Read the land and the relief
Every project starts here: understanding your soil, the natural slopes, the existing level differences. This reading of the land conditions almost all the technical choices that follow — drainage, earthworks, planting.
#topography · #relief · #land-reading · #natural-constraints.
Manage slopes and elevation changes
The slope profoundly structures the garden: it influences the pathways, the views, the flow of water, the stability of the soil. A well-managed gradient — terraces, walls, planted slopes — becomes an asset rather than a problem.
#slope · #elevation-change · #terraces · #soil-stability · #water-management
Designing the pathways
The paths set the rhythm of the garden and organise how it is traversed daily. When well thought out, they become invisible through their obviousness; when poorly designed, they create daily friction that eventually becomes tiresome.
#circulation · #pathway · #daily-use · #fluidity
Choose materials
The mineral elements give the garden its character, its durability and its coherence. Stone, wood, gravel, concrete, metal — each material tells a story and ages differently. This choice deserves to be made with as much care as that of the plants.
#mineral · #coatings · #materials · #sustainability
Structuring volumes (long and narrow gardens)
A long or narrow garden is composed in sequences to avoid the corridor effect. Breathing spaces, thresholds, distinct moments are created that give the illusion of a richer journey than it actually is. A true question for the architect.
#long-garden · #sequencing · #rhythm · #visual-breaks
Creating perspectives
Lines, alignments, and openings direct the gaze and give depth to the space. A good perspective can transform a small garden into a generous space — it is one of the most powerful levers of landscape design.
#perspectives · #visual-axes · #depth · #staging
Install focal points
A remarkable element — a tree, a sculpture, a bench, a basin — that anchors the gaze and structures the reading of the garden. Without a focal point, the eye wanders without stopping; with one, the garden gains intention and presence.
#focal-point · #visual-marker · #hierarchy-of-spaces
Work on intimacy and visual protections
Protecting without enclosing, filtering rather than hiding. Good management of intimacy creates spaces where one truly feels at home, without turning the garden into a plant bunker. The boundary is more subtle than it seems.
#intimité · #brise-vue · #filtrage · #relation-voisinage
Integrate lightweight structures
Pergolas, arbors, wooden shelters, screens: these structures provide shade, seating, sometimes a touch of architecture that warms the whole. Well-sized and well-placed, they transform the use of the garden.
#wood · #pergola · #lightweight-structures · #shade
Managing water and permeability
Water structures the garden as much as the walls or pathways. With climate change, its management is becoming a central issue — recovery, infiltration, retention. An increasingly imposed requirement by Belgian municipalities.
#water · #drainage · #runoff · #permeability
Integrate structures that are beneficial to biodiversity
Dry stone walls, insect hotels, ponds, wood piles — some structures become sustainable refuges for wildlife. These discreet arrangements profoundly enrich the garden's ecosystem without burdening maintenance.
#structural-biodiversity · #refuges · #ecological-continuities
Thinking about the structure over time
A good structure is designed to last, evolve, accommodate plants over time. It patinas, becomes vegetated, accumulates successive uses. Investing in a quality structure saves you from costly overhauls in 10 or 15 years.
#long-term · #sustainability · #garden-evolution
The structure sets the framework — space for the plants.
You now have in mind the structural elements that will compose the sustainable framework of your garden: the lines, the materials, the levels, the infrastructures.
Now comes the most sensitive step, the one that will give your garden its soul and identity : the choice of plant atmospheres.
Step 4: Discovering plant atmospheres