This series of 4 garden design video tutorials will show you how to design a garden from start to finish. The garden featured in the video is a small garden design. The process shown does apply to any size of garden, not just small gardens.
Video 5 (coming soon) shows how the garden looked a year after it had been built. Hope you enjoy watching these, please leave me a comment below.
How to survey your garden
Want to Know the Surprising Secret to Creating a Great Looking Garden?
Watch this free garden video tutorial (be warned the content may upset some people!)
How to draw your garden survey to scale
How to design a courtyard garden
Garden construction process
I hope you’ve found these videos useful. Designing your own garden is a very rewarding process, so I encourage you to give it a go!
If you’d like some additional help, I’ve put together a step-by-step online course that will guide you through the whole process. If you’d like to check it out and see if it’s for you, please visit The Great Garden Formula Home Study Course. Or cut and paste this link into your browser http://www.courses.successfulgardendesign.com/create-a-great-garden/
And if you have any questions, please leave me a comment below.
I stumbled upon your site as I was looking up Garden Design on google. I really enjoyed your videos. I think you have done an excellent job. Thank you for sharing.
Susan =)
Thanks Susan, glad you’ve enjoyed the videos. And great that Google has finally found the website!! ;o)
I’m a garden designer, too, and this was a great reminder to take those cross measurements! I haven’t always done that, and it can really cause some problems. Thanks, Rachel!
I know how you feel Jenny, I have to remind myself to take the cross measurements as well – very easy to forget!
Rachel
ps I like your website by the way – nice work!
Great videos, Rachel. I really enjoyed watching them – you speak so clearly, and really provide hands-on advice to those wanting to design their own gardens. I love the design you created, also – you’re obviously quite talented!
Thanks Rebecca, glad you like them…. the outtakes were another matter! ;o)
Hi there Rachel, these tutorials are so simple and effective. I completed a basic garden design course last year and just needed a quick overview of how to use skills taught on that course… your tutorials are so easy to absorb and are really inspiring – I don’t feel overwhelmed by more info than I can handle. Fantastic job, thank you very much! It’d be lovely to see the planting when completed. All the best, Sarah.
Thanks Sarah, glad you have found them helpful! I think one of the toughest times is straight after you’ve done a design course. You know what you should be doing but it takes a while for it to become automatic.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the planting turns out as well… don’t have quite so much control over that part – as you may have read in the blog post http://www.successfulgardendesign.com/plant-passion-v-precision-or-when-it-all-goes-wrong-for-a-garden-designer/
I’m back there in a few months, so will update the photos then.
HI Rachel, Great website. I have looked in book after book of garden design without much success. Your tutorials are brilliant and inspirational. I am hoping to do one of your courses as I feel I can really learn from you. Can’t wait to get started but in the meantime I will keep logging on to your site. Keep up your good work.
Hi Irene, thank you, that’s really good to know!
Seeing that people are getting benefit from the site, really makes it worthwhile. It can be difficult learning design from books, video definitely makes it easier to explain.
Hi Rachel,
Great website and your tutorials make design so easy to follow. I’m another one who bought garden design books and left them to gather dust after being completely overwhelmed. I also love the work you did on your Origin Garden Design, the contemporary ones particularly – what a transformation! If only I could afford to have something wonderful like that done to my garden too…
I missed this when I went to your website the other day. Excellent. If only I’d had some direction like this when I was designing my garden. I had some very difficult angles to work with and measuring and drawing never entered my head. I did it all by laying out lengths of wood. It worked out OK but this would have been easier. Next time. Thanks for visiting my blog and posting a link.
Hi Rachel,
Really loving the designs, especially the advanced contemporary ones..amazing transformations from average gardens to spaces worthy of magazine covers. I am currently trying to design my own garden and I’m taking inspiration from your design styles. I’ve never really seen my gardens potential as an outdoor room until I came across your website. I’m not a designer, so the instructional videos are a real help too.
Thanks for your comment Richard. Glad you are finding the website useful. Have you checked out my other site – http://greatgardenchallenge.com/ yet? You can download a free guide on the 7 Steps to a Great Garden. It will help you further and you can also ask for advice on the forum.
Hello Rachel
I am 50 this year and looking to reinvent myself. The one thing I do that does give me pleasure and positive comments from other people is gardening. I have always been good at DIY and enjoy the hardscaping side too. Is it too late to become a garden designer and if not how do I go about it? I would like to end up with a formal qualification perhaps even a degree. Can you give me any pointers? I stumbled across your site via you tube after searching courtyard garden design on yahoo. I appreciate the hard work you have put into your web site, thank you
Hi Roy
Sorry for delay in replying, I’ve been away for the last 3 weeks and somehow missed your comment when I checked my emails, think the spam filter ate you!
Anyway, definitely not too late to retrain to become a garden designer. You may find that there are adult eduction colleges and resources locally to you. Would be worth doing a Google search to see who is nearest, then go in and meet the tutors and interview students about how good the course is.
One of the main drawbacks with a lot of college courses is they have a set timetable they need to fill and can often pad the course material out. So it’s important to choose a course that will engage and not bore you.
If you are happy to attend virtual classrooms, the best course I know of is run by The Oxford College of Garden Design http://www.garden-design-courses.co.uk/ . It’s run by Duncan Heather who did the same teacher training I did in a very extensive training programme on how to run a virtual school and present information in ways that suit adult learners. He really knows his stuff but the course is expensive.
Alternatively if you want to dip your toe in and see if garden design is for you, try one of my online courses! Although my courses are aimed at homeowners, what I teach is to a level that is ideal for anyone wanting to do this professionally. I have a course opening back up in November for beginners or very soon they’ll be a homestudy course coming out.
Hope that helps you, let us know if you take the plunge!
Best wishes
Rachel
Hi Everyone.
I came across this site and found it very inspiring. I actually have just completed one of Rachel’s Great Garden formula course as we are in the process of building our house and has a very rough building lot to content with. I found the course very very helpful because I have learnt so much in this short course, much more than I have read from books because Rachel sends out videos to explain how each step works and gives you plenty of encouragement. I have already sent Rachel a more in-depth feed back of the course and I hope she can copy/cut and paste my respond to help her spread the her good work to assist other complete beginners like me.
We hope to complete our house by early 2011. I am planning the garden in the mean time. I am hoping to starting making a start soon on part of the garden that is further away from the house as we have a 2 acre lot on a steep hill in Sunny Panama, Central America.
Happy learning everyone.
Hi Tammy,
Many thanks for your feedback – you’ve inspired me to create a page for people that have completed the Great Garden Formula Course to leave feedback directly on this site.
http://www.successfulgardendesign.com/great-garden-formula-feedback-page/
Looking forward to seeing how your garden turns out, sounds like you’ve got your work cut out!
Rachel
Hi,
Came across your site when searching for information on how to survey a garden, great site especially the videos on measuring and planning. I have a very large garden on different levels and i want to transfer these levels on to a drawing (with sections through) so i can plan steps, pond etc and level the lawns. Do you have any tutorials on how to take levels on your site or can you recommend a book or wesite where i can learn how to do this?
Hi Stuart
I don’t have any tutorials that will show that but I am just putting the finishing touches on a downloadable garden survey mini-course that will contain the information you need. Should be out in a couple of weeks or so and it includes video tutorials on how to survey levels. If you drop me an email, I will let you know as soon as it’s ready.
hello,
my name is Shital, I m doing Landscape Designing Course in India.
your videos are really very helpful.
thanx a lot for sharing them.
take care