How to Design a Garden You'll Love

A guide to designing a garden with personality, atmosphere, and a little soul.

Orris knows a good garden when he sees one.

He doesn't care whether every plant matches or whether the borders are perfectly symmetrical. He prefers the places with a little mystery—the corner where something unexpected is blooming, the path that disappears beneath the branches, the old pot that's weathered beautifully over time.

And perhaps that's the secret to a truly beautiful garden:

It should feel like you.

A garden doesn't have to follow a particular style or look like something from a magazine. It can be wild and romantic, quiet and woodland-like, bright and cheerful, or deep and moody.

The best gardens aren't simply collections of plants.

They're spaces with a feeling.

🌿 Start With a Feeling

Before choosing plants, think about how you want your garden to feel.

Do you want somewhere peaceful to sit with your morning coffee? A colorful cottage garden buzzing with pollinators? A shady woodland retreat? A structured garden with clean lines and evergreen foliage?

Maybe you want something a little mysterious.

Start there.

Once you know the feeling you're trying to create, choosing plants becomes much easier. Instead of asking “What should I plant?”, you can ask:

“What belongs here?”

That small shift can change the entire way you garden.

🎨 Choose Your Colors

Color is one of the easiest ways to create atmosphere.

Soft whites, blush pinks, lavender, and silvery foliage can create a romantic, quiet garden. Deep burgundy, plum, wine, and almost-black foliage bring drama and depth. Golden foliage and warm blooms can make a space feel sunny and welcoming.

You don't need dozens of colors.

In fact, choosing a smaller palette can make a garden feel more intentional.

Try selecting two or three main colors and repeating them throughout the space. A burgundy-leaved shrub might echo the color of a nearby perennial. Creamy flowers might appear again farther down the border.

The repetition quietly ties everything together.

🍃 Don't Forget the Foliage

Flowers may steal the attention, but foliage is what holds the garden together.

Leaves give you texture, shape, contrast, and structure long after individual flowers have faded.

Try combining different forms:

• Fine, feathery foliage beside broad leaves
• Upright plants beside soft, arching ones
• Glossy leaves beside matte textures
• Deep greens beside silver or golden foliage
• Dark foliage beside lighter flowers

A garden built only around blooms can have moments of brilliance and then suddenly feel empty.

A garden built around foliage and texture keeps its personality much longer.

🌱 Think in Layers

One of the simplest ways to make a garden feel lush and established is to think vertically.

Start with the bones—shrubs, small trees, evergreens, and other plants that provide structure.

Then add the middle layer with perennials and flowering shrubs.

Finally, bring in lower-growing plants, groundcovers, and trailing forms to soften the edges.

And don't forget to look upward.

Climbers can transform fences, arches, and trellises while making even a small garden feel more dimensional.

The goal isn't to fill every inch.

It's to create a garden where your eye has somewhere to travel.

🪨 Add Something Unexpected

Not everything in a garden needs to be alive.

A weathered stone. An old bench. A terracotta pot. A birdbath. A rusty garden gate. A wooden obelisk covered in vines.

These little details give a garden a sense of history.

They also make the space feel personal.

Orris particularly approves of anything that provides a good place to nap.

A garden doesn't have to be expensive to be interesting. Sometimes the most beautiful pieces are the things that have already lived a little.

🌙 Create Little Moments

You don't need a huge garden to create a memorable one.

A small corner can become its own world.

Place a chair beneath a tree. Tuck a fern beside a stone path. Grow fragrant flowers near the back door. Plant something tall enough to partially hide a view and make someone wonder what's beyond it.

Think about the places where you'll actually spend time.

What will you see when you look out the kitchen window?

What will greet you when you come home?

Where will you sit on a summer evening?

Those are the places worth planting for.

🖤 Break the Rules a Little

Garden design advice can sometimes make gardening sound like there is one correct way to do things.

There isn't.

If you love a plant, find a place for it.

If you love dark foliage, use more of it.

If you want a garden full of flowers, make one.

If you prefer a quiet collection of evergreens and woodland plants, that's beautiful too.

Your garden doesn't have to impress everyone who sees it.

It only has to make you happy when you walk through it.

And sometimes the most memorable gardens are the ones that don't quite follow the rules.

🌿 Let It Evolve

A garden is never really finished.

Plants grow. Some thrive in places you never expected. Others don't make it. A color combination you loved last year might suddenly feel different this year.

That's part of the process.

Give yourself permission to move things.

Try something new.

Let a plant reseed.

Leave a little space for discovery.

The garden you create today doesn't have to be the garden you have five years from now.

In fact, it shouldn't be.

A garden should change with you.