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What should your garden be used for?

A garden is primarily designed for living in.

Before talking about plants or atmospheres, you need to understand how you want to use this space on a daily basis. Parking, resting, hosting, playing, cooking, gardening, contemplating — each use leads to very specific choices in terms of layout, circulation, materials, and vegetation.

Identifying the right uses is the key to a coherent garden that truly reflects you and will last over time.

📍 Step 2 of 4 — the uses of your garden. 

Parking and circulation

A garden that intelligently integrates parking and circulation, without sacrificing visual comfort or aesthetics. Often overlooked, it is nevertheless the first daily contact with your home — and that of your visitors.

#parking · #circulation · #home-access · #durable-surfaces · #daily-life

Welcoming and hosting

A garden designed to share moments — family lunches, drinks with friends, summer parties. It is necessary to structure convivial spaces that transform according to the number of guests, with real attention to comfort.

#conviviality · #meals · #family · #friends · #shared-moments

Resting and relaxing

A space dedicated to calm, reading, napping, escaping. Sheltered from prying eyes and noise, where one can truly disconnect. This use requires a particular attention to privacy and to the sound atmosphere.

#rest · #calm · #privacy · #shade · #soothing-atmosphere

Cooking and eating outside

A garden designed for summer cooking — barbecue, plancha, pizza oven, even a real outdoor kitchen. The technical constraints are real (proximity to the house, management of smoke, wind) but the gain in quality of life is immense.

#barbecue · #outdoor-cooking · #proximity-to-house · #wind · #user-comfort

Playing and living as a family

An evolving garden, designed for children today and adults tomorrow. Treehouse, trampoline, swing, running space — these facilities must integrate without turning the garden into a playground. Safety and adaptability are essential.

#family-garden · #safety · #evolvability · #robustness · #multiple-uses

Observing and contemplating

A garden that is as much looked at as it is walked through — from the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom. It offers perspectives, focal points, a strong plant presence that changes with the seasons. It is a use often underestimated, yet one of the most valuable in daily life.

#contemplation · #perspectives · #visual-structure · #landscape-reading

Producing and cultivating

A garden that nourishes — vegetables, fruits, aromatic herbs. A well-designed vegetable garden is not a utilitarian plot relegated to the back of the property: it integrates into the overall design, becomes aesthetic, and promotes the biodiversity of the entire garden.

#vegetable-garden · #orchard · #nourishing-use · #biodiversity · #seasonality

Uses give meaning to the garden.

You now have a clearer vision of how you want to live your outdoor space.

The next step is to think about the structural elements — the materials, levels, pathways, shelters — that will make these uses possible, comfortable, and sustainable over time.

Step 3: Explore the structure and layout of the garden