Design and construction

The view from here

One of the first things I look at in a garden is the possibility of creating somewhere secret and inviting. If you have a large garden I think it’s really important not to be able to see it all at once. A path should invite you around a corner. There should be just the glimpse of something that pulls you on, like a child tugging at your hand.  Perhaps you can see a seat – not just any old seat, but a place with a cushion that looks comfortable. A splash of colour can attract your attention too. A group of red poppies, or a tall majestic plant that looks quite fabulous. What is it? You just have to go and see.

Even in the smallest garden you should be able to walk around your ‘estate’. After all, it’s your very own bit of England. Have somewhere to wander after that busy day, cup of tea in hand, looking at all the detail – the shape of a new leaf, a bud about to open, and coming across something that’s been hidden away – a water feature, a pergola covered in scented climbers, something lit up to discover at the end of the day.

It is quite easy to create boundaries within your own garden. We’re all good at putting up fences and hedges around the perimeter, but think about creating division inside the garden too. We attended a good landscape design conference recently, about using plants to define space. Using bold sweeps of planting can really channel your footsteps around the garden and define where you sit, relax, eat and walk. It’s not just about the hard landscaping. Just one group of plants can make all the difference between ordinary and magical.  

As the garden moves further and further away from the house, people start to lose interest. It gets treated like a spare room where you put the stuff you need to sort out one day. And look, there’s the compost heap too. Sometimes this can be a really good-sized space – the space someone in a flat would give their right arm to own!  Look at your garden, starting at the back. If this was the garden you could see right outside your window, wouldn’t you make it more beautiful?

If you would like to discover your garden, instead of seeing the whole picture all in one go, then do call us. You won’t believe how you can explore the garden you think you know so well.


Plants

Lavender

Most people love lavender. It’s quintessentially English. It’s a brilliant plant because it works so well in traditional and contemporary gardens alike.

Have you ever been to the lavender fields where it’s grown commercially? It’s an incredible sight. Lavender makes a great low hedge too, and I love to see it planted behind a picket fence, where it can spill forward and through.

Lavenders can get woody if they’re left alone. If your lavender is looking all woody stemmed and the flowers are just at the ends, then it’s probably better to start again. New plants grow into big plants very quickly! Around March, cut them back to around four inches.

Make sure the soil where you plant the lavender is well-drained.  They hate sitting in cold water during the winter. You can always dig their planting space out, add a few handfuls of small gravel and then replant them. They love the sun too and perform best in a hot, sunny position. I bought some French lavender this year – the ones with the little ‘wings’ on top of the flowers – and they have flowered continuously in a hot, dry border.

You can pick the heads – on long stems – hang them up to dry through the summer and make lavender bags in the winter for Christmas presents. Yes, we do live in the past here! But my Mum has two lavender bags I made her during one very broke Christmas in 1983, and they still smell lovely!


Things to do

Paint your wagon

When Kev and I got married and bought our house, he bought an old teak table and chairs along with him that had been in his garden.  Regular readers will know how I feel about furniture. If he’d had white plastic chairs in his garden there may have been no wedding at all!

However, the teak stuff was not really my favourite dowry. I have oak furniture that I spent sensible money on, some years ago, and it still looks lovely. So, we put his in the front garden under the apple tree and when he was out one day I painted his furniture. I bought some Sadolin Superdec, which is brilliant for this job. I chose the hemlock colour which is a pale lemony green. Of course, I ran out of paint, energy, interest and the will to live before I’d finished and Kev had to finish it off for me, but it looks fab! I’m not suggesting you do this to brand new furniture, but after a couple of years, when it’s looking a bit tired, it makes it look all New England or Provence – depending on your choice of colour, of course. Please don’t go for brown, or any brown derivative.

Be bold. A bench or table and chairs are allowed to be a feature in a garden. Don’t ever ever paint a shed or a fence. Why make a feature of a fence? But paint the furniture, add a few cushions and expect it to look distressed over the next few years. Don’t keep painting it each year. That’s not the point. I might paint his old Iroko dowry bench white this weekend. Paint £25, cushions £120. Wonder if I can sell the idea to him first, because he’ll have to finish it off!  Have a good week.