so I'm trying to work out how a well considered garden might help bring some benefit and fun to them.

Beyond just general good garden design, I'm wondering if anyone on here (parents or otherwise) has had any experience in making changes to their garden that have had a good response, or catered well to their children's interests etc.


Thanks for the reply Mountain Laurel. 30 years, wow, you must have some fine-tuned skills.

What I mean by - "when considering autism" is I could just design what might be considered a nice garden, but I'd like to take it further. I of course would like people to think that it's a nice garden, but also for it to bring some real value to the people that use it every day. So touch upon issues and interests connected to the people living there, and offer them more options too. I'm talking with the people living there to work out their interests, but I'm also interested in any good examples already out there.


Hi OliveOilMom. Maybe a little one. I'm definitely thinking a nice quite spot hidden from the rest of the garden so maybe I could combine something like that...

Thanks everyone. Tips are very much appreciated.

p.s. MountainLaurel

I like the slow gardening idea - it's right up my street. I'll definitely look into that a bit more.