When someone hands us an empty plot, the plants are the last thing we think about. Almost every failed garden we are called to fix went wrong in the first two weeks, before anything green went in.

1. Clear and look at the water

Remove rubble, roots and construction debris — builders bury a surprising amount of it. Then watch where water sits after a wash-down or a rain. Those low points will drown whatever you plant in them.

2. Grade the ground

You want a gentle slope away from the house, roughly one inch of fall for every eight feet. This single step prevents most of the waterlogging problems we see in Lahore gardens.

3. Fix the soil before you buy a single plant

Most plots around the city are heavy clay or builder's fill. Work in well-rotted farmyard manure and sweet soil to a depth of at least nine inches for beds, and a foot for anything that will hold a tree.

Money spent on soil in month one saves you replacing plants in year two.

4. Decide the shape, then the planting

Walk the plot and mark where people will actually go — the path to the gate, the spot where chairs will sit, where the children will play. Beds go around that, not the other way round.

A layout that works for most homes

  • Open lawn in the middle for use
  • Deep beds along the boundary walls for privacy planting
  • Trees at the corners where they will not shade the whole lawn
  • Pots near the sitting area, where they get noticed and watered

5. Plan the water before you plant

Decide now whether it is a hose, a drip line, or a tap at each corner. Retro-fitting irrigation into a finished garden means digging up beds you have just planted.

6. Plant big to small

  1. Trees first — they are the hardest to move later
  2. Shrubs and hedging next
  3. Lawn or ground cover
  4. Seasonal colour and pots last

Give it one full season before you judge it. A garden planted properly in October looks ordinary in December and completely different by March.

If you would rather not do the digging yourself, this is exactly the work we take on — levelling, soil, layout and planting, from bare ground to a finished garden.