Defining key areas so you know where to start

With your sketched yard in hand, your next step is to decide which area you want to start with and to roll up your sleeves. As I repeatedly advise, tackling everything at once isn’t easy and often isn’t realistic or affordable. Break big projects down into manageable pieces, and do them one at a time. Like rooms in a house, a garden area has four major elements. And as in building a house, going from the ground up is best. Tackle the four major elements in this order:

1. Floor, Lawn grass, a groundcover, paving materials, or good, plantable soil
2. Walls, Supplied literally by a wall of your house; by a fence, hedge, or trellis; or by backdrop of evergreens or shrubs of some kind
3. Ceiling Can certainly be open sky but may also involve an umbrella, awnings, overarching tree or large-shrub branches, or a pergola with or without a cloak of plants
4. Furniture Literally tables and chairs and benches and the like, but also major containers or garden ornaments and décor

Don’t go overboard with garden gnomes and pink flamingos. Limit yourself to one or two ornaments and keep the focus on the sense of space and the living parts of your garden.