PrarieGirl asked a good question on another thread about how to use graph paper to draw your landscape.
Quoting:
good advice, but how does one actually go about that? I mean, what does everyone here do/use? I have seen landscaping templates sold at office supply stores, but I'm not sure of the scale of those templates, or how one actually uses them. Do most people go with a particular scale, like one square equals one foot? Do you superimpose the graph paper on a picture of your house?
I've only done drawn out one small part of my yard on graph paper. I used a scale of 1 square = 1 sq. ft. This took me forever and I'd say it was of limited value. It gave me something to do over the winter while I was dreaming of spring and trying to figure out what I'd plant. I drew up the hard scape, scanned it, and worked off of copies of the original drawing so I could change stuff and start over as much as I'd like.
My method of doing this was to go take a bunch of measurements with a tape measure and then carefully recreate it on paper. When I really wanted something plotted accurately, I'd measure from two different points on my house and then recreate those measurements on graph paper.
After mapping the spacing and placement of the plants I planned to use, I ended up changing a lot of it when I got my plants and started playing in the dirt. So I spent hours drawing everything and then didn't use it anyway. I'm happy with the garden, but I don't think it has anything to do with the picture I drew ahead of time.
This is what the area looks like in real life: http://homepage.mac.com/abramr/gardening/westsideyard/westsideyard-Pages/Image2.html
Here's part of my picture:
