Once you’ve decided where you’re going to sit and relax in your garden, you need to think about structure. will you have a hedgeFences, arches, gates, sculpture, containers or topiary? If your garden is small, think less is more. Try to avoid clutter by including only three or five really good ingredients from the list above.
- Hedges, walls and fences
If your garden requires a tall hedge, you need to decide if it will be evergreen, in which case yew is a fantastic choice. Yew needs good drainage so plant it very carefully and if you are on heavy soil you will need to backfill the planting hole with at least 200mm of grit. It also likes winter feeding so feed it all year round and you will have a good hedge in 3-4 years. If you choose an autumn hedge, hornbeam is good on clay soils and beech on light soils. Rugosa and other roses also make beautiful hedges.
In larger gardens, if your garden slopes downwards, a good idea is to make the most of the slope by adding dividing lines where the level changes. Then you can create other ‘rooms’ that may open to the countryside. A division may be a wall or hedge, and it may also act as a windbreak.
If your garden slopes away from the house, it is better to have an open view of the garden, but with shorter sections such as retaining walls and less hedging.
with Small gardenSometimes you can make your garden feel bigger by cutting off most of the garden view by using a hedge or fence, but using a mirror at the end to make the garden look longer.
Other structural elements may be particularly decorative. Arches add romance to the garden, especially if you Grow roses up them. You can also place an arch with trained crab apple trees on each side to create an apple arbor. A good height for an arch is 2.4m and has a minimum width of 2m. Rosa ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ is a good rose for an arch because the flowers hang down.
Gates make excellent stopping points and the more decorated the better. If your garden is shady, paint your gate a light cream color. Farrow and ballofstring‘Good, and I like dark too’downpipe‘ For the garden gate.
Fences come in all different shapes and sizes and don’t necessarily block views; A decorative fence can still allow you to look up to the landscape outside.
Pictured: Hedge Inn Cotswold garden
