Winter is when imagination and hope make everything possible in the garden. It's the perfect time to design the restful retreat, beautiful balcony, wildlife sanctuary, kid-friendly play space or bountiful vegetable garden you've always wanted. Let's get started!

*The journal

Whether you are designing or redesigning, there's no more useful first garden tool than a journal. On a plain sheet of paper, journal book of graph paper or whatever else will inspire consistent note-taking, record the hours each day where there is full sun, part sun and shade in your outdoor spaces. The numbers will change through the growing season, but you'll have a good starting idea of where various plants will have the best chance to thrive. This is also the place to make note of perpetually wet or dry conditions. Update it frequently and save it for use in the coming years.

*Dream a little

Your garden's features will be entirely guided by your available space, growing conditions and goals. Will you use your ideal space for entertaining or serene meditation, as a playground with open grassy space, as a hobby to tend, to grow flowers for cut bouquets, as a native plants landscape for wildlife, for sensory experiences or for herbs and other edibles? Will you have time to weed and water high-maintenance plants? Do you respond more to a casual appearance or a formal design? Do you value an environment-friendly organic approach? Does your budget allow for purchases, or mainly for shares and transplants?

This is the time to choose a theme by color, style or purpose. This is also the time to decide whether there will be a water feature, structural focal point, rock garden, benches and pathways, or other hardscape features.

Google search garden themes for small-space, pollinator, rain, pizza, burrito, single-color, cottage and many more garden styles.

Try to select a combination of annuals and perennials that will create seasonal interest throughout the year.

And don't rule out plants that are generally considered weeds. Low-growing white clover, for example, creates a no-mow, low-water, soft carpet that is green most of the year without any maintenance at all, and serves as a natural habitat for beneficial insects and friendly critters. Google search "white clover seed" or "Dutch white clover seed" for a nice selection. Then create your planted spaces in and around your carefree new clover lawn.

If an online layout planner sounds fun, visit The Spruce's "11 Garden Planners and Programs." These allow for various plant arrangements, drag-and-drop designing and more in various trial visits and purchase plans.

*Challenges

Are there years when your dream garden will likely receive too much or too little sun or rain? Who else is using the space -- children whose soccer ball may fly into your dahlias, squirrels who may dig up your bulbs, rabbits who chew your asparagus or nearby car parks that spew exhaust into your landscape? Is ground-level gardening a challenge and elevated boxes would be best? Is there only enough space for containers and vertical planting structures? Does everyone agree on how to use the outdoor spaces? Just a little creativity and compromise will solve all of these issues and keep your garden design on track and pleasing for all (including the critters.)

A clean, chemical-free space benefits everyone, from babies to butterflies. Certain weeks of every year, the air in residential neighborhoods is thick with toxic lawn treatment chemicals and pesticides. These yards, and all of the residents, would benefit from a more natural approach to beauty.

*Local resources

Universities and extension offices, master gardener programs, and local garden clubs all have experience to share free of charge and may often have spring and fall plant sales. This will allow the freedom to experiment.

*Back to the journal

Once you've designed, planted and watched your new garden for a season, make notes in your journal. What worked? Did the plants you thought would naturalize (spread) actually work where you thought? Did those rose bushes take too much work? Did the snapdragons, zinnias and hollyhocks create a colorful chorus, and did your shade garden of deep greens, blues and purples soothe your spirit? And did you harvest enough onions, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, basil, mint and spinach for sustaining suppers from late spring through the middle of autumn?

Every plant doesn't work everywhere; approach your garden as a work in progress. Make notes for needed changes for next year, check the health of perennials for possible replacement and be ready to dream again next winter.