Designing a garden while keeping it classy and natural
dominoman
Posts: 150
While I'm self-designing my garden, or at least starting to learn how to, I have progresses in what I like.
All the online advice and the books I have glimpsed through give advice around curves and balance and features and symmetry and so on.
However, I wonder if by formally "designing" a garden you can go into the mode of wanting everything just so. Nice and neat and in it's place.
I realized that the gardens i love most (including my parents' garden) are crowded and natural. Everything looks like it has always been there. The lawn is a bit lumpy and patchy. Some borders are so full that you never see any soil. The patio area is discoloured and plain.
But I love it.
And then I thought of gardens I don't like. One of our neighbours has a pitch perfect garden, with immaculate lawn and flower beds that are covered in slate with a few carefully chosen plants, well spaced apart. To me it just looks fake and unnatural.
I guess all this is down to personal preference, but I feel the risk is that by designing a garden it leads you to the second route more than the first. Neat, ordered, perfect layout that just doesn't feel natural.
What do you think? Does "designing" a garden make it feel less homely and natural?
Posts
And this article gave me pause for thought (I don't read the mail normally. Honest)
Am I turning my classy garden into a plebby one!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3145685/How-posh-garden-patios-hanging-baskets-tidy-lawn-sign-lower-middle-class.html
I know exactly what you mean.
My usual thinking is put in a strong framework, which is well thought through and *works*, and then develop it over the years. And let the plants do their thang. The right sort of planting will help avoid that fussy 'ducks in a row' look.
Things like Alchemilla mollis spilling over everywhere and softening the edges of paths etc will gives you a shortcut to that 'lived in' look. (Alchemilla's cheap, easy, and multiplies readily so is a great starter plant.
I do know what you mean. Personally I like a bit of chaos in a garden with things spilling over and really over planted. Some of the gardens I see Alan Titchmarsh create in Love your Garden are too organised. I prefer the cottage garden style with plants being given free reign to mingle and sometimes clash. A little bit of theme goes well, but I find planting for wildlife, bees, butterflies, moths etc favours this style. Formal gardens even though they have their merits bore me.
Gardening however is all about personality, and differing styles suit different people who each have different idea's, that's what makes gardening for a living so interesting for me personally. I get to work in different environments and take idea's or leave them as I please, or see different plants which I can introduce to my garden.
We all have differing idea's and differing styles, so gardens are a personal choice, and what suits you dominoman is your choice, design or no design do what you want, you have to live with it and although some in positions of 'garden style influence' may scoff or look down their nose at your personal style who cares. It's your garden, do what you want with it.
Dominoman just read the mail article, oooo I must be so lower class, apart from the greenhouse (which I'd love) I have most of his garden faux pas lol...... Love plants/shrubs, flowers where don't see any soil though! I also dislike too perfect designs, I like a bit higglydipiggly. I think it needs some design but more along sizes of planting, ie tall cascading down to shorter x
I think a garden needs structure and flow to work and the structure can be formal or informal according to your taste and budget. Planting should be as full as possible and definitely not in neat straight rows except in the veggie plot or any hedging.
I think that article is a load of hooey. In a small garden, where you need to maximise every bit of space, hanging baskets can add interest and height and changing colour and form through the seasons. A greenhouse is a boon for anyone raising their own plants from seed or growing tomatoes, cucumbers and so on. There shouldn't be bare soil but it will inevitably be there after a good weeding session or when new planting is done and until the plants grow to size to cover the soil.
The only things that snob got right are the dreaded patio word and decking, although if you're lucky enough to have a pond big enough, a wooden deck over part of it can be a great place to sit and watch the wildlife.
It's all down to personal choice at the end of the day. I see many gardens where my reaction is "Ye Gods, that's hideous", but presumably the owner thinks it's fabulous. They may well think the same about mine but I don't care.
I've just read the Daily Mail article and can't work out whether it is intended to be tongue-in-cheek or serious. If tongue-in-cheek it really hasn't worked, and it serious the writer just comes across as a total **** (insert the word of your choice)
The author of this article is William Hanson an etiquette expert, just what we all need!! Therefore he thinks he's helping us move up the social classes. What a fool.His personal vendetta against Alan T. is just poor journalism or sour grapes. What ever your views are of Alan, he's been at the fore front of gardening for 50 years and deserves more than this. I, like many others do not have a driveway with or without initialed gate. My garden will have those no-no's, but thats because I like them, not because its not socially acceptable. I would like to think that we on this forum think the same.Good Gardening!!
May I suggest that less is more. Instead of packing the boarders with loads of different plants, choose less but have an odd number of them and place them in the boarders instead.
Only the insecure and easily led will be swayed by anything there. Most of us will have what we like (and what we can afford) and enjoy it.
You also have to consider appropriate. I'd love a stone 'terrace' with all the trimmings but how silly would that look in front of my cedar boarded house?
In the sticks near Peterborough