Garden design

I would be the first to admit that I’m not a huge fan of straight forward garden design; I’m one of these people who much prefers to have a rough plan in my head and then let the garden evolve around me. That’s not to say I never use plans and indeed think there are times that design is crucial, however for me the best way to do this is with a cup of tea and a good hard stare, the graph paper, plant lists and stencils come later.

It can sound a bit of a cliché but in my view the best gardens have grown around their owners over time, they don’t have to be overly stylised or hit you with the wow factor it’s more about a gardening working and being pleasing to the mind and eye. Paradoxically the best garden design is unnoticeable, if a client comes out to view my days work I prefer it when they can see that the garden looks better but they’re not sure why.
We’ve a cherry tree in our garden at home, for the past two years Anna and I have um’d and ah’d about where it should go, first it was moved about in ever increasing pot sizes and then finally planted down by the shed where it flowered and fruited well. However it was clear that its placement was still not right, competing with a bamboo and two giant Scabious for space it blended into the background and was generally ignored. A few weeks ago we decided we’d had enough and up it came again, on an ideal transplanting day I was to be found staggering around the garden with tree and large rootball in my arms. Now a happily replanted cherry it’s still strangely unnoticeable and blends with the garden around it only this time it’s because it's in the right place (hopefully) and looks as though it’s always been there.
The old bed by the shed is now not so overcrowded with a mismatched grouping of plants and has allowed me somewhere to start to fill with foxgloves, these will not only make a striking impact at the end of the garden but also compete nicely with the other plants around it. Rather than appear swamped or lost they’ll form a visual balance of colour and leaf shape to an otherwise difficult corner of the garden.

I still remember being taught about settling in and ‘living with the garden’ for the first year by my tutor at college (the same tutor who had us hugging trees and joyfully smelling well rotted compost). The idea that a garden can just have a design placed upon it and work; on more occasions than not doesn’t work. Without actually being out in the elements and seasons, seeing how the sun travels across, frost pockets appear or boggy areas form it can be extremely hard to then design a plan that will fit the garden seamlessly. This isn’t to say it’s undoable and there are indeed designers out there who can do this but they are few and far between, especially when it comes to subsequent aftercare and maintenance.
Sadly I’m not one of these magic number, for me design entails spending time staring at the space to be landscaped, visiting it a couple of times before drawing up a plan that I know will ultimately need a good tweaking as it’s laid onto earth. In general my designs will be loosely drawn up and then moulded to fit the garden space rather than the other way round, then after regular visits over the following months in which I help it bed down and neaten any rough edges it’ll start to look as though it has grown there over time.

In truth though I’d always much rather develop and redesign as the seasons pass and in doing so build up a relationship between the garden and myself, it is so satisfying to see a garden age looking balanced and appropriately unnoticeable.