The amount of space you have available to you will greatly influence your type and style of garden. If you live in a rural area and are lucky enough to have a large garden you will be able to divide up the space and create different areas for different types of garden. If on the other hand you live in a city centre and only have a small area, then your choices are greatly reduced.

Another point to consider is the amount of free time you have available to maintain your garden. If you have a demanding job or a large family to take care off you may find that trying to cope with a large intricate garden to much to cope with. Large flower gardens for instance can be very time consuming to maintain and to keep them looking their best, as many flowering plants need continual dead-heading to prolong their flowering period.

Your fitness level may also influence the type and style of your garden. If you have heart problems or breathing difficulties for instance, you probably wouldn't want to be digging over a large vegetable plot each year. If you are confined to a wheel chair or suffer with back problems then you may need to consider having raised beds that you can reach easily.

One other factor you may want to consider is the actual purpose of the garden?

Do you want to attract wildlife?
Create a space for entertaining friends and family?
Have a safe area for your children to play?
A peaceful place to relax?
Create a productive garden to feed the family?

When thinking about the style of your garden style remember that it is possible to incorporate different garden types into one garden. Many vegetables have attractive foliage and can be grown in amongst your ornamental plants. In fact organic gardeners will often plant certain ornamentals in their vegetable plots in order to attract pests away from their vegetable crops.

In future articles well take a look at 6 of the most common styles:

Organic Garden
Raised Garden
Container Garden
Formal Garden
Wildlife Garden
Water Garden

By considering these points and deciding what you want to use the garden for you will hopefully avoid starting something that you will later regret.