Gardens: ‘Imagine if your interiors started to grow and change’
Good gardens use the principles of design to create balance, unity and rhythm. Plant design isn’t easy. Imagine if your well-planned interiors started to grow, change colour, die back or disappear in winter. So where to start?
• Decide whether you favour formal, informal, romantic, naturalistic, traditional or contemporary style.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad• Be realistic – can space be made for more colourful herbaceous perennials that require greater maintenance than shrubs?
• How do the different layers of trees, shrubs and ground cover interact?
Good planting design should have:
• Unity: Is your style consistent? As you move from one style to another, is there a harmonious transition?
• Scale, proportion and balance: Plant growth and maturity mean what is in scale one year, may not be in another ten. Selecting trees and shrubs that embrace pruning is one way of managing this.
• Harmony: If you get the unity and scale right, a garden feels more harmonious and relaxed. Too much harmony and a garden may feel a little dull.
• Contrast: A few focal points using a plant’s distinctive colour, texture and shape reward visitors. Too much and areas will compete for attention.
• Repetition and rhythm: Repeating shapes, colours and textures inside a garden, and borrowing ones outside the boundaries is one way of creating movement and unity.
If you want to know more, I am teaching a weekend course on ‘What makes good garden design’ at Broughton High School in Edinburgh on 2-3 March, 2013.
Rebecca Govier, Garden Designer (0781 750 5571; www.greenedgegardendesign.co.uk)