The main factor affecting all garden designs is the site of the proposed garden itself where its size, shape, soil type, aspect, areas of light and shade, drainage, existing plants and other features that are to remain and any neighbouring features to mask/ highlight will all need to be taken into account. A detailed analysis of the garden site will establish the position and what is feasible

After that, the most important influences on a garden's design are inevitably the requirements of its owners. What sort of garden are you wanting ? And what uses must the garden allow and when? To start answering these questions prepare a list of the features you consider you want your garden to contain. This will inevitably be a very personal matter because we will all have varying views about our ideal garden and what we want to use it for.

Typically, for rear gardens, most owners will want a patio area adjoining their property for eating outside/entertaining purposes . Space permitting, they may also want any one or more of the following: a secondary patio/ seating area in a more secluded location away from the property; an area for sunbathing/relaxing; a water feature ( such as a pond or fountain ); one or more lawned areas; flower beds: garden paths; a vegetable plot; a children's play area; a herb garden; a glasshouse; a garden shed; a designated area for compost/rubbish bins and one or more landscape features such as statues, garden seats, arbours, pergolas and the like. Others may have more specific requirements such as a wildflower meadow; a conservatory; a swimming pool or a tennis court. And for front gardens, issues such as seclusion, reducing noise levels and pollution and providing parking areas may be considerations.

Other design features will reflect the owner's choice between, for example, a formal or informal design, a symetrical or asymetrical layout, classical or modern styles and use of materials, varying plant colour schemes/combinations and seasons of interest and relative ease or difficulty of maintenance. These issues are largely a matter of personal preference; for example, many owners with busy working lives and/or no interest in gardening understandably opt for gardens designed to minimise the maintenance requirements, whilst others with or without busy working lives want designs that will enable them to spend many happy hours doing what they really enjoy, which is lovingly tending and maintaining their gardens and the plants that adorn them.

A garden can benefit considerably and in several different ways from the addition of a skillfully planned garden lighting scheme. Garden lighting will benefit the owners by extending the property's living space to include outside areas; by creating attractive and varied views when the garden would otherwise be dark or masked by adverse weather conditions; by increasing safety and security through improved visibility and by increasing the overall value of the property.
Lighting options include "Accent"; "Backlighting "; "Crosslighting"; "Silhouetting"; " Spreadlighting "; "Downlighting"; "Uplighting"; "Grazing"; and "Step Lighting" and a lighting scheme can, if required, be used to provide different views/effects with different lights being activated at different times. It will normally be appropriate to commission a specialist lighting contractor to undertake final design and installation.

The other key factor influencing design is likely to be the owner's budget. It is difficult to predict with any degree of certainty, without first surveying the site and producing a detailed design and carefully costing it, how much it will cost to implement a particular design. In general terms, not surprisingly, the larger the garden and the bigger and more complex the design and specification of works, the more the cost of implementing the design is going to be and vice versa.

On most occasions, a budget will be agreed to between the owner and the designer and, barring significant unforeseeable circumstances, not exceeded. A good designer will always be able to produce a top quality design that can be created within the sums available. And a good designer will quickly indicate to the owners if there is an obvious mis-match between the owner's chosen requirements and the estimated costs of implementing them. On such occasions, there will always be ways and means of limiting the estimated expenditure to the agreed budget but this is likely to mean either limiting the scope of the works or reducing the costs of implementation some or all of the works by, for example, using cheaper hard landscaping materials or planting fewer or smaller trees, shrubs and the like. Such measures will result in alterations to the original design but may not necessarily have a significant impact on the overall appearance and enjoyment of the finished garden.

The designer's task is to carefully consider each of the above factors and to produce an atttractive design that will best meet them. This is where the designer's knowledge and expertise play there vital roles. Plants need to be chosen with great care to ensure that they are suitable in every respect for firstly the soil type(s); secondly, that they will perform the task the designer proposes such as ground cover, climbing, hedging or growing in containers; thirdly, that their leaves will be of the colour, shape or size required; fourthly, that they will flower/provide colour at a specific time of the year and finally that they will if required provide good scent, or fruit/berries, or stems for cutting. And most importantly plants need to be chosen so that their textures, surface patterns, shapes, sizes, flowers (if any) and other features will blend or contrast in an attractive way.

The designer will propose a planting scheme which best compliments the property and the hard landscaping features being proposed so that together they create a garden masterpiece. And it must be remembered that, unlike a painting whose features will remain constant, a garden will change with the seasons and mature as the years roll by, and these changes will also be carefully taken into account in the design.