Garden Location + Mapping
If you are looking to start your first garden, finding the perfect place to put it is key!
If you have lots of space, look for these criteria to locate the best place to put your garden. Short on space or other limiting factors that leave you with no real choice?
Still make note of these factors to have the most success when making your final garden planting plan!
Find a spot with full sun.
Most flowers used for cut bouquets love as much sun as they can get. Locations with southern exposure get all-day sun. East-facing locations will offer protection from the hottest sunshine of the day.
While most flowers love sunlight, some locations may get TOO hot. If you have summers with extended periods of very high temperatures, consider giving your plants a break from the most intense summer heat.
If you are planning and location scouting during the winter, remember that large trees will fill out with leaves again in the spring, creating shaded areas. What is in full sun now may not be during the summer, particularly if the trees are located to the south.
Check your soil
Many experts recommend a soil test, which is the best way to guarantee you have good dirt, and once you decide on a garden spot I’d recommend that too! But we aren’t quite to that step yet.
What I mean by checking your soil is to simply dig a few holes and check it out yourself. This may seem a little silly, since it wouldn’t seem as though soil would vary greatly over a single small piece of property.
My first garden seemed to have the perfect location: southern exposure, with trees to provide afternoon shade from the hottest parts of the day for the plants that needed protection. I had a few raised beds, which I planted early, and decided to add in-ground beds later in my planning.
What I didn’t realize until that time was that area used to be a driveway or patio of some kind.
There was So. Much. Gravel.
It was difficult to dig beds, and even after adding amendments nothing grew well.
That area of my landscape is now home to happy lavender, rosemary, and Russian sage plants.
Make sure your ground is friendly for growing BEFORE adding your beds!
Make sure it’s accessible
If you have several location options to pick from, choose the most water-friendly. You need to ACCESS water, so make sure your hose will reach your garden. You also need to REMEMBER to water, so a garden next to a high-traffic area can remind you to water your plants as you walk by.
Also keep in mind that you’ll likely need to haul in dirt or soil amendments like compost, so make sure you can get in and out easily for that as well!
Measure Your Garden
Once you’ve found the best spot, take specific measurements of your growing area in feet. Make notes of nearby structures, walkways, perennial gardens or landscaping, and shade trees.
Map the area
Using a dot grid, pencil in a map of your growing area. Orient it in the proper direction, using a N/S compass. Also make sure to notate your unit of measurement (what length does one square represent?).
Don’t have a dot grid handy? Download this one for free!
Draw in your garden beds. Make sure any raised beds you have are measured correctly. For both raised beds or in ground, ensure you’ll be able to reach the middle of your beds when plants are full grown. Standard growing beds are typically 3 or 4 feet across, with pathways a minimum of 2 feet wide.
Fill in your plants
Some gardeners like to choose their plants, then fill in their garden layout. Others like to map out their area, and then pick what plants would fit well.
For the sake of this post, let’s assume you know which plants you’d like to put in your garden. If you don’t know the recommended spacing, mature heights, or temperature requirements for what you’d like to grow, there’s a handy printable you can find to help you.
Remember, this is just a plan, you aren’t planting anything yet and you can change things at any time! If you have no idea what you’d like to plant yet, save this post and come back when you’re ready to plan.
Using the recommended spacing for each plant, fill out your garden layout.
To account for taller plants shading out shorter ones, work tallest to shortest and North to South, putting taller plants to the North and shorter to the South.
This is helpful to do within a single garden bed. A 36” plant is not going to shade out a 24” plant if it’s across a 3 foot walkway.
It may also be helpful to group plants according to spacing to keep the same spacing throughout a garden bed or area, but this step is completely personal preference.
Fill in a designated space with however many plants will fit OR fill in a designated number of plants in the amount of space they require.
