One of the difficulties of designing a garden is knowing where to start. Many students complain to their tutors that the process seems somewhat vague and mysterious and why can’t they just be given a step by step guide. John Brookes, the father of modern garden design, tried to address this problem in the 1960s by introducing a method called pattern analysis. This, put simply, involves imposing a grid on the garden and then creating a pattern of overlapping shapes. Well that’s solved it then.
Read MoreThis time of year is often seen as a last hurrah for gardens, with brilliant displays of late flowering perennials and fiery autumn foliage, before shutting up shop until the spring. Last October though I wrote in the Link about making the most of the autumn to get ready for next year (‘Getting ahead of the game’) and in view of the results of a couple of recent surveys about our horticultural habits it seems appropriate to return to that theme.
Read MoreWhen you start to plan a garden it can be difficult to resist going straight for the plants. However a garden’s success will depend more on the underlying structure, with the flowers being the ‘icing on the cake’.
Read MoreThere are plenty of proverbs extolling the virtues of hard work in the garden. ‘Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade’ (Rudyard Kipling), ‘Gardening requires lots of water…most of it in the form of perspiration’ (Lou Erickson) and ‘You cannot plow a field by turning it over in your mind’ (Anon) are just a few. These insights reflect a truth about gardens - that they represent a taming of nature, to one degree or another, and the level of taming is directly proportional to the amount of effort.
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