Many gardeners are astounded at the appearance of tropical landscapes and plants in the most unlikely places. It's perhaps understandable in the very southernmost parts of the United Kingdom but many tropical plants can be grown successfully further north, as long as the growing sites are carefully selected and care [...]
We've covered water features and ponds in the garden in another article, including fountains and waterfalls. Here we're going to expand the topic to include more complex water features that involve moving water about the garden. These can take the form or a stream, river, small canal or rill. The [...]
Landscaping around a driveway is important to keep kerb appeal high, particularly if you are about to sell a property. Assuming that you aren't the owner of a baronial hall then your driveway is going to be quite short, so integrating it with the garden shouldn't be too difficult. Landscaping [...]
Garden design software used to be the province of professional gardeners and landscapers but such is the ferocious march of technology that excellent packages are now within easy reach. An ordinary modern PC is perfectly capable of handling the load of 3D renditions and the price of garden design software [...]
When most of us thing about landscaping a garden we're thinking of a bit of planting here, perhaps a deck or a terrace there. The thought of planning permission would probably never enter a gardener's mind. But there are some circumstances when planning permission might be required. Specialist Situations with [...]
Many people think that the idea of hiring a garden designer is pie in the sky, something for those who have more money than sense. But that's not always the case and the popularity of garden design, led by TV shows and glossy magazines, has made the idea more accessible. [...]
You could be in the market for the services of a landscape gardener if you decide to completely redesign your garden. A landscape gardener may also be useful simply to maintain and develop a garden if it's too much for you to do on your own. Gardeners, Garden Designers and [...]
Designing a vegetable patch can be as simple as throwing some seeds in a corner of the garden. With sun and water something will almost certainly grow, but you hare more likely to have success if there's a properly designed vegetable patch ready to receive the seeds and plants. In [...]
Wildflowers occupy a particular place in landscape design and for most of us there seems to be something rather appealing about a profusion of native plants growing in a natural setting. For many people, the idea of being able to enjoy the feel of the countryside within their own garden [...]
Having a play area in the garden is an absolute must if you’ve got small children – there’s no better way for youngsters to get out into the fresh air than providing them with their very own play ground to explore. Planning how to incorporate some child-friendly ideas into the [...]
Formal gardens are the triumph of human order superimposed on nature, the underlying message being one of control and restraint, with the shape and form of the planting scheme reflecting symmetry and geometric perfection. Deliberately created to be far from the random, wild beauty of nature in the raw, the [...]
Although we would all really rather not think about it, the fact remains that home security is for most of us, sadly, a very real concern – and when a house is broken into roughly every thirty seconds in the UK, it is scarcely something that is easy to ignore! [...]
Although traditional gardening falls largely into the well-know divisions of “formal” and “informal”, the stylised garden is a type of landscape design which has been growing in popularity in recent years and which does not fit into either category entirely comfortably. Often somewhat airily described as being more akin to [...]
The best sorts of informal gardens are those which look almost as if nature herself has had a hand in their construction, lending a softness and gentleness to a design that, although clearly is artificial, looks as thought it might not have been. Informal gardens play to that slightly schizophrenic [...]
Although some beautiful gardens have been created without any initial overall plan, evolving over the years as different elements were introduced and changes made, in general most people work to some kind of “scheme” – even if it is not a particularly detailed one. Whether you are setting out to [...]
Many modern houses stand in a relatively small plot, which can pose a few challenges when it comes to producing a garden design to make the most of the available space. Since many new-build developments leave bare soil, all the landscaping work is entirely down to the first owners, but [...]
It is one of the most bizarre ironies of the British climate that despite what seems like torrential rain and flooding for half the year, the spectre of hose-pipe bans looms large for so many areas of the country come the summer. Whether the reason for this apparent paradox is [...]
How much frost and wind protection you need to plan for in your garden greatly depends on its climate and aspects and, of course, the sorts of plants you grow. The best sort of protection is not to need it in the first place – so sticking to plants that [...]
In the cool and frost-prone climate of Britain, to grow many of the lush, tropical and sub-tropical plants there’s no way round the fact that you are going to need a heated greenhouse or conservatory. However, if it’s more the general look of warmer lands that you are after – [...]
Although in one sense, all gardens are people-orientated, some designs quite deliberately set out to go beyond simply reflecting the gardening efforts of their owners. There are any number of reasons why the layout of the space might be decided by the particular needs of homeowners, ranging from the changing [...]
Whether you have just inherited a garden from a previous owner or are contemplating reworking your own handiwork of several years, it can often be difficult to imagine how what you want to do relates to what exists already. However, this is a vital part of any landscape redesign and [...]
An unsightly view can blight even the most otherwise attractive of gardens and with ugliness – like beauty – being largely in the eye of the beholder, it doesn’t always take something as imposing as the local gas-works to make a bit of a blot on the landscape. Whether your [...]
