Taking Inventory of Your Garden

Before you start a garden design plan, you need to take stock of what’s on your property. It’s from this information that decisions are made about what to change and what to keep. To make this inventory, you’ll need a surface on which to draw and take notes. This is what I call a base plan.

Get Off to a Good Start With a Base Plan

Every time, before I leave my house and take measurements on a plot of land, I start by drawing the important elements of a property on paper or digitally. The first step is to draw the house. If you’re a homeowner, consult your certificate of location, on which you’ll find the dimensions of your home and the property limits in relation to it. You can also start by measuring your house, using it as a starting point. Otherwise, you can use satellite photos found on online mapping services (e.g. Google Maps) to draw a basic plan.

Now you need to transcribe this information onto paper or digitally; this will be your base plan. During my training, I learned how to trace a certificate of location on vellum paper (an almost transparent paper), but I must confess that I’ve been working almost exclusively digitally for a long time now. When I do freehand drawings, it’s more often at the draft stage, where precision is less important. Beginners risk making errors of scale, proportion and quantity, such as putting in too many or too few plants, misjudging the materials to be ordered or the size of mature trees. Although the mouse and stylus offer greater precision, they don’t have the same feel as pencil and paper.

Another Possible Method

Another simple method is to redraw the house and property boundaries using grid paper. Assign each square a dimension (this can be several meters or centimeters, depending on the size of your property). You can then draw your house following these squares, and transcribe the property lines from this drawing.

Digital Base Plan

Making your basic plan digitally, on the computer or on a smart device, offers a number of advantages. We’re not all artists, and this option offers greater precision. Also, you can rework over and over again. There’s only so many times you can erase a pencil drawing and start again! Secondly, you can make several copies and versions of the same plan, or use several layers that you can make appear or disappear as you please. For example, the house can be on one layer, the plants on another, or you can make several sketches on top of your basic plan.

Site Inventory

Once you’ve completed your base plan, you’ll be able to draw up an inventory of the site, i.e. your garden with all its component parts. You can be as specific as you like. Here are just a few of the elements that can be found:

• Buildings, streets, parking areas, driveways, patios and terraces;
• Location of building doors and windows;
• Beds and plants, especially trees;
• Utilities: water inlet, sewers, electricity, gas mains.
• Soil types: have a soil analysis done if necessary.
• Sun exposure: sunny, partial shade, shady areas
• Water features: streams, ponds, drainage, pools, gutters
• Climate: hot or cold areas, prevailing winds
• Fauna and flora: habitats or species
• Legal constraints: property boundaries, easements, zoning

In fact, any significant element of your space can be noted here, as well as your impressions or things outside your property. Think of a beautiful viewpoint, your neighbor’s bathroom window without blinds (true story) and the neighborhood trees that have an effect on your garden.

Take your time! There’s no rush, the more you get to know your property, the better you’ll be able to evaluate it and eventually change it to better suit your needs and desires. Let’s talk about the next steps over the summer.