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From first sketch to a garden that has grown in.
Practical guides for every step: laying out, building, planting and looking after your garden. For an ordinary Dutch garden, measured to your own plot.
Latest articles
Plants
Guelder rose: where it grows, pruning and what it feeds
Guelder rose (Viburnum opulus): a native shrub of 1.5 to 3 metres with white flowers and red berries. Where it goes, what it costs and what to do if it fails.
Garden design
Dutch cadastral map: find your plot via PDOK, step by step
Get your plot from the Dutch cadastral map via PDOK, with the actual responses for one address. Depending on its label, the boundary can be 10 to 80 cm off.
Garden design
Fence height rules in the Netherlands, and who sets them
Fence height rules since the Omgevingswet: up to 1 metre is permit-free nationally, and your municipality sets the 2 metres behind your house. How to check.
Seasons
January garden jobs, and the right spot for each
January garden jobs: pruning, bare-root planting and looking at your garden's structure, with the spot each job deserves in the growing season.
Sun & shade
North-facing garden plants, matched to their sun hours
North-facing garden: in a worked example with terraced houses, the strip 1 m behind the house gets 0 hours of sun on 15 May. Shade plants for it, by sun hour.
Garden design
How to make a planting plan from sun hours and soil
Make a planting plan per section: sun hours first, then the soil map for your region and a roll test for your border, then the plants. Example: six plants.
Inspiration
Small garden design in Amsterdam: five mistakes
Five mistakes in a small Amsterdam city garden, with two real plots in De Pijp as the example: buildings of 15 to 18 metres and their shadow on 15 May.
Garden design
Garden design cost: 2026 prices and your 2027 budget
What does a garden design cost? 200 to 1,500 euros to have one made, and 1,000 to 1,800 euros and up for 300 m² or more. What each price class buys.
Garden design
Garden designer cost in the Netherlands, or DIY?
What does a garden designer cost in the Netherlands? About 60 to 90 euros an hour. Compare cost, lead time and the finished document, and see what you can do on your own plot.
Sun & shade
A garden sun hours calculator that starts from your address
How many hours of direct sun does each spot in your garden get? Tuinontwerp.app draws your plot to scale with 3DBAG building heights and works out the most sun each spot gets on 15 May.
Sun & shade
Measure sunlight in your garden: count sun hours per spot
Measure sunlight in your garden on a clear day in mid-May: one stake per spot, a tally mark every hour. More than six marks is full sun, under three is shade.
Start from your own address
Type your address and your plot appears, to scale, with your house on it. You draw the garden on it.