Garden planning - no budget

So regarding the architect, the idea is not to have him do a complete garden planning and design. It’s only about a short consultation once I am prepared. Can his knowledge really be decisive before I shoot in the wrong direction with my few resources?
Graveling means you pour it where you want paths? Don’t you have to compact it or something beforehand? Do you know this honeycomb substrate? Maybe it prevents the gravel path from being completely submerged in mud after just half a year...?

Have you already done it like this yourselves, designed the garden yourselves, or is it just planned?

I think it’s absolutely right to get information from professionals beforehand! We still plan to do it. The hedge has been around the property for many years and we are just making an opening in the hedge for the driveway. My sister recently designed her garden and with little money we created a nice patch of earth. For now, we will only have a terrace and lots of lawn with a few trees. The rest ([Wege, Außenküche, Lagerfeuerplatz, Beete]) will come gradually. Graveling means exactly: excavation, compacting, gravel as frost protection, compacting, gravel on top and you’re right, such things should then be planned when the appropriate equipment (e.g. for excavation) is available.

You can save the money for the architect and use it sensibly for planting. First, if I were you (that's how we did it), I would look for an online garden planner. Recently read from : Gardena Garden Planner. I used the mein-schöner-Garten garden planner. At the same time, invest in a yearly library subscription and borrow all garden books for a month. There you can learn about the different styles. Learn the rest about plants or get ideas via Google. Affordable: at the hardware store, concrete stones (30 x 30 or 50 x 50). You can design paths at intervals with them. Either in gravel or simply with those wood chips (I can't recall the name right now). My opinion: side paths in the garden can also settle; you can lay the stones without a sand bed or let it become a beaten path. Foil should be under the main paths or at the house edge, but the house edge is, in my opinion, a professional matter so that work at the house is done properly. For that, hire a landscape gardener. The honeycomb thing costs too much and only works with fine pebbles. But pebbles get tracked into the house, so skip that. Better to use coarse gravel. What I would have done: the edging of the house, at least the border stones; they must be set in lean concrete or concrete. The terrace also needs a good base, otherwise it will sink. The rest you can do yourself. Either start now, get seedlings for a hedge to root, or later use an affordable online shop. Compare prices at nurseries, hardware stores, or garden centers: there are definitely inexpensive bushes and trees that still make a good impression later, yet these are not rare. Sensitive or rare plants, but also older or bigger ones, are usually very expensive. They also like to give tips on design. Always check Ebay classifieds from March on; there are often people dissolving or changing their garden. For privacy and wind protection, you can use bamboo mats, either let them rust or let plants grow over them. We first sowed lawn everywhere. But once it has grown, it's tedious to dig it up again. But for that, you have the men. We started in March and finished in November. It will continue again in April. And now back to planning: sight lines in the house should always be extended through the windows to a nice view. So imagine and design the window like a picture: either a bench with a tree, or symmetrical, or create depth with different growth heights. Piles of stones are also nice. At flea markets (and again Ebay) or at the hardware store's sale corner, you can still find some bargains: large containers, wrought iron grids, fence parts, wooden chairs... ideas come all by themselves. A formal garden is more difficult. It looks nice too, but do you want to live in such a showcase garden? You can do without a covered terrace (an umbrella will do), fountain (very expensive), pond, and expensive materials. We had our soil enriched with humus. But honestly: in our old townhouse garden with clay soil, everything grew that we simply buried there. Potting soil is expensive! What should also be included: a large bottle of muscle and relaxation bath! Have fun wishes Yvonne

Super tips!! And great blog on top of that! I take away a lot from it

@Bautraum: Thanks. Graveling is a bit more work after all. I can imagine that a good professional (unfortunately there are also plenty of bad professionals) could contribute particularly effective ideas that come from their experience. Maybe one good idea for the garden is better than planting something here and there on your own discretion... I'm still not sure about that. I hope that maybe someone here who has also invested in such a short consultation will write.

: Thanks. Concrete stones sound good. By wood chips do you mean bark mulch, right? Pebbles versus crushed stone – aren’t there also larger pebbles that don’t get into the house? I imagined pebbles to be nicer than gravel, but if gravel is cheaper and more practical, that’s fine too. Ok, edging the house is important, the house should be protected after all. A pile of stones as an eye-catcher sounds good too. Maybe there’s also a lizard that would like to sit there in the sun. A formal garden is not necessary, luckily I don’t have to represent with the garden. What is a tree mat? Searching online right now, like a construction steel mesh, some kind of metal grid? Oh, they’re cheap and rather big, and you can probably let bindweed climb on them – great idea, thanks. It surprises me that everything grows so well on your clay soil – our neighbors a few plots further live there already six years and say the plants don’t grow. Their hedge is just up to my knee right now. Yes, the bathtub should be there before the garden work on site, hehe. Oh, you already have a garden sketch on your page. What is a grass bed? The house is very nice, the exterior view looks pleasantly calm.

The garden sketch is old. In the end, I managed it faster with colored pencils and built the terrace with Lego for the landscape gardener because walls and staggered levels made it somewhat difficult for the people to imagine.