Yes, that's been my line of thinking @bede, maybe I should keep it as it is! I know Ness Gardens very well, I've done many courses there over the years and used a lot of their planting as an inspiration for my garden's current design.
To be really effective, I think an island bed needs to be large enough to have several 'layers' of planting so you can get height in the centre with lower planting towards the edges. I'm not sure the space you have is large enough to create that, and there is a risk of ending up with narrow areas of grass which, as my dear old Mum would have said, are neither use nor ornament.
If you want to break the space up, maybe a largish feature of some kind? Personally, I like what I see currently and wouldn't change it.
You risk turning whar could be a restful space into something more like a botanical collection. But nowt wrong with that. Why not abandon all lawn and leave grass as paths only. With brilliant planning, you might be able fit in a suitable no-reversing, no-repeating mowing scheme.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
In my small front lawn I cut out a couple of circles, enriched with good stuff and lined with an everedge metal edge. One of them contains a young apple tree, on dwarfing stock and the other a small grass, a couple of oriental poppies and three rusted metal poppy seed heads like these:
I'm pleased with the result as it breaks up the boring lawn a bit. The borders are narrow (defined by the brick edging that we discovered a couple of years ago that must have been put in years and years ago). They don't cause any problems with mowing.
Thank you @JennyJ and @KT53, for your thoughts, that's very helpful. I think I'll tinker with that border on the right first and then reconsider later on! It's really useful having all your views, thank you!
@bede, which part of your post about avatars, do you consider not to be rude? It is just unnecessary, do you not want to be part of this forum, because you are going the right way not to be?
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
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"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I'm pleased with the result as it breaks up the boring lawn a bit. The borders are narrow (defined by the brick edging that we discovered a couple of years ago that must have been put in years and years ago). They don't cause any problems with mowing.
It is just unnecessary, do you not want to be part of this forum, because you are going the right way not to be?
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border