Creating A Garden For The Whole Family

You can have the most elaborate back yard from the entire neighborhood, but if it isn’t functional you have built it in vain. We all want to have beautiful and flourishing gardens, but when we have a family, we must also take into consideration the needs of the other members of it. One helpful tip is to start by dividing the space of your yard in two or three visual spaces, one for play and relaxation, one for gardening and maybe one for pets. (Drawing out a diagram, as in the picture to the left, can be very helpful.)

2009 garden plan (Photo credit: lauracreekmore)An open space, perhaps covered by grass & flowers, is ideal for your children. Here you can install a picnic table for open air lunches or for a romantic summer evening dinner.

How about pets? You can build special spaces for these little members of your family, so they have a place where they can play and exercise. Before you plant bushes and ornamental plants, you may want to fence in or build a border around the area. Cats and dogs tend to be attracted exactly by the things we try to keep them away from.

Keep the by-passers’ eyes away from your personal life. Before planning the scenery, designate a place for things like garbage cans. It wouldn’t be very nice to have a wonderful garden right next to the garbage cans. These can be efficiently hidden in some kind of surrounded space, or create a living fence with shrubs and vining flowers on a trellis - lovely!

Functionality is an important factor in your garden, so you have to think about children, little pets and family assets before you plant anything. Save a portion of the yard especially for you, in which you can plant whatever you want and leave for the others some space to do what they want as well. If you have kids, you may even want to create a little garden space for them to plant in as well - teach them early how rewarding it can be to grow things, and getting them involved with their own food production can really help with the picky eaters!

You may also find great satisfaction in building a nice pathway, and perhaps place some benches under an arbor, from which you can relax and admire your work.