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| Base Map in progress: Mother Nature's Montrose Garden |
The
first step in planning any garden is to develop a good map. A base map or base plan shows the layout of the property and accurately locates
the permanent site elements on a residential lot. In urban areas and
developments, lots have typically been surveyed. You may already have a copy of your deed map
or property survey (or can obtain one from your local municipality).
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| Property Survey: Mother Nature's Montrose Garden |
If
a property survey has been done, it should show all property edges, setbacks
and right of ways, building and pavement locations, and other permanent site
elements. If no property survey exists, you may want to
have a survey conducted by a reputable surveyor. This will help you correctly locate permanent
structures on your property as well as adjacent property lines, fences,
pavement, etc. Having a recent survey
map will save you time and effort constructing your base map.
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Previous owner's hand-drawn map (not to scale)
Mother Nature's Montrose Garden
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If
you don’t have a survey map, you’ll need to take the measurements
yourself. A quick way to get the layout
and measurements is to access Google Earth.
Simply type in the address in your browser to access. Click on ‘satellite view’ to get an overview
of your property. You can measure distances
by right-clicking and choosing ‘measure distances’. You can also measure distances by hand with a
tape measure. If you use distances from a satellite image, you
should verify key distances with a tape measure; satellite images can sometimes
be off by several feet.
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| Satellite view: Mother Nature's Montrose Garden |
Constructing Base Map
1:
To
construct a Base Map, start by redrawing the property survey to scale at
a larger size. For properties under an
acre in size, a scale of 1"=10' is an appropriate scale. For smaller urban properties your scale may be
even larger. You want a scale that is
large enough to show details, but small enough to be photocopied. If you have a large garden, you may want to map
it in sections. This allows you to create your design in greater detail. We chose to divide our garden area into
quarters, and map each quarter separately.
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| Key features drawn on NW section map |
You
may find it easiest to use simple ruled (quadrille) paper to help you draw your
base map. If you want to draw it
freehand, we suggest using an architectural ruler or an engineer's scale (these
supplies are available at most drafting, art or business supply stores). We recommend drawing your plan first in
pencil; then ink in the lines for the final base map.
We
used plain ruled paper with 5 lines per inch. Since Mother Nature’s Montrose
Garden is an acre in size, we chose a scale of 2.5 inches equals 30 ft. Thus, each square on the map represents a 2.5
ft. square on the ground.
Mapping
each quadrant separately allowed us to map an area 95 x 120 ft. on an 8 ½ by 11
sheet of paper. This size is convenient to
work with, allows adequate detail for planning and can be easily photo-copied
or scanned. Below is an example of the
SE quadrant of Mother Nature’s Montrose Garden.
The
base map should show the following information:
·
all
property lines.
·
bodies
of water (streams, lakes, ponds, low areas with seasonal flooding)
·
buildings,
including basic floor plan with doors and windows noted
·
downspouts
·
outside
water spigots
·
outside
electrical outlets
·
decks
and overhangs
·
air
conditioner units
·
all
walls, fences, utility boxes and poles, fire hydrants, etc.
·
roads,
drives, parking areas, walks and paths, patios, swimming pools
·
on
and off-site utilities including electric, telephone, gas, water, sewer, septic
tanks and field drains.
·
off-site
elements including adjoining roads and drives, bodies of water, and structures
that may influence your design.
·
compass
directions showing north, east, south and west (or just north).
·
the
scale size of the base plan.
To start off with a simple example, we’ve
drawn a Base Map 1 for the Colorado-friendly Garden at a small urban/suburban house at 112 Willow Street (below). As you
can see, the lot is a simple rectangle, with the house placed in the
middle. We’ve located all the buildings,
driveway, walkways, doors and windows.
We’ve also mapped the location of utilities, water spigots and
downspouts. This is a simple but good
base map – we’ll use copies of it throughout the design process.
Many
people like to design their garden using copies of their hand-drawn Base Map. We prefer to do most of our work on the
computer, using either a photo editing program (like Adobe Photoshop) or PowerPoint. We
first scan our basic Base Map into Photoshop, using a home office scanner. We then add details such as utilities,
spigots, etc. We also like to fill in
areas of hardscape, such as house, walkways, etc., making them easier to
visualize.
If
you’ve mapped your garden in sections, the scanned images can be used as is, particularly
when larger scale is needed for planning.
The images can also be digitally ‘pasted’ together for a map of the
entire garden at Mother Nature's Montrose Garden (see below).
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Base Map 1: Mother Nature's Montrose Garden
Some features still need to be added
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The
ease with which one can add or change features is another reason we like working
digitally. For example, we realized that we don’t know the exact dimensions and
placement of the septic tank and leach field (alas, the prior owner left us no
plans). We’ll add these to the Base
Map 1 once we’ve seen if the local licensing agency has approved plans. We also need to verify the location of underground
utility lines, since the map the previous owner drew was not to scale. It’s
important that exact locations are mapped for all utilities before you start to
design and install a garden. In
Colorado, contact iDig811 to get exact locations of utility lines. Either call 811 or access on-line at: https://colorado811.org/idig811/.
Similar Dig Alert programs are available in most part of the U.S.
We
strongly suggest you read the helpful article ‘Drawing a Landscape Plan: The
Base Map’ before drawing your base map. It’s available at: https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=C1032-3
. For an example of mapping a smaller garden see: http://mother-natures-backyard.blogspot.com/2013/07/designing-your-new-california-garden-2.html
Once
your Base Map 1 is completed, make 3 or more photocopies of it. Store the original in a safe place.
We suggest that you construct two base maps: one that just includes
the physical features (Base Map 1) and a second that also includes
any existing plants you will retain in your new landscape (Base Map 2). We’ll discuss creating Base Map 2 in our next
post (August, 2019).
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We welcome your comments (below). You can also send your questions to: monaturesmontrosegarden@gmail.com
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