Designing Your Garden

Rebekka Hart
Jun 15
8 min read

“The Great Teacher came from heaven to plant in this world trees of light. He calls on nature to reflect to human minds the light that floods the threshold of heaven, that men and women may obey his word. And nature does the bidding of the Creator. To the heart softened by the grace of God, the sun, the moon, the stars, the lofty trees, the flowers of the field, utter their words of counsel and advice. The sowing of the seed carries the mind to spiritual seed-sowing. The tree stands forth declaring that a good tree can not bear evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bear good fruit. “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Even the tares have a lesson to teach. They are of Satan's sowing, and if left unchecked, spoil the wheat by their rank growth.

When man is reconciled to God, nature speaks to him in words of heavenly wisdom, bearing testimony to the eternal truth of God's Word. As Christ tells us the meaning of the things in nature, the science of true religion flashes forth, explaining the relation of the law of God to the natural and the spiritual world.”

(EGW, Spalding and Magan Collection, p. 186.4-5)

“Why would somebody plant flowers? They only cost money but they do not pay off unless you sell them as fresh cut flowers.”

“Lawn looks beautiful but if you want to have your own country living farm, lawn only takes time to mow and maintain, so it is a waste of resources and space.”

These and similar ones were my thoughts over many years until I received a calling to come and work at Bogenhofen, an Adventist school campus with LOTS OF park areas. Upon arriving, I saw the park and wondered, how we will ever be able to take care of it but then I decided I will just have somebody mowing the big areas and focus the rest of the time on the vegetable and fruit growing. One day, a local gardening club wanted to see our campus. Some of the teachers saw the need of helping out in making the park look a bit more presentable by cutting hedges and other things. As the visitors came, some commented on certain neglected areas. It was then that I realised the importance of the garden in itself. I was called to Bogenhofen not only to help producing vegetables which can serve the physical health of the students but I was also called to make the park a beautiful place so the young people will want to leave the buildings and stay outdoors because that will increase their mental health and learning capacity. In addition, a beautiful designed and taken care of park area will reflect God’s character even more and will draw students as well as visitors closer to Him.

Over my 6 years working at Bogenhofen, I enjoyed seeing numbers on paper of our harvest and measured success in how certain crops increased. But how would you measure lawn, bushes, flowers, beauty?

There is a story that was told about a carpenter crafting a little bird on the top beams of a huge cathedral many years ago. Somebody asked him why he takes time to do that, since it will be covered and nobody will ever see it. His answer was: “But God sees it”.

Maybe there are times where we invest into things where success can not be measured but it still serves the purpose of blessing others, showing God’s character and ultimately glorifying Him.

This thought might not be for those of you who invest already a lot of time to beautify their gardens and rejoice over the beauty of it. I do want to acknowledge your work and encourage you to see how your beautiful garden can help you to start conversations with your neighbours and friends about God as well as how it can help you to draw object lessons from nature and how it can bring you closer to God. If you are focused on production, numbers and increase – may it encourage you to not limit yourself to the success that is seen but to keep an open heart for God’s plan with your garden and your land.

There are some principle within garden design that I found helpful in either starting or beautifying the garden:

1. Beautiful & useful

Have a mixture of beautiful flowers and shrubs in different colors. Besides that, use some part of the garden for relaxing possibilities like a hammock between the trees, a bench implemented into the design somewhere in the shade or a neatly cut lawn that invites to sit down to admire the beauty and ultimately the Creator.

Besides that, invest into fruit bearing bushes and maybe even trees if space allows you to. They can be placed between the others and present a nice variation as well as invite to taste the fresh and sweet fruit.

2. Visual style

Optic is of course a matter of personal taste. For some, a jungle-like garden with many varieties mixed randomly together is very attractive. Others might enjoy symmetries and right color combination. There are some general visual guidelines that help to make a small place look bigger or to make it easier to relax:

Corners can be softened with curved shapes, rectangular surfaces are broken up with diagonals, variety helps to bring division in elongated surfaces. Variety is best seen with contrasts like tall and small plants, different colors, different types of flowers, bushes and trees as well as lawn or fences and other decorating objects. Usually, bigger plants go in the back unless you have an island bed where tall plants should be planted in the middle. Ugly places like walls, buildings or compost piles can be hidden behind bushes or even certain climbing plants like ivy, roses, hydrangea and others.

The 4 most common different garden styles are:

Mediterranean Garden

People who enjoy vacation on the Mediterranean might want to bring that feeling to their garden by placing rustic garden furniture on terrace mad of natural sandstone or wood. Small ponds with sandstone walls around as well as beds with olive trees, rosemary, lavender and seating areas with parasols are typical for this type of garden.

Classical Garden

It is low-maintenance, yet cozy. Wood and stones are elements used which make it look warm and simple. Most of the time there are flowering perennials and bushes sometimes even in raised brick beds which are easy to be maintained. It often contains a fire place, polyrattan garden furniture as well as a Hollywood swing or comfortable benches for relaxing moments.

Natural Garden

There are willow fences, colorful flowering shrubs and wildflowers which invite animals, insects and people to enjoy peace and quiet nature. Usually, it has wood and natural stone as building and shaping elements but they are used with care in order to keep a natural look. It might contain a small pond with some plants and animals inside as well as around.

Modern Garden

Simplicity and elegance is seen through clear shapes, carefully placed accents (often long gras and possibly a few flowers) as well as large concrete slabs as paving. Usually there are straight lines through the garden and a few luxurious elements like a pool area.

It is good to remember that the style should not only be chosen because one likes it but also because the place (soil, climate, surrounding) is ideal for it.

3. Light conditions

Choose appropriate flowers or bushes for sunny or shady location of your garden. Observe how many hours of sun is there at the different places before buying plants for it.

Most plants thrive in the sun or partial shade. There are a few that like to be in total shade like ivy, ferns, dicentra (also known as bleeding heart), astilbe or hosta. All of them are perennials and once planted just need to be maintained.

Trees can be natural parasols for enjoying some shade during summer while providing flowers, fruit or nuts. Just make sure that trees are planted with sufficient distance to the house otherwise they will prevent the sun from shining through the windows once they are bigger.

4. Year-round

It is good to sit down before planting and figure out when which plants are green and blooming. In that way a garden can be created where there is always something green, blooming or ready to be harvested and not everything at the same time, leaving it desolate and empty in wintertime. In this way, the garden will always be beautiful and attractive.

5. Maintenance

It is easy to plant everything and make it look nice but it is not always so motivating and easy to maintain it that way. There are some efficient ways to make maintenance fun as well as keep it beautiful all year round.

This can be done by creating lawn areas that are easy to mow with less obstacles and tricky corners if one does not have a robot lawn mower. Weeds can be avoided or at least eliminated by bark mulch and rock gardens with a plastic tarp under. Ground covering plants also help to keep weeds away and make the surface look full and alive. For irrigation one can use drip systems or sprinkler with a timer.

Paths should be made in a way that avoid detours, compost pile should be placed close to the vegetable garden. More frequently used things like herbs can be planted near the house. Keeping the herb garden free from weeds will also motivate to use them regularly for cooking.

6. Affordable

Flowers and bushes can cost a lot and if you want to renovate your garden with swimming pool and other things it might become quite a big investment.

Living in Austria, people are used to having flowers decorating the windows and balconies and if you do not want to sow them yourself (which is not so easy to grow these ones nicely), it might be challenging to finance all this every year. My suggestion is to buy mid-range plants and cultivate them so they can grow nicely. Also, they say that simple is beautiful. It is not necessary to always invest a lot in expensive plants. Buy plants while they are small and have some patience for them to grow.

If you plan to renovate your garden, try to do as much as you can do yourself or ask some friends who are skilled to help. Bringing in professionals and big machines might get unnecessarily expensive.

In general, it is good to consider what you want to do this year, what can be postponed to later and in that way avoid having all investments at once.

7. Plants grow!

Like stated before, plants grow and become bigger. This needs to be considered when planting trees close to buildings but also close to each other. Flowers, bushes and perennials will increase in size and even though it might look empty in the beginning, it is important to not plant them too close. It will make it look more beautiful later on as well as give necessary space for light.

Consider also leaving some of the plants that are already there. That will save some investment and they can be incorporated. A big fruit tree bears already fruit and might be a great place to hang a swing for children. If you plant a young tree, you might have to wait some years to be strong enough for that.

Also, certain plants easily overgrow your garden and after having them planted, it is not so easy to keep them where you want to have them (for example peppermint or all kind of grass which have a dense root network). Sometimes it might be a challenging and big job removing certain hedges where roots have grown everywhere. These things are good to consider if you really want to get rid of them and find the right tools that make it easier to remove all the roots in order to prevent them from growing back.

I hope you are inspired to beautify your own garden and keep it, so it can reflect God’s character and help you and others to grow closer to Him.

Rebekka Hart has grown up on an Austrian family farm and taken an education as a kindergarten teacher. After several years working and learning at different institutions how to grow vegetables and how to grow closer to God, she moved with her husband and daughter to the countryside where they are building up their own little garden.