The New Garden Designer How to Design Useful, Beautiful Gardens from Start to Finish

By: Daryl Beyers

Published by Timber Press, Incorporated, 2026-04-21

In The New Garden Designer, Daryl Beyers guides gardeners and budding designers through the process of planning useful, beautiful gardens, large and small, from start to finish. Complete with step-by-step instructions, detailed illustrations, and over 20 prototypical design plans, this practical, easy-to-follow primer describes how professional garden designers think and work, followed up with expert advice on how to evaluate a design, develop a reasonable budget, and get going on implementation.



Gardeners will learn how to:

· Conduct a site survey, determine the scope of the design, create a base map and complete design drawings.

· Assess and work with diverse landforms and their corresponding soil type and drainage issues.

· Choose, create, and implement an array of built structures that make outdoor spaces useful and beautiful.

· Design with plants by developing a plant palette complete with trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, ornamental grasses, annuals, tender perennials, and bulbs.

· Put it all together into a comprehensive design plan!