I spend a lot of time planning and designing gardens and as a result, I tend to see the same garden design issues time-and-time-again. Here I share just a few of those with you to help you to understand just a some things worth bearing in mind when you are planning your dream garden.
1. Narrow Garden Borders
Plants need space and if the border is too narrow it will restrict the growth of the plant.
If a large shrub is in a narrow border next to the lawn , the plant will try to grow to its natural size and will flop over on the lawn and kill the lawn in that area. This can be avoided by having a wider border. Narrow borders also mean you can only have one layer of planting which can make a design unattractive.
2. Tall plants in narrow borders or small containers
A plant requires a large root space to reach its optimum height. Pots and containers restrict root growth thus keeping the top growth smaller than if it were growing in the ground. The solution is to grow the plant in the ground or a bigger container.
This can be an advantage if you want to deliberately keep a plant small.
3.Play equipment as the focal feature of the garden
I love children and gardens are for children, but does their play equipment need to dominate the garden? Where possible it is worth considering disguising play equipment so it doesn’t become the focal point. This can be done with plants, trellis amongst other garden features
Play equipment will be in the garden for anything up to 15 years in the garden so it is worth thinking about this from the beginning.
Below are images of how I disguised the play equiment.
4.Placing a path down the centre of the lawn
Paths are visually very strong design features and need to be incorporated carefully in a design unless you like a path as a main feature of the garden.
The path has been moved to create a border edging which is more attractive
5.Gravel and slate as low maintenance options
Gravel and slate are often thougth to be cheap and low maintenance. The photo illustrates how difficult it is to pick up leaves amongst the stones. Weeding can be very time consuming with this type of material, thus making it a high maintenance material. It doesn’t take long for weeds to grow through the stones.
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