If you are a professional garden designer then when you are planning a new garden you would probably end up buying an expensive piece of garden design software. However if you are only designing a simple garden for your own house then it is much cheaper and often easier to use a pen and paper to do so.

The only problem with using a pen and paper is that you probably don't get in the level of detail that you would like. This is why it can often be a good idea to make your first sketch of your garden and then attach pictures of plants and features that you would like to the plan so that you know exactly what you are working to when you design a garden.

The point of designing a garden before you start to build it is that you should know as much as possible exactly what you are going to do. The more you know what you are trying to achieve the more likely you are to get the perfect one for you. If you only use a pencil drawing this can be difficult, so adding extra features to the paper drawing to make it easier to follow exactly what you want can be a massive help.

If you are designing your first garden then it's important to remember that you shouldn't overcomplicate things. Spend some time looking at other gardens that you enjoy and see what features you like best. Once you know what you like you can then start to incorporate them into your designs. Especially when you begin, many people try to overcomplicate the garden and try to make it absolutely perfect when in reality you want to keep things simple and add to it as you go along in the future.