How to overcome indecision when designing your garden

March 15th, 2024

7 min read

Have you been toying with the idea of getting a makeover for your garden, but feel a little overwhelmed at how much work it might entail? Does the idea of having to engage a landscape designer for your project seem a little scary? Do find yourself thinking, "I just need to put this off until I feel more in control of things"?

You are most definitely NOT the first person to feel this way. Having worked with hundreds of clients all over Melbourne during the past 30+ years, we've spoken with a lot of people who sometimes took a little while to get motivated enough to start the process. But in every case, those who did get the ball rolling always ended up with a garden that they said they "wish they'd done sooner".

So are there tricks to overcoming 'decision fatigue' that could help get your journey underway towards that ideal garden you have in mind?

There certainly are! And we will share some of them with you in this article. Hopefully, by the end, you'll feel a sense of relief and hope that maybe it's not going to be that hard after all. Who knows you might even feel motivated enough to get started!

Remember where it all began

The first step is simple. Take a moment to step back and just try to recall what was your purpose for thinking about a new garden in the first place.

Were you sick of looking out at the current state of your garden and thinking we really need to do something about it?

Had you reached a certain life stage where your kids were getting older and you thought "Boy the kids really need somewhere better to play and wouldn't a pool be nice for them"?

Were you well into a new home build or knockdown/rebuild and thinking "Wow we really need to get the garden underway"?

At that time, what vision did you have in mind? Can you recall it? How did your imagined garden look to you? Were you excited by the possibility of what this new garden might bring to your family's life? Did it make you smile just thinking about it? Did you find yourself dreaming of the long sunny days you would spend in the future just enjoying this new garden?

When you bring the purpose back, often the barriers can start to melt away.

How to visualise your new garden into being

Some people when they think of their potential new garden, can easily visualise it in their mind. If you asked them to close their eyes and describe the pictures they are seeing, they could tell you all about exactly how their new garden looks. The stunning new deck. The inviting pool. The lush growth in the garden beds.

But more than that, they will tell you they can literally hear the sounds of their children laughing as they splash around in the pool. They could actually smell the scent of the flowers in their garden wafting in through their kitchen window. They could feel a gentle summer breeze blowing over them as they relaxed on the deck. They could hear the laughter of family and friends as they chatted over drinks, while food sizzled in the background on the BBQ in their outdoor kitchen.

Try this yourself. Did it work for you?

If you have trouble doing this and you're someone who tends to say "I'm no good at visualising things", then the next best option is to look for inspiration. You can find it everywhere.

Pick up a garden magazine and flip through some pages - you'll soon start feeling inspired. Go online and search for some beautiful garden ideas. Look at places like Houzz, Pinterest or even Instagram.

To make it even more real, go visit some actual beautiful garden spaces - like the Botanical Gardens or a local park. You could even take a walk around your neighbourhood and look at what people around you are doing.

If there are Flower & Garden Shows coming up, go visit one. Or go visit some gardens available through the Open Gardens Scheme or DesignFest.

If none are coming up in your area, the other alternative is to go and visit some suppliers. Go visit a swimming pool company and get the vibe of what it would be like to have one of those in your backgarden. Go to a nursery and smell, touch and see some amazing plants. Even go to a paving or brick supplier and lay your hands on some of their samples, feel the texture, the rich deep colours. Go to a deck supplier and look at the wonderful grain of the timber, feel the railing under your hands and picture that it's now your deck.

Any of these are bound to get you feeling motivated and inspired again.

You're never really alone

Sometimes, when looking at the challenges involved in creating your new garden, you can start to feel a little overwhelmed by it all.

And perhaps you can feel that you, or you and your partner, are facing them alone.

But recognise when engaging a landscape designer don't get caught up in the old trap of "buying a dog and still barking yourself".

In essence, it's the designer's job to take all the heavy lifting off your shoulders. It's the designer's job to solve all the problems of how to bring your new garden to life. It's the landscaper's job to do all the hard work to actually build the garden. If you choose the right designer and landscaper you don't have to do much at all. Just brief them, approve the design, handle the finance and let them get on with it. And one day, possibly sooner than you think, you will open the backdoor and step out onto that new deck, ready for your morning swim. Or you'll be sending out the invites to the "garden warming" party with friends and family.

Remember, you are paying a designer to take away the pressure on you to create the garden. So let them!

A good designer is actually happy to take on the job of researching, contemplating, shaping and creating your garden, amongst other tasks.

So the best way to solve decision fatigue is to engage a good designer and delegate to them all the things that you need done so that you feel unburdened. Let the designer search Google and come up with inspiring ideas. Let the designer source materials you will like and that will make you smile. Let the designer use their vast experience to make it easy for you to simply go, "Oh yes, I like that..."

Eliminate the negative

Have you ever talked enthusiastically to someone about a dream or goal, only to walk away from the conversation feeling like maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all?

Sadly, in this world, some people focus on the negative. Whether out of jealousy (because they're not going to have what you plan to have) or just because they're a 'real downer' of a person. If you tend to talk with excitement about a possible future dream around this kind of person, they will always tend to find reasons to tear that dream down, either overtly or covertly.

"Do you really want to be putting a new garden now?" they might say with a worried look on their face. (Which is a covert way of trying to make you doubt your decision.) Or perhaps they'll go for the overt approach - "Oh did I tell you about Roger and Jen, they had a disaster when they tried to put their new pool in, it cost them a fortune!"

Books, people, and the media can contain a lot of negativity that may tend to put you off a bit. Negativity introduces doubt and doubt leads to indecision.

But if you choose the right designer and landscaper who know how to manage projects well, there's no reason why what happened to 'Roger & Jen' will happen to you. And as a very long history of real estate values will show you, when has a house with a terrible garden, no pool or deck ever outsold an identical property with a beautiful garden, great pool and fabulous deck?

Great gardens enhance the value of properties, they do not detract from them.

One step at a time

If you've never been involved in designing and creating a new garden, you might be asking yourself - "Where do I even begin?".

It's easy to fall a little bit of a victim to the process. If your spouse is not exactly 'onboard' with the idea you might have that additional barrier to overcome.

Try not to look too far ahead and picture all the work that needs to be done. That can be too much. Just take the first step.

If you haven't yet booked a consultation call with your landscape designer, that's the first step. (Ours are completely free and without obligation.) You might find that many of the 'millions' of questions you have floating around in your head can be easily answered by chatting with an experienced landscape designer and/or landscaper. (When you've created hundreds of gardens before there are not many challenges you faced before that you've not been able to overcome.)

If you've already had your consultation call and the next step is to commence the design process, then that's your next step to take. Remember it doesn't commit you to the whole process of actually building the garden. But seeing an actual design for your new garden will show you how many of your imagined problems can be easily solved and again answer a lot of your questions, including how much it might actually cost.

And if you've got a garden design that you're sitting on and still feeling indecisive about, then why not pick up the phone and chat with your designer? They will be more than happy to talk to you. Don't ever feel like you are bothering them or asking them 'pesky questions'. If you have serious and genuine concerns about any aspect of the garden design or the process of bringing it to life, ask and you are sure to get the answers you seek.

The bottom line is that in life, the biggest regrets we have are usually not the decisions we make to DO something. Generally, it's the decisions we made NOT to do something, the opportunities we missed, the chances we had that we didn't take.

Don't let the chance to create the ideal garden you've always wanted pass you by. Time is always moving on. The kids are growing up. The market is pushing ahead. That old garden won't magically transform itself. That building site won't become a brand-new garden without your help.

Seize the moment. You won't regret it if you move forward, but you might regret it if you don't.

Wherever you are on your path to a new garden, if we can be of any assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us. We service Melbourne & the Mornington Peninsula If all you need is a chat, pick up the phone or send us an email.