Garden Design Ideas & Projects

Garden design ideas and projects, big and small, are where dreams have the chance of turning into reality. My personal garden make-overs would never qualify for prime time television, but still they are well worth recording - anyone who is organised enough to take 'before' and 'after' photos knows this.

Moosey with Wheelbarrow

Sometimes garden design projects will be the result of meticulous planning, research and measuring - with scale drawings, and phonecalls, and quotes.

Design projects can be animate, seeming to take over and create themselves, after the initial plotting and scheming phase. Some new designs start like a mere trickle in the imagination of the gardener, and grow slowly. Other design projects are huge from the beginning, and require bulldozers, ditchdiggers, and teams of burly men.

The scale of a finished project need not relate to the amount of thinking-time allocated to it. A new pot can be agonised over for hours, while a new pond is indicated with a casual sweep of the arm and the words 'over there'.

Visiting other gardens can inspire new designs too. After a trip to England to look at summer gardens I arrived home wanting to build a moat, a half-acre maze, and have wigwams covered in sweet peas dotted through my vegetable garden. Guess which actually made into reality?

It may seem presumptive to call my garden projects 'designs' - obviously they lack paper plans, planting lists and schemes, and ready cash - but never-the-less I have decided to. Who knows - when the Moosey Garden Design Company is rich and famous these pages will show where it all started!

New Stone Wall...
Wed 2nd Apr 2008

The latest feature in the Moosey Garden is a brand new stone retaining wall, behind which is a brand new shrubbery complete with secret courtyard. Oops - yet another new garden area to tend, and plant, and weed...

The Moosey Waterwheel...
Tue 5th Feb 2008

The garden of my budget-free dreams has many beautiful water features - curved Monet bridges, hexagonal pond deckings covered with puffy recliners, waterfalls with secret water pumps - to mention but three. But in my real garden I'm rustic and recycled, and the proud owner-custodian of a waterwheel.

Koru Garden...
Thu 18th Oct 2007

There's a Koru sculpture in the small rose garden where my Rhapsody in Blue roses grow. The Koru is a strong New Zealand form, spiritual and peaceful, a symbol of life's growth - it represents the fern frond opening.

Henworld - Early Days...
Sat 28th Apr 2007

Henworld - possibly the silliest Moosey garden project ever - is almost ready for its official opening. Though it occupies a small area, Henworld is a huge concept. It's a playground designed for the Moosey poultry.

Rose Avenue in the Orchard...
Sat 7th Jan 2006

In the winter of 2003 (July here in the southern hemisphere) the Hazelnut orchard was planted - over seven hundred trees. Included in the grand design was space through the middle for an avenue of thirteen rose-covered archways. They're finally up!

Rugosa Garden Make-Over...
Thu 28th Apr 2005

For years now I have resisted taking garden make-overs seriously. I'd be absolutely furious if I arrived home and found a helpful team of T-shirted smileys digging up my lawn and artistically erecting blue painted wooden posts.

The Birthday Rose Garden...
Sat 2nd Apr 2005

It was nearly Easter - the big New Zealand gardening weekend. The head gardener at Mooseys was suffering from rose-purchasing withdrawal symptoms - it seemed like years since she'd had a good grab and buy session at an Easter rose sale.

The New Wriggling Stream...
Sat 16th Oct 2004

Usually I write about garden design projects long after they have been successfully completed - thus my gardening self-esteem can shine forth. My attempt at constructing a grand water feature in the Wattle Woods is an exception...

Dog Kennel Garden...
Mon 12th Apr 2004

You couldn't really call it a garden make-over. It was more like a garden challenge - like that given to would-be designers who exhibit at Flower Shows. Not the famous ones, though - this small garden got itself designed totally by default.

The Great Rhododendron Rescue...
Tue 24th Feb 2004

'You should write about projects that failed' said partner the other day, watching sceptically as some rhododendrons were being shifted into a new garden on one of the hottest days of summer.

The Sad Demise of the Tree Stump Lawn...
Fri 23rd Jan 2004

Once apon a time at Mooseys there was a big patch of green and messy grass, full of artistic looking tree stumps. At the edge of this lawn was a small Willow Tree stump with big ideas...

New Rose Garden...
Fri 1st Nov 2002

I had never intended to have a rose garden. I have always poked my roses into mixed borders - next to a flax, or a hebe, or a collection of bergenias and tussocks. Last year's new rugosa border might have started off rosy...

Dog-Path Garden...
Wed 2nd Oct 2002

New borders in my garden are often self-developing, like the Dog-Path gardens over the water race. When the energy level of the gardener-digger drops, the new border is temporarily finished. A few weekends later...

Garden Potager...
Sat 1st Jun 2002

My vegetable garden has been in disgrace since last November. That's the month when the family got sick of lettuces and stopped eating them. In fact, November saw a series of mismanagements and dodgy decisions. I also forgot to plant the beans...

Shade Gardening...
Mon 1st Apr 2002

The back of the house has a small garden which up until now has been home to several large Pseudopanax trees. They were removed two months ago as they were too close to the house...

Stephen's Garden Border...
Fri 1st Mar 2002

I'm having a serious design dilemma with Stephen's Border. This border has had different planting schemes each year, if indeed any of the mismatched planting fill-ups could ever be called a scheme...

Lost Paths of Mooseygan...
Fri 1st Feb 2002

I've just read an article about garden paths in the latest gardening magazine. There are photographs of gravel paths, crushed shell paths, paths created with stone pavers, log rounds, stone pavers and small round riverstones, log pavers with small round river stones...

Stables Garden Border...
Thu 1st Feb 2001

This isn't the story of a major redevelopment. There is no slash and burn, or giant digging session, no transformation from gorse hedge and broom seedlimgs into box hedge and standard olives. Sometimes a garden project is small and gentle...

New Trees...
Fri 1st Dec 2000

In the winter of 1999, when the gorse and gum trees were cleared from the land over the water race, I had my first real chance to choose and plant new trees. My purchases may prove to be costly mistakes...