They provide the preliminary data that will help you determine your design. Designing a garden is very much like designing anything and the more questions you can answer before you begin, the easier it will be to arrive at something that satisfies you the first time around. Get a pile of garden magazines and look at all the pictures. Note what you like and what you don t. Take photographs when you visit gardens.
Research really pays off.
You won t find exactly what you want, but you will find more ideas than you can use in a lifetime. Even huge display gardens can provide ideas that can be adapted for the tiniest backyard. Time Life s Virtual Garden site is rich in information and ideas. Check out my list of links for some downloadable articles and take a look at the following pages. Some of them are from the Southern Living portion of the site s Framework of a Garden series, and some are from other pages on the site.