An Up North Theme Garden

Many of you know that I love theme gardens and especially enjoy helping others develop them too. Several years ago I created a fun and simple process to help budding designers collect and organize their ideas for unique outdoor spaces. We often want to jump in and start placing plants in the ground without a plan, so this process helps us take a step back and gather our thoughts before putting pen to paper (or shovel to ground!)

A few years ago I taught an online theme garden course and below is one of the designs developed by a talented student, Kat Medford. Her theme, Up North, was inspired by her summer trips to northern Michigan. It connected to me because I've always dreamed of having a formal garden in the middle of a woodland. Please note that she had many more ideas, photographs and lots of notes, but since I had limited space here I only grabbed the highlights, then re-illustrated her ideas (hopefully I got it right!).  I hope you enjoy a peek into Kat's dream garden.