Landscaping ideas for your garden

Pooja Khanna Tyagi

Since the COVID-19 outbreak has made us housebound, let’s make the most of this time and plan a home improvement project which can be pursued, now with the limited resources available and, to the fullest once the lockdown opens. One such project could be landscaping the front lawn, backyard or terrace garden of your bungalow, row house or apartment. Here’s how to go about it:

Chalk out your requirements

Determine the functional requirements of your garden and make a list of the design features that you would like to introduce. You can consider an outdoor playground for children, a kitchen garden, an outdoor entertaining space and a patio to name a few. Make a rough sketch to accommodate all your requirements, divide the outdoors into distinct zones and strategically allocate space for the same.

Clutter-free space

Organise your garden and give it a clutter-free look by removing things that are not required in the garden. Some of the basic items that tend to get accumulated over a period of time include broken pots, dead plants, leaves, junk metal and glass items.

Green path

Create a pathway with some stepping stones or paver blocks and lay them in a straight line or in a gentle curve. This will upgrade the look of the garden and prevent grass from getting damaged while walking on the lawn.

Beautify the boundary wall

Convert the boundary wall into a green wall by growing climbers on it or beautify it by painting some motifs or decorative patterns. If you possess some wall sculptures in materials like terracotta or natural stone, then fix them on the boundary wall to give it an artistic look.

Arrange potted plants

Use a limited number of potted plants to create a stepped look. Arrange the tallest plants behind and the shortest plants in the front. Create a sculpture by keeping a big plant in the centre and surrounding it with smaller plants. Mark the periphery of the garden with flowering plants.

If you have some paint at home, try to give the earthen pots a fresh coat. Pots painted in vibrant colours like red, blue or yellow add to the beauty, especially when arranged in a repetitive pattern. Recycle your old tyres and plastic bottles by growing plants in these.

Accessorise it well

Decorate with a cluster of oversized pots in different sizes or add some interesting garden accessories and keep it in one corner of the garden. If you have stone sculptures of Lord Buddha or Lord Ganesha , use these to complement the overall look of your garden.

Add organic kitchen garden

Dedicate a small area for an organic kitchen garden where the vegetables can be grown in earthen pots or growbags. The area demarcated for the kitchen garden should get at least six hours of sunlight during the day. Start your kitchen garden by growing curry leaves, basil, lemon grass, coriander, cabbage, lemons, tomatoes and lady’s finger, to name a few.

Minimalist plan

If you want a streamlined, neat and easy-to-maintain garden, opt for a minimalist garden. This garden can be designed by creating a boundary with hedges and by using only three species of flowering plants. Go for plants with evergreen foliage as these shall impart a green colour throughout the year. Use only limited materials like stone, wood or limestone for the minimalist garden and use grey coloured pots for the plants.

Add to the to-do list

When the COVID-19 lockdown is over, you can enhance the look of your garden with a built-in or portable water feature, a gazebo, garden furniture and other accessories. Introduce soft lighting by adding different types of garden lights like lanterns, fairylights, spotlights and LED strip lights for recessed lighting.

Miyawaki technique

Use the Miyawaki method of afforestation which was introduced by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki to create a mini-forest in your backyard or a vacant plot of land. A dense forest can be achieved by planting dozens of native plant species close to each other in a minimal space which can be as small as 20 square feet. All the plants grow 10 times faster and become self sustainable and maintenance-free after three years. Since the plants are closely spaced, they grow upwards instead of sideways as they receive sunlight only from the top.