Garden Design Step Five: Drawing the Bones of Your Space
This is the step where everything you’ve been thinking about finally lands on paper.
You don’t need special software, artistic skill, or a perfect plan — just graph paper, a pencil, and a little time.
Start With Graph Paper
Grab graph paper and decide on a simple scale:
1 square = 1 foot
This keeps everything grounded in reality and makes spacing far easier later.
Begin by drawing only what already exists:
- Property lines or bed boundaries
- Buildings nearby (house, garage, barn, shed)
- Fixed features like walkways, patios, fences, walls, or utilities
- Any existing trees, shrubs, or plantings that will stay
Don’t worry about plants yet. This drawing is about the bones of the space — the framework everything else must work within.
Spend time here. Measure carefully. This is the foundation for every decision that follows.
Personally I like to do a very rough sketch of the space first as a V1 and then I go back and add dimensions in V2.
Here is what V1 looked like for my courtyard design.
Capture the Constraints
As you draw, think back to your earlier observations:
- Areas that flood or stay wet
- Dry or compacted zones
- Full sun, partial shade, or deep shade
- Wind exposure
You don’t need to label everything perfectly — even simple notes in the margins help inform future choices.
Here is an example you might not think of. I had to draw how french drains would need to be added under my design because the whole area stayed too wet. I needed to line those up to where I wanted paths.
Stop Before Adding Plants
Once the space, structures, and fixed elements are drawn, pause.
At this stage, the goal is not to design the planting yet — it’s to understand the canvas you’re working with. Getting this right makes every next step easier and prevents constant erasing and redrawing later.
Pro Tip: Use Tracing Paper
Here’s a trick that makes garden design much more enjoyable:
Lay tracing paper over your original graph paper drawing.
This allows you to:
- Keep your base layout intact
- Try multiple planting ideas
- Experiment with paths, focal points, and hardscaping
- Compare different versions without starting over
I use this method constantly. It encourages creativity without the pressure of getting it “right” the first time.
Last example, here I just drew the house, the depth of the bed, the basement access etc. before I came in with any plant material.
What Comes Next
With your base drawing complete, you’re ready to start layering ideas:
- Where hardscaping belongs
- Where focal points should live
- How the garden flows and feels as a whole
In the next post, we’ll start working directly on top of this drawing — using it to shape structure, focal points, and the overall layout of the garden.
This is also exactly how we’ll work through garden planning in my Garden Design Workshop on March 1 at Scout Hill Farm, where I’ll guide you step-by-step through creating a plan you can confidently plant from.