Oval lawn

I am in the process of overhauling my new garden and I am looking at having 2 overlapping ovals as my lawn. What is the best way to go about making the oval shapes so that they are symmetrical? I know many people use a hosepipe to mark out the shape, but how do you get the right shape in the first place? Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

is the present lawn oblong/square, or what?

 

if oblong, measure length and put a cane in half way on both sides.
measure width, put cane in half way both sides.
tie string to one of the canes on the long side.
measure string out to cane on short side, tie to another cane, and keeping the cane taut walk, scibing the lawn with the cane until you reach the other cane. repeat on other side..you now have an oval marked in the grass

 

any chance you could draw this on a chart, i m not good at envisaging things...
do i use a piece of string length of long side cane to short side cane
then fron short side cane i use this string to describe an arc?
then repeat for other side using same length

 

Is it an ellipse you`re after?

http://home.att.net/~waterfront-woods/Articles/Ellipse/stringellipse.htm

An oval is quite easy to draw using 2 circles connected by 2 parallel lines.

 

it took a while, but the penny has dropped, thnx

 

This is great thanks, now I just need to find some decent string! But this solves my problem so thanks very much.

 

Thanks Rossco & Hex, I love this sort of thing, it's like being back at school! :D

 

Back to school? Nothing could be that bad