A Simple Guide to Garden Planning
by silver medal winning garden designer Mary Newstead
Images: Mary Newstead 2004
Trowel and error
To succeed in creating plant combinations takes time and experience. A good way to learn is to start off with small groups of plants that work well together and build them up until you have filled your border with several combinations. It’s a little like learning a language - words first, then sentences and onto paragraphs once you have a larger vocabulary. But it is one thing to compose a small plant grouping, but quite another to visualize a whole border and take into account the characteristics of all the plants you want to include. Don’t worry. You will make mistakes. Even the experts do from time to time.
Your planting plan
By using your final garden layout as an underlay, trace the areas to be planted and work on the plan to scale (1:50). Use plant dictionaries and catalogues to establish the eventual sizes of trees and shrubs to help you ascertain the planting distances - the trend is to buy mature trees and shrubs and, while costly, they do make this job easier. Young trees and shrubs on the other hand, need space to grow and the temptation is to crowd them together to avoid gaps in the border. Don’t fall into this trap because moving a badly placed (and well established) shrub later may not always be successful. Likewise, you may find yourself having to remove a plant completely due to lack of room, thereby ruining your scheme. It’s much better to leave the correct distances between the key plants and fill in the gaps with perennials and annuals. And because annuals only last one year and perennials need splitting every three to four years it doesn’t really matter if a nearby shrub begins to grow into them over time, because you can move the fillers as the garden matures.
First decide on your key plants and mark them on your plan using circles that equal the eventual spread of the plant. In a large garden this may be a tree or large shrub, whereas if your garden is small, this could be a yucca or cordyline. Next choose your skeleton planting - that is the evergreen backdrop, which provides screening and shelter, like climbers and shrubs/wall shrubs. In front of the screening come the decorative plants - architectural specimens with bold foliage like Phormium and Rodgersia for sunny spots and Bergenia and Asarum (wild ginger) for the shade. Contrast all these with soft flowering perennials and at this stage you should consider colour as well as form.
Put all this down on paper and be ruthless and eliminate about half the number you have selected. A common mistake among inexperienced gardeners is to plant too much and while it is tempting to buy every plant on offer, it is much better to limit the varieties, planting them boldly in groups on the largest scale your plot will allow. Some plants lend themselves to being planted singly like a specimen tree, grass or bamboo, but when it comes to the fillers, plant in groups or masses, rather than just one of each type, which will look ‘dotty’ and will lack impact. And by planting the groups in odd numbers - even in a small space - a more naturalistic effect will be achieved; the most striking and satisfying visual pleasure comes from the repetition or the massing of one simple element.
Know what you want, and try to express it simply - if you want an herbaceous border, go all out for it and make it as wide as possible. Think too about maintenance and keep to a simple planting scheme that won’t become a burden. Vary the height and overall shapes of your chosen plants and ensure you have a good mix of evergreen and deciduous shrubs in a variety of foliage colours - grey, green, red, variegated - but don’t include too many variegated plants and certainly don’t plant them by side, which will look busy and un-restful on the eye. Add herbaceous perennials and bulbs, and trees too, if room allows.
The five senses
All your senses should be enlivened when you enter your garden so try to include a plant or two that covers each.
Touch: textural foliage - Stachys (soft and downy), Acanthus and Asarum (shiny), Rodgersia (rough and fissured), Yucca (spikey).
Sight: decorative stems, bark, berries and hips. Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ (red winter stems),Leycesteria formosa (green winter stems), climbing hydrangea (peeling bark),Rosa moyesii or R. rugosa and Viburnum opulus ‘Nottcutt’s Variety’ (succulent red fruits), fruiting crab apples like Malus x zumi ‘Golden Hornet’.
Smell: fragrance not only from flowers but also aromatic foliage like Geranium macrorrhizum, Helichrysum italicum, Lavandula, Laurus nobilis.
Sound: bamboos and grasses are good examples of plants that offer movement and sound - the foliage sways and rustles in the breeze.
Taste: if you don’t have room for a dedicated kitchen garden you can still tuck a few edibles in between the flowers - chives, espaliered fruit trees, sweetcorn, tomatoes etc.
Shopping list
The range of plant material available today is so large that anyone new to gardening can easily lose their way quickly - even I feel like a child in a sweet shop when visiting a well-stocked garden centre. Before you begin your shopping spree, you should have worked out your proposed planting plan. Stick to your list and resist the temptation to buy on impulse, although it is a good idea to earmark a few alternatives in case you can’t get your first choice. The main aim of the garden centre is to entice you to purchase, achieved by placing all the plants in flower by the entrance so you see them as soon as you walk in. Don’t be seduced - seek out the plants on your list, which may not be flowering at the time of your shopping trip, and be on the look-out for unusual specimens with interesting foliage. It’s not all about flowers - green is a colour too.
Tip: If you don’t have the right conditions for a plant you intend to purchase, then don’t buy it. You can’t fight nature.
Sources of inspiration
To the uninitiated, it can be hard choosing the right plants when the only source of description at your disposal is the garden centre label, which may be lacking in detail. A good reference book is essential and you can’t do better than purchasing a copy of the handy pocket-sized RHS Good Plant Guide. It contains the names of 3,000 plants, all with the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM), which means they have been tried and tested by the RHS and are all worthy contenders for any garden, given the right conditions. It also contains a guide, which lists plants for specific purposes - e.g. container plants for spring colour, variegated shrubs, plants for autumn colour.
Or use the online RHS Plant Selector
Another great reference - actually a nursery catalogue - is Notcutts Book of Plants, which lists plants for sale, with prices, and has an extensive index of Plants for a Purpose, including a monthly calendar by colour - very useful. If you don’t have easy access to a Notcutts Garden Centre visit the website www.notcutts.co.uk where you can purchase a copy.
It is also a good idea to walk around your neighbourhood to see what species of plants are flourishing in other gardens, as well as wild flowers and trees. Gardens open to the public are an excellent source of inspiration where you can see the plants growing together and where they are usually labelled so you can take note of the names. There is also a vast array of gardening magazines available offering further food for thought.
To view some of Mary's personal favourite planting combinations click here
