How to Create Your Own Lovely Garden Design

True garden lovers hold sensible garden design in the highest regard. Winter  is a time of dormancy and can deprive you of the chance get outside and dig some soil or smell the flowers.  A simple pleasure like poring through the seed and plant catalogs, dreaming of spring is a real joy. Planning to establish a cutting bed or your own small field of perennial wildflowers fill your mind full of fun and promise. But if you don't have a cohesive plan, you may end up with a garden design that's not what you really want.

Winter is the perfect time to work on your existing garden design. The fun part of designing a garden is creating your inventory of preferred plants, from shrubs to vegetables - and beyond!  Remember, you don't need to do it all this year. Gardening is somewhat like a great marriage. It's a lifelong love. So when you put your list of projects to paper, think long term. Don't hesitate to include your ideal plants, garden ornamentation, brick pathway, or the massive display of spring bulbs giving way to summer perennials.

The old fashioned way of garden design uses graph paper, a pencil, rubber, lots and lots of patience and very good ability to visualize. Although some gardeners still prefer this method, you can have a lot of fun creating your garden design with any number of excellent software packages that are available now.

Its not all sitting down to sketch your new garden, you do have to do manual tasks like, measure the dimensions of your garden area. Once that's accomplished, you're ready to sit down and create a visual representation of your dream garden design.

To help you along your way there is a wide range of garden design software that comes with huge databases of plant images and characteristics, organized in categories. Choose your gardening zone, plant type, exposure and soil requirements to select those suited to your plot and taste. Such software lets you virtually install your brick pathway and plant a perimeter of annuals. You'll see how many plants are required for the allotted space and how they'll look at planting time as well as in midsummer. How about a shade tree to eventually cool your southern facing kitchen? Select your tree and plant it. See how much cooling cover it provides three or five or ten years from now. The software calculates the distance of the tree from your house that's  required to keep your foundation intact 20 years from now. Marvelous! The visuals provided by such garden design software are inspiring and accurate representations of what you may expect of your design, both in the short and long term.

Garden design software helps you to decide what you do and don't care as many times as you like - all on your own computer!  They enable you to create as many garden designs as your heart desires. It's a fantastic way to while away long winter's nights!