A garden is a place of freedom and escape from the stresses and strains of our everyday lives. And it is a place where dreams can come true. I'm going to show you how to turn your plot - whatever its size or style - into the garden you have always dreamed about and it doesn't need to cost a fortune.
All you need is patience and enthusiasm..
Before your imagination starts running riot with thoughts of how you would like your garden to look, make a cool assessment of what you already have. Is it a couple of acres of rambling fields, a large old-fashioned garden in desperate need of controlling, a more intimate but slightly cluttered space, or a paved backyard?
Then decide whether it's a hint of new style you are after, which might suit a smaller space, or a complete makeover through which you will make a journey through your garden.
Next observe the site and the conditions.
What's the aspect? This means where the sunlight falls at different times of day.
Does your garden face North (in which case, it may be a bit gloomy) or South (often sun-kissed)?
Now examine your soil. Is it light, loamy and free draining? Or is it heavy and plodding, which can be hard work to manage? If you have recently moved house and have a new garden, get to know it a little bit before you embark on wholesale change. Maybe even let it do its own thing over four seasons. See what emerges.
Does that tree in the middle of the garden just block the view or in spring will it be garlanded in pink petals and become a feature you can't live without?
There are decisions to be made. Do you take away things, old features, like rockeries, which can be fiddly to maintain, and unprotected garden ponds that can be dangerous if you have young children?
Getting to know your garden through the seasons is crucial to truly understanding it and seeing how it might be moulded to your dreams. So many of these things will be hints that will advise you of the road to travel along.
To grow flowers, fruit and vegetables you want the sun and good soil. But don't despair if your site is on the shady side, there's still plenty a picture you can paint using plants that will adore such a location.
You have to make choices about what exactly you want your garden to look like in the future.
So what type of gardens do you love?
We have a unique take on gardens. We are surrounded by them; they are part of our culture.
So we have a good idea of what we might like from our own.
Garden designs have originated from all over the world and each has a special quality which we may form an attachment to. Here are some that have proved popular over the years...
Oriental
Is your dream to bring a sense of the Far East to your plot with lots of green planting, bamboos, ferns, Japanese maples, variegated hostas, some gravel and possibly a pond or a stream with fish? Then maybe peeping from behind a large shrub there might be an Eastern pavilion with a stone lantern to light your way along the journey?
Mediterranean
On your holidays, have you been wowed by the stunning outdoor creations of the Romans and Greeks? If you've been inspired by the style of Roman villas with their accompanying symmetrical parterres, you may be thinking of mathematical planting and space divided by strict alignments of dwarf boxwood hedges and central pieces of statuary in formal pots. Perhaps you will be considering a Grecian goddess or a Roman emperor cast in stone and water splashing in a formal central circular bowl. It could look amazing.
Maybe you favour what was trendy just a few years ago, before successive blasts of cold winters - the new tropical planting with large, architectural foliage. For a while we all pretended we lived in a jungle and went mad for the Tasmanian tree ferns, Cordyline australis, in shades of green or purple, Phormium tenax and Japanese hardy bananas.
Here I have shown you just some examples of the type of garden that might sum up your dream, might make you happy. But there are many more besides. Just don't forget that it is a picture you are creating, a scene.
As someone planning a garden you become God. You are trying to create a space that works horticulturally, with all the plants in the right place, getting a little bit of what they love, continually building up a story as you wander around the plot until you arrive at your final focal point where you stop and look back.
No matter how small the plot, you can still tell a few stories along the way. Your aim will be to calm and delight, to entertain, to surprise a garden visitor with something new at every turn and to remind us always of the beauty of nature.
Gardens are like good dramas - they should consist of different layers and should be planned properly, initially setting the scene then embarking on a journey before finally reaching a resolution.
Planning your dream
Now you must put the story of your dream garden down on paper- and that means drawing a plan.
Don't be scared. People shout at me: "I can't draw." But nothing stopped you when you were five years old in Mrs Brown's class, did it? You loved the idea of pen and paper then. It's funny how we become progressively more scared of it as we "mature".
Listen up... everyone can draw. So what I need you to do is stand at the kitchen window or, even better, go outside and map out what you see. Making a plan is often very simple. Pace the plot or take rough measurements if you prefer and put them down on the sheet. What you are looking for now is your boundaries - where the house is and where your walls or fences are.
You will probably come up with a square or a rectangle or maybe a slightly awkward, angular shape.
Now mark in any fixed features - the tree that Aunty Nelly gave you that definitely won't be moving, where your shed or greenhouse is, or - most important - the washing line.
This is your template - an outline of a space. Creating the new garden will see you out there with a shovel and a fork and wheelbarrows, digging away creating new beds, altering paths, or excavating ponds. But for now we need to create those new lines on paper.
We have already discussed how your garden needs to be a journey, how you want to lead your eye around it if you are standing looking out of the window or leading visitors on a tour.
So you must use shape. The objective, unless you are creating a small formal plot inspired by a Roman courtyard with a fountain in the centre, is to take the eye away from the boundary and lead people on a journey from A to Z.
You want to make the most use of what can seem like a relatively small space. So trying out different shapes on paper is a good start.
The most simple is probably the 'C' shape. Picture it like this. Go to the back of the house and stand somewhere in the middle. Now if you wanted to get to the end of your garden you would walk in a straight line or as the crow flies. But that would be boring.
Instead, do the banana walk - take a curved route around and through your plot, swinging from one side of your garden down to the middle and back around again in a great big 'C' shape.
Now you have created a bit of a journey.
On that walk, if you couldn't see everything that was planted around you because the borders were full of volume, then it begins to get exciting.
If your garden is long enough, you can join up two 'C's that are travelling in opposite directions, creating an 'S' shape.
In effect you are drawing on the ground one large S swinging right across the garden, back again and finally to its hidden depths.
It allows for large borders which invite volume and creates room for features such as summer houses and paved areas.
That gives you two dramatic curves to walk around and, once filled with plants, you'd have no hint of what was around the corner.
So that's a good starting plan. What you do now is take those sheets of paper outside and walk your plot. The trick will be to make the lines as simple but dramatic as possible.
If you are creating curves, put a big bend on it - go for a real walk through the site, not just from A to B.
The final step for your overall design is adding in the features. What will you see along the journey?
This may be specimen plants, such as beautiful trees that are set in borders, which become accents at appropriate times.
Or it could be using a water feature - the sound of a trickle half way down the garden drawing you on. And a pavilion with its roof peeping up among the shrubs could act as your final focus.
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