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Almost everyone who has a garden would like it to be at least neat and tidy and at best well designed and peaceful. But getting garden design ideas can be daunting for many gardeners.

But good ideas are all around. Other gardens in the neighbourhood are a good place to start. Garden design books at the library can be very helpful and the internet will provide any number of garden design images and layouts for you to gain inspiration from.

But there are still many challenges for the budding garden designer. A common problem is to create a garden with plants straight from the nursery and overlook the fact that most of the plants will be young immature plants.

What started out as a charming garden of plants, pebbles and bits turns into an overgrown, overcrowded mess with the resultant disappointment.

Another alternative is to call in a garden designer or landscaper to help with the ideas. But they can get pretty expensive and often are not really suitable for the smaller design jobs in most gardens.

What can be really helpful and convenient is to work together with your garden maintenance contractor. If they are keen gardeners themselves they will be able to offer good advice – will probably be able to get you plants at a discount and will be less expensive than a landscaper to work with. They will probably also have some good ideas because they work in a lot of different gardens getting locally usable ideas that they will share.