Even if you never talk to a landscape designer in your life, the design idea are endless. A clever way to incorporate your personality into your garden is to use plants that reflect some of your other interests by using a theme garden. Below is a list of ideas to adopt as your own:
- Color combinations: Go for a color a theme such as blue and white. Don’t forget that flowers aren’t your only source of color. For instance, you could add white using the foliage from a plant such as Lamb’s Ears.
- Claude Monet’s garden: Plant the flowers that were painted by the famous artist such as sunflowers, water-lilies, tulips, chrysanthemums, and dahlias.
- Biblical garden: Grow plants found in the Bible. Your list might include bay tree, laurel, olive, mallow, coriander, myrtle, and pomegranate.
- Shakespearean garden: This would include plants that Shakespeare addresses in his works. Some flowers mentioned in his works are roses, violets, daisies, cowslips, and primroses.
- Family garden: Research plants and flowers that have the same name as your family members; roses are a great place to start for this type of theme.
- Scented garden: It’s very often the gardens planted for scent that will be romantically remembered. But you do have to use a light hand when planting, taking into consideration how strong the scent is of the plant species (or variety) is as well as how close to a walkway you plant them.
- Period gardens: Old-world garden themes might include an Elizabethan garden, formal and elegant and planted specifically to appeal to the senses; a medieval medicinal garden with plants grown specifically for their healing properties; or a Colonial garden like those of seventeenth-century New England, entirely utilitarian and comprised of small crops, herbs, medicinal plants, and plants for making dyes.
- Heritage garden: Maybe you have strong ties to an old-world country such as Italy or Ireland. Or maybe you just like Mexican food. If you have a penchant for a specific ethnic food, grow a garden filled with vegetables native to that country.
- Sports garden: If you’re a diehard sports fan, consider planting some garden space with your favorite team’s colors. Don’t forget add a few accent colors to help the team’s primary color stand out.
These garden theme suggestions aren’t even close to exhaustive. But they should have stirred up your own creative juices. Write down a list of your favorite things, people, or hobbies and incorporate and bring to life your personal garden design.
Photo of pink garden by The Yes Man
Photo of side yard by bchow