3 Garden Design Mistakes & How to fix them

Often, when I tell people what I do for a living, their eyes light up, recognizing an opportunity to find answers to their burning garden questions.

“What should I plant here? Why can’t I get this to grow? What plant is good for shade?”   

From this, I’ve realized that most people, when trying to improve the appeal of their home, focus on the smaller issues in their garden rather than the big picture. To make the most significant impact on a property, it is essential to keep the big picture at the forefront.

It might not seem like it, but improving the health of plants or filling bare spots are easy problems to fix. It’s getting the overall composition right — the proportions, shapes, layout, and scale — where important design principles need to be considered. When you get these fundamental design components right, the entire garden seems to fall into place.

Here are the three design mistakes I see all the time that will unintentionally make your design flop. Even though these mistakes usually are overlooked by the untrained eye, correcting them makes a HUGE impact on the overall look and feel of a garden that everyone will notice. I liken the results to when you run into a friend you haven’t seen in a while who has maybe lost a few pounds or had some fillers injected at the dermatologist — you can usually tell they look better, but you can’t exactly pinpoint what they’ve done.

Like a good haircut, the three design solutions I discuss below are small details that will improve the overall look of your garden in subtle but impressive ways. One thing to note: there are always exceptions to rules. I’m not saying that these rules can’t be broken, or that I haven’t broken them myself. But, putting any of these ideas in place can never hurt!

Mistake #1: Hard Surfaces Next to Hard Surfaces

When you place a paved area next to another hardscape surface, the garden looks hard and unwelcoming. If you’re adding a step, path, or wall next to another hard surface, like a sidewalk or patio, add a narrow planting bed (4”-6” wide) with a short ground cover between the two surfaces to soften the space. Most people don’t know it’s there, but it makes a world of difference in the overall look of the garden, softening hard edges and creating definition between spaces.

We added plants here to soften the edge between stone and concrete.

 Mistake #2: Steps that are too Steep and Shallow

Garden steps should be generous in-depth and short in height. Deep treads and short risers are inviting and better match the scale of the great expanse of space that is the outdoors. Most times, though, outdoor steps are built too shallow and steep. But if you wonder what the right proportions are for garden steps, there is a formula to help you figure it out: two times the riser plus the depth of the tread should equal 24” to 26”. Outdoor risers should not exceed 6” in height. So, if you have a 12-inch change in height, you can build two steps that are 6” high and 12 to 14 inches deep, or three risers that are 4” high and 16” to 18” deep. Easy peasy.

We designed these steps to have a nice gradual rise.

Mistake #3: Pathways that are too Narrow

Choosing the right scale for elements in the landscape is trickier than indoors because everything is larger and more open outside. If we imagine the front façade of a home or the height of mature trees as the walls and the tree canopies as the ceiling, then we are dealing with a much larger scale for our installed elements to measure up against in the garden. A walkway then should not be the same scale as an interior hallway between two interior walls, but rather a sufficiently wide pathway connecting a wide street or sidewalk and a much taller façade. As a general rule, I like to make major walkways to a home’s entry at least 5’ wide. And, when in doubt, bigger is always better outside.

The path width was set to match the scale of the home.

I hope that these tips help solve some of your design dilemmas. Let me know if you’ve tried these or have any design tips of your own you’d like to share! I’d love to see the results!