Get to the point with your garden design

To bring your garden into focus, find a place where your eyes can rest.

Focal points are a gardens visual resting spots. In the flashy riot and exuberance of a summer garden, they lead the eye through it all, gently imposing order on a view. At every season, a tall, carefully placed urn, a sparkling birdbath or a handsome specimen shrub doesnt steal the glory from the rest of the garden it enhances the scene by giving it direction.

The most common mistake people make is, they try all these different varieties of plants, and their backyard ends up looking like a tossed salad, says Mike Miller, a landscape architect at Ewseychik, Rice & Miller in Longwood, Fla. We use a broad, simple palette, he says, and create focal points.

Finding a focal point and settling on an appropriate plant or architectural element to achieve the desired effect may take some thought and effort. Some designers actually give their clients a large, empty picture frame and ask them to walk around with it, defining the important views.

Taking pictures of your garden will also reveal the places that naturally attract your eye as well as spots that need to be screened from view. Youll be able to forget about an annoying utility pole if you plant a screen of evergreens and place an arbor strategically in your line of sight.

Peggy Krapf, a garden designer in Toano, Va., near Williamsburg, works hard on the details in her clients gardens. One suburban garden seemed to have all the right elements but simply did not feel welcoming.

There were all these little bits, she says. They had nice plants and paths and a fountain, but they were like separate thoughts. Visitors were not sure where the garden began or how to approach it, and the existing paths hurried them along without encouraging them to enjoy the experience along the way.

Krapf needed to unify the garden. She first suggested a proper garden gate. The 4-foot-high gate, flanked by evergreen shrubs, makes visitors pause a little before entering the garden, allowing them to take in the scene.

Krapf then placed a bench at the end of the path, creating a destination, and moved a few shrubs to make the fountain the focus of the view from the porch. In another clients garden, she designed a curving stone bench to put in one corner. The bench draws visitors out to enjoy the flower beds up close and takes the sharp edge off the corner of the property.

In her own large country garden, Krapf put a garden bench at the end of an axis, about 50 feet from her front door. The bench occupies a space with raised flower beds on either side and invites her to sit there and admire her blooms.

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Get to the point with your garden design