5 common mistakes encountered when designing

your garden...and how to avoid them

matt haddon gardenslandscape and garden design

Introduction

This booklet has been written to provide an insight into some of the key questions you need to ask when you start to design your own garden. It is by no means an exhaustive list of the things that you will need to consider but I hope that it will provide a solid starting point for the development of your ideas and prove useful in helping you to avoid some common mistakes.

I have spent many years developing my design skills and plant knowledge but I return to the same 5 core notions again and again in the early stages of developing a conceptual design for a garden. By considering them from the offset, and working them into the development of your ideas, you will end up with a garden that is much less frustrating to care for once finished (although I can’t promise you a completely frustration free garden - plants in particular grow, and ultimately die, subject to the vagaries of the weather, predation by rabbits and insects, as well as according to their own genetic make-up)!

I hope that the following pages will therefore provide inspiration for developing your garden and that, once you have finished reading, you will get out into your garden and start the hugely enjoyable process of designing it to suit you.

Mistake 1: not planning with the lawnmower in mind

No-one particularly relishes mowing (unless you have a fondness for machinery and a garden large enough to justify a sit-on mower). This however is the one job that most people will perform in their garden most often. Planning your lawn so it can be mown quickly and efficiently is therefore vital. In particular it is not always the mowing that is the problem but the tidying up afterwards! Long grass left in corners, by borders, against sheds, and next to edging which stands proud of the turf, means a second trip around the garden with either shears or strimmer. When designing your garden you can design these problems out from the start by adding ‘mowing strips’ against all your features and by avoiding lawn edging which stands proud of the turf that would prevent you from getting the mower over the whole area. A mowing strip is essentially just an area of 150mm (6 inches) which is not turfed but is instead dug out and lined with weed-proof (and hence grass-proof) membrane and filled with a material to compliment your garden – gravel, slate chips, bark or even recycled (and properly tumbled) glass!The strip is kept neat with edging of wooden planks or, for longer life, plastic or metal strips that should be sunk to just below the level of the turf. See the inset image opposite for an example. Another avoidable issue with the mower is with grass next to ponds. Using most mowers, glass clippings will be almost magnetically attracted to water, covering a pond’s surface within moments! However, the alternative to having to keep a neon child’s fishing net next to the pond to fish them back out again (before they sink and start causing problems with the water quality), would be a wide naturalistic pebble beach (providing you have a naturalistic styled garden) or perhaps a planted strip with marginal perennials tall enough or wide enough to catch the clippings? Finally you could completely revise your ideas of what a lawn should be? Less mowing overall can be achieved by leaving the odd patch of longer grass and clover (the bees will love it). If you really dislike mowing though perhaps consider a grass-free area of chamomile or thyme lawn or, for the more adventurous, a selection of low growing species such as ornamental daisy (Bellis perennis), buttercup (Ranunculus species), bugle (Ajuga reptans)...and so on, for a flowering lawn which can be mowed 4 or 5 times a year?

Mistake 2: investing in a patio that is too small

Almost without exception a patio (or a terrace or a deck) is something people want in their garden. Possibly the most important design decision you will therefore make is regarding the patio you would like. The patio will inevitably become the hub of the garden from the perspective of socialising and relaxing – where you may choose to eat your cereal when the sun is out early, and where you may have a little wine or a G&T when the sun is out late! So never fall into the trap of deciding on your patio before you follow the checklist below: • How will you use your patio – for sunbathing, for dining, for barbecues?• If you are having a dining table, how big will it need to be to fit family and guests? How many

chairs will there be – and most importantly of all how much space will you need to walk around your table and chairs when someone is sitting in each chair and they are not tucked rigidly under the table?

• If you want to only sunbathe, how big are your reclining chairs?• If you want to sunbathe and dine on your patio, how much room do you want between your dining

set and sun-loungers, and how large will those sun-loungers, or reclining chairs, be?• If you want to barbecue, where will the barbecue go? You need to take account of it when working

out not only the overall space needed but also the space needed to comfortably walk around the table and chairs without burning yourself!

• If you have young children will you also need space both for a trike, and then bike, track, and for brightly coloured plastic toys to be used?

Most importantly though, particularly when your patio sits outside your back door, is that when you have decided everything you want, and have in mind the dimensions for a patio large enough to house it all, you need to make it bigger still. This ensures that you can comfortably get in and out of the house, because having to undertake an obstacle course to cross your patio is guaranteed to make your experience of your garden less pleasurable! Hard landscaping, and patios in particular, are often the most expensive element of your re-designed garden to install. Therefore getting the overall size right is the crucial first step before looking at such things as bedding courses (to prevent the pavers moving), surface drainage (away from the house!), the pavers or slabs that you will walk upon (to compliment or contrast with your house and other landscaping) and so on!

Image taken at Rousham, Oxfordshire

Mistake 3: paths to nowherePaths are there to take you on a journey through your garden. This may seem obvious but all too

often garden paths lead to nowhere, or worse still to a sad looking flower bed or a dilapidated shed. Apparently random path placement is also often the legacy of the days when a back yard was used to dry laundry and so a path simply provided somewhere to stand whilst pegging out!

The reason that this is important is that your path will draw your eye, and your guests’ eyes, along its length which could either make a blank space the central feature of your garden, or perhaps an over-grown shrub or a compost heap. This would instantly make the whole garden appear to be less exceptional!

What a path leads to is therefore an important garden design decision to consider. It could lead to a sculpture (home made, natural or purchased), a piece of evergreen topiary to look good all year round, a particularly striking plant or tree (with ‘architectural’ branches, spring blossom or autumn leaf colour), a water feature, or anything else you wish to turn into a garden focal point.

Alternatively a path that leads round a bend will make the garden look larger and more exciting by making the viewer wonder what is hidden around that corner (even if the answer is only the end of the garden).

Acting as a visual cue is not the only purpose of a path though.

Essentially a path is also there to protect the grass from wear and tear or your shoes from worm-casts, or both. Before laying out your pathway you therefore also need to consider the notion of ‘desire lines’. These are the pathways we take across any space irrespective of where the actual footpaths are - and are often most clearly visible in public spaces such as parks. In your garden though the ‘desire lines’ will be from and to the key points that you create - just remember that you, friends and family will inevitable either use the shortest route from one part of the garden to another or else you will use the most scenic route.

So a path should lead to somewhere or to something, it should appear to naturally follow the direction that visitors will want to take and lastly, once at the end of it, it should look equally good when looking back...

Mistake 4: late additions All too often the check-list of what is required in the garden will include everything you want but will

miss out some of what you will need…certainly some of the less exciting items will be forgotten, and so that is what I have drawn attention to below. The first essential item to consider is the washing line or rotary airer, and where it will go. Will there be somewhere to attach it to, or sink it into? Can it be reached along its entire length, especially in the rain, or are there any obstacles in the way – such as flower-beds that will only look great when the washing isn’t there? Can it be retracted or removed and, because at least 50% of the time you will have forgotten to take it down, have you made sure that it doesn’t line up with any attractive views from from your windows into your garden? Once a solution has been found to drying your washing you should also consider the practical requirements below and whether there are any more of your own to include:

• Storage space is always at a premium so you may want to plan for places for the lawn-mower and other gardening paraphernalia, for wheelie bins, for keeping wood dry or for children’s toy storage

• Access to an oil tank needs to be planned ahead so that the delivery men aren’t forced to trample flower beds, or wander back across pristine white pavers

• Your greenhouse, as with any raised beds or vegetable beds, needs to be positioned to get enough sunlight

• If you want lighting in your garden, even if that is not required immediately, you need to give thought to the trenches that will have to be dug to house the armour-plated cabling; if these are under a perfectly laid lawn, under a new patio, or through your new flower beds you might want to put the cables in first!

• Are there any undesirable views to be screened – for example a neighbour’s compost heap or a distant pylon?

• Do you have a dog and might he need fencing in to stop him burying bones in the borders, or leaving little bombs on the lawn?

By thinking about what you would like from your garden and how you will use it, you can plan ahead and create an outside space that gives only pleasure. The alternative is always wishing that you’d done something slightly different…

Mistake 5: getting seduced by flowers

Every gardener, with no exceptions, can be seduced by flowers in full bloom beckoning to them from the nursery benches. Although there is nothing wrong with this approach to filling your garden with plants, you do need to know which plants will flourish in your soil before parting with your money.

Therefore the very first thing is to make sure you know where the plant will go and consider the light conditions, the soil conditions and the space you have available. For example: • Will the plant be in shade, partial shade or full sun – and will the plant chosen survive in those light

levels? The label will usually let you know what light level a plant prefers.

• Will the plant survive in your soil? This may take more advance planning to be able to answer - as you may need to check your soil moisture, your soil pH (namely it’s relative acidity or alkalinity) and your soil type (refer to the ‘Soil Type’ box for how to do this).

• What will the ultimate size of the plant be? Especially if it is a tree, a shrub or a spreading plant it may outgrow the space you want to fill and if that is the case you may need to remove it just as it hits maturity, or possibly undertake regular pruning.

There is of course an alternative to choosing plants when you get to the garden centre or nursery – although it is one that is neither spontaneous nor free of a little effort. Using a garden reference book or the internet you can start to draw together a list of the plants you want in your garden so that you can target what will do well throughout the year rather than what just looks good when you visit the nursery – a common problem is a garden which looks great in spring, when most people visit the garden centre, and sad and bedraggled by autumn, when many people no longer buy plants. Once you have a plant list together, which will ultimately form your shopping list, then you can start thinking about where each plant – or for a less haphazard look each group of plants – will go (such as shade loving plants against a north facing wall and sun loving plants in the middle of the garden). You then just need to go out and get them. If you only remember one thing though, remember the old adage “right plant, right place”. If it will survive and look exactly how you want it then that is what you are looking for!

Soil Type

A quick way to identify your general soil type is to take a small handful o f m o i s t s o i l a n d squeeze it together - if it is gritty and falls apart when you open your hand you have a sandy soil, if it stays in shape and can be moulded into a ring it is a clay soil and if it gently crumbles when you prod it it is either a loamy soil (and w i l l p r o b a b l y h a v e plenty of dark organic matter in it) or a silty soil.

Next Steps

I hope that this booklet has inspired you to not only re-design your garden but also to avoid some of the mistakes that might have been made at the design stage.

Following on from these initial design decisions there are a whole host of additional things to think about. For example, you probably already know the style of garden that you wish to emulate and will have made decisions with this in mind but, if that is not the case, envisioning the style you want to arrive at may lead to tweaks to decisions you have made up to this point - such as the types of plants you want, the shape of your patio, the arrangement of paths and so on.

Garden styles are many and in some cases very personal but, using a broad brush approach, perhaps you wish to draw inspiration from one of the following:

• A formal garden - clean lines, a symmetrical layout and clipped hedges• An informal or cottage garden - curves and overflowing plants arranged artfully• A naturalistic garden - the feel of a wild space without the weeds!• A sub-tropical garden - in the right place, large and lush leaves and exotic flowers can add a real

sense of drama

There are almost endless choices in the style of garden you may choose, but it just needs to provide the feeling that you wish to achieve.

Once you know the style of your new garden the next step I would advise is to think about the following concepts to help you to develop a design that really works:

• Unity and harmony (for example not filling your garden with a jumble of disparate plants and materials),

• Scale and proportion (such as the size of the patio in relation to your house, the patio to your garden, the ultimate height of trees to their position, and so on),

• A feeling of balance (whether for you that means symmetry or the avoidance of symmetry by balancing the massed proportions of the various objects in your garden)

There is plenty to think about but once you start then, if you can't stop, your garden will only begin to look better and better. Good luck with your ideas and putting them into action but, above all, make sure you regularly find time to just sit in your garden and enjoy it. Happy gardening!

Further Advice and Help

Mistake 6 could on occasion be not calling in a professional when you really need one - whether with your entire project or just for some advice… If I can be of any help, now or in the future, pleased do not hesitate to contact me.

Matt .

www.matthaddongardens.co.uk

matt@matthaddongardens.co.uk

07595 4210910

(c) 2014 matt haddon gardens. All rights reserved

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matt haddon gardenslandscape and garden design