How to Create a Summer Garden Retreat

Whether you prefer a casual garden that would be perfect for a country cottage or a formal one more suited to a European manor house, it should be a place you can retreat to at the end of a stressful day -- a sanctuary removed from life's hustle and bustle. Design the space to work for you that reflects your personal taste whether you have a city lot the size of a postage stamp or acres of land in the country.

Instructions

Choose a garden type. Plant a romantic cottage garden and relax among a large variety of colorful flowers, fragrant herbs and blooming hedges. Design a formal garden laid out geometrically perhaps featuring topiaries, rose beds, a knot garden -- one resembling embroidery stitches -- and a central statue or fountain.

Plan the walkways. Think about how you want to navigate through the garden and where you will want to sit and dine, meditate, read, converse with friends or simply hide out for a while. In a casual setting, choose winding pathways fashioned from natural materials like sand, pea gravel or crushed shells. Lay straight walks of brick, gravel or fieldstone to create the symmetry inherent in a formal garden design.

Decide on the plantings. Choose a variety of flowers for a cottage garden. Mix perennials and annuals so that something is blooming all summer long. Include some herbs and vegetables to make your private space not only visually beautiful and relaxing but practical as well. Border the pathways with ground cover and bank the rest of the plants moving from short to tall, providing privacy. Plant a hedge of trimmed boxwood to create the border of a formal space. Create rooms within that border. Consider a rose garden to add beauty and fragrance where you can rest on teak lounge chairs shaded by fruit trees interspersed among the roses. Design the garden so that all paths lead to a fountain surrounded by garden benches where you can retreat to enjoy the relaxing sound of falling water.

Add structures. Surround a cottage garden with a white picket fence. Place a gazebo in one of the garden rooms you have created in a formal garden where you are shaded from the elements while you enjoy the view. Settle into a weathered Adirondack chair placed at the end of a winding pathway cozied under an archway covered with wisteria or trumpet vine. Build a pergola over a terrace and train climbing plants to trail down the sides, and cover the top to provide a quiet, shady spot to meditate.

Create outdoor rooms. Install an awning over a sunlit deck or terrace. Border it with benches to provide extra seating. Center it with a dining table surrounded by comfortable chairs with deep cushions. Include chaise lounges for wiling away the hours. Dot the space with container gardens. Build a fire pit or outdoor fireplace to warm cool evenings.

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