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Category: Garden Design

Design, landscaping construction and layouts. Special types of garden and notable design features

Shape and Form in Your Garden

Shape and Form in Your Garden

sedum

Sedum Rhodiola rosea

A garden needs visual variety and I hope we show some of that on Gardeners Tips. I know the senses we tend to focus on are sight, taste and smell but hearing and touching have their place.

Seeing Your Garden

  • Colour is often the most striking way our sight is stimulated but take time to consider and inspect the subtle variations you can achieve from leaves, barks and young shoots as well as flowers.
  • If you like topiary you will understand the impact of form and structure in your garden. Structural design can impart the essence of a gardens formality, informality or sense of fun by the features chosen and the way they are implemented.
  • The Form some plants take is also important and often the leaf or petal arrangements can be very attractive in their own right – Mother Nature knows what she is doing.
  • Texture can be seen and felt and soft grasses can complement furry leaves.

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Garden Design Styles

Garden Design Styles

Harewood Himalayan Garden

Garden design is influenced by Location, Objectives and Resources. No two people would design the same garden for the same space nor would that garden grow and develop in the same manner.

My Top Ten Garden Styles

  1. Cottage garden
  2. Wild or Environmentally friendly garden
  3. Walled or Victorian garden
  4. Family and traditional garden
  5. Fruit and Vegetable plot
  6. Alpine, crevise or Rock garden
  7. National gardens, Italian, Japanese, Himalayan, Swiss, Spanish, New Zealand or Mediterranean
  8. Sculpture garden
  9. The Peace garden
  10. Water garden

There are so many gardens that could be designed that a top 10 list is subjective in the extreme.

    A woodland garden came very close to inclusion and is a natural feature that many want to cultivate.
    I could have selected a ‘garden of rooms’ but that is more of a technique used in many of the above types of garden.
    Specialist plantings like Rose gardens or Herbaceous gardens could have had there own spot but I had to finish somewhere.
    Public and Open gardens can have a special charm.

Let us know what your personal favourite garden is or would be.
Also let us know what type of garden you detest. For me it is a ‘car park garden’ with all or mainly hard standing for numerous vehicles and no greenery.

Tips for Training and Growing a Topiary Cone

Tips for Training and Growing a Topiary Cone

Topiary

Topiary looks good on containers and plants are easy to control in this environment. You can also move the pots around the garden to show off your topiary skills.

Starting Your Topiary

  • Select your plant and container. Box, Laurel or Yew are good subjects to start on.
  • Plant your shrub with some slow release fertiliser making sure you fill in with compost around the root ball.
  • Use lengths of bamboo cane pushed firmly into the compost and tie them together neatly at the top to make a wigwam shape.
  • Tuck any stray shoots behind the canes and tie strong shoots to the cane framework with garden twine.
    Snip off any remaining straggly shoots.
  • Your plant will fill out the framework as it grows. Simply snip off protruding shoots until the plant completely fills the frame.

Growing and Caring For Topiary

  • Keep your plant well watered and do not allow it to dry out for lengthy periods.
  • Once you desired shape has been achieved keep your cone in tip top condition with small shears. Little and often encourages smaller tighter growth.
  • Top up the container with fresh compost in spring.
  • Feed your topiary, all your prunings need to be replaced somehow.
  • Turn your topiary by 90 degrees every few weeks so light and wind act evenly over the pot.

Other Topiary Shapes

  • You can buy or make wire frames in a variety of shapes and sizes to train your plants
  • Balls, spirals and clouds are now very popular topiary subjects
  • Trains in hedges are also hobby shapes that seem popular near my home
  • Arches and archways can be covered in topiary of Beech or Ivy
  • Good luck if you tackle something like the couple of green people shown above.

Book Cover

Topiary from Amazon

See Top Topiary Gardens
Shrub Sculpture and Topiary Tips
Conifer pruning into topiary
Thanks to pct24 for the use of the picture under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Red and Green in the Garden

Red and Green in the Garden

Colourful Tips on garden colour wheel.

Geum

Red and green are complementary colours that draw plenty of compliments in the right setting. This Geum looks better against the green leaves than it does waving around on its long stems (although it is fine then as well).

Poppy

Another moody shot of a red Oriental poppy against it’s slightly greener leaves. For great artistic paintings you can’t beat red poppies and green leaves.

Hibiscus

Perhaps it is the yellow stamens that catch the eye on this Hibiscus but the glossy green leaves are also a major part of the charm.

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Wild Flower Bed with Companion Plants

Wild Flower Bed with Companion Plants

Meadow

An effective way to use wild flowers  is to mix in some trusted garden plants. Using some  trusted garden stand-bys will provide extra colour and structure to a wild area.

Plants to Support Wild Flower Beds

  • After the Aconites, Snowdrops and Marsh Marigolds the first blooms may be from Primroses or Day Lilies followed by Dianthus to give a mix of vibrant colour.
  • Evening Primrose has yellow bell shaped flowers. Oenothera tetragona flowers in spring on reddish green stems, Oenothera missouriensis  later in the year
  • Campanula the blue white or sometimes pink Bellflower can also look good.
  • Foxgloves give height and structure and you could add some Delphiniums.
  • For some white flowers choose Sneezewort ‘Acillea ptarmica’, Candytuft , Ox-eye daisy or Anthemis punctata
  • Heliopsis, Rudbeckia and Achillea are good looking yellows.
  • Cranesbill geraniums and Columbines can also complement wild flowers.

Wild Flowers

  • You can buy seed mixtures aimed at different locations such as Cornfield mix and others from Thompson & Morgan
  • Many individual plants appeal as wild flowers particularly the daisy and buttercups. Still more wild flowers are scented.
  • The red Poppy is potentially one of the most popular varieties and I would opt for Papaver rhoeas.
  • Wild Orchids are harder to grow but if you have the patience they can be rewarding
  • See also Wild Seed Suppliers
  • Do not forget the humble Dandelion in various leaf forms.

Tips on Wild Seed Sowing

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Plants for Walls

Plants for Walls

Campanula

I am fortunate to have a boundary wall that has two skins of stone filled with soil. This makes an habitat for plants that I can use to grow something a bit different.

The Pros & Cons of a Filled Wall.

  • The wall raises the working height and brings plants nearer to eye level.
  • The soil is of poor quality as goodness is leached away. This suits some alpines and nasturtiums.
  • Due to holes somewhere the soil washes out in some spots and I am always looking to refill or stop the leak.
  • The wall is dry and gets hot in the sun although the stone provides some cooler protection for roots.
  • Slugs do not like to climb the wall (just send gardeners up it)

    • wall plants

    Suitable Plant Types for Walls

    • Dry condition lovers and sun seekers like Thyme
    • Plants that like a baking like Pulsatilla
    • Plants that hold there own water store like Sedums and Houseleeks.
    • Alpines and similar plants with long roots.
    • Trailing plants and poor soil plants.

    Pasque Flower

    Some Plants recommended by Cambridge University Gardening services site
    Crassula sarcocaulis
    Helichrysum ‘Sulphur Light’
    Sedum acre
    Sempervivum ciliosum
    Saxifraga species …

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    Interesting Garden Design Tips

    Interesting Garden Design Tips

    Will Over-Scale be a design feature for the next decade. Some at Chelsea think so!

    Consider opting for ‘Over-Scale’ in your Garden.

    • Lots of small plants, beds and ornamentation looks cluttered and uninteresting.
    • Large or very large features can grab the attention and start off a steady exploration of your garden space.
    • A large structural object or disproportioned feature will supply key structure.
    • Over-scale can work irrespective of the size of your garden.

    Key Design Concept Tips

    • Aim for a strong and simple structure that frames your best features.
    • Create elements of mystery and surprise using trees, walls or corners to make  distinct areas.
    • Use diagonals and asymmetry to create interesting routes through the garden.
    • Vary the levels of soil with sleepers or raised beds and of plants with discreet layers of plants. This will get lots of plants into a small space.
    • Think about interesting shade when laying out your garden. Winter gardens may rely on varying shadows.
    Movement in Your Garden

    Movement in Your Garden

    095

    The day was still and the only movement was the lazy (none PC) smoke drifting from a brushwood fire but it made me think of movement in my garden.


    Natural Movement.

    • Grasses have grown in popularity with prairie planting creating drifts of fine plumes of seed heads wafting in the breeze.
    • Fine leaves, particularly the well coloured Acers, are one of my favourites.
    • The fast running and gurgling stream provides stimulation to several senses at the same time.
    • Tall thin plants like bamboo are grown for their ability to move in a breeze. Verbena bonariensis and tall back of the border plants are also useful
    • Visiting birds and insects are great for movement. Make sure your garden attracts them.

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    Man-made Movement …

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    Fancy Leaves for Colour, Shape and Texture

    Fancy Leaves for Colour, Shape and Texture

    Coleus
    Coleus by Thompson Morgan

    The humble leaf is not so humble when you look closely at some species.
    From large banana and water lily leaves to hairy miniature leaves of some alpines you will find natures beauty in a variety of leaves.

    Kew 109

    Begonia Rex varieties are amongst some of the most interesting and surprising. They can be propagated by leaf cuttings.

    Kew 111

    Tropical plant houses are great places to visit and spy out some interesting leaf shapes.

    Kew 121

    Special and Extraordinary Leaves