Starting to think about designing a garden doesn't have to be expensive, you can simply use pen and paper to draw out where you want different features to be.
The difficult part comes in trying to translate your garden plan into an actual garden.
The more you plan the garden the more likely you are to be able to do this so it is vital to make sure your drawing has as much information in it is possible.
First of all, while a simple pencil drawing is a great way to start you need to add more details to it if you want to get your dream garden.
For example if you want a flowerbed with certain flowers then you might want to consider cutting out some pictures from magazines of the type of flowers that you would like and sticking them onto the drawing.
This means when you come to actually create the garden you will already have a complete plan to work to.
Once you have designed your first plan is often a good idea to go back and check which features you actually want to keep and which ones you can cut out.
You will probably end up doing several different designs until you settle on one that is perfect not only for you that everyone who uses the garden.
Remember that if it's your first garden you should be a little bit conservative when planning it just make sure that you can get all the features in place.
It is much better to have a simple garden where everything is perfect than it is to have an overcomplicated garden where you can't finish anything properly.