great garden

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The Importance of Space

Space, they tell us is the final frontier. I disagree, at least when it comes to garden design. Space is the FIRST frontier.

When it comes to gardens, people are passionate about plants; they are passionate about garden features. Unfortunately those things are not what make a garden great. They certainly add to a garden’s greatness but they are not the key to it.

What you should be passionate about is space and the use of it. Before you shrug your shoulders, say “hmph” and go back to Twitter, let me tell you why space is THE most important thing you can think about in your garden.

A Whole Lot Of Nothing

The areas of empty space in your garden, like lawn and patios, are exceptionally important to shape correctly to have a great garden. These areas of empty space dictate how the garden is viewed, used and looks.

The Most Common Mistake

Most folks shape the flower borders first and then the lawn is whatever shape is left. Whilst that makes sense logically, practically it’s not the best way to do it. If you shape the empty areas of space first, your main view is then perfectly shaped to lead the eye where you want it to go to make the garden look larger, more interesting and exciting. Rather than a nibbled into with random, incoherent shapes type of lawn.

Shape the lawn and patio first

Resist the Temptation of Things

We all love stuff. We are obsessed with things. Plants and features are wonderful things, so it’s very easy to be seduced by them. Shaping empty space is petty boring in the grand scheme of things but its use is one of those understated givens in a good design.

To give you an example, you may think that the words you see on a page are what makes an article. Whilst that would be a pretty good assumption, there is something as important as the words. Yesyouguesseditspace!Withoutspacethewordsareverydifficulttoreead!

When it comes to gardens, correctly shaping space is even more important to get right than the space between these words.

Your Mission: Live long and create great gardens!

Exciting News!

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What makes a great garden?

What makes for good garden design? It’s such a subjective topic…although one should not ignore strong technical elements. Consumer garden needs are always changing which means that the ‘design sands are always shifting’. Here are just a few thoughts on what is needed to make a good garden great….writes guest blogger Philip Voice.

I am not too sure that any single aspect of a garden’s design makes any particular garden great.

Sure, there are elements that a garden designer should be keen to retain, manipulate or work with when fashioning any space to suit the needs of the client, but nothing should ever be so rigid as to hold back on expression. An experienced garden designer will use instinct and experience: experienced design development, is not even a conscious effort.

Working with your natural landscape

The existing lie of the land must always be a strong consideration – especially if the garden is large enough to retain natural slopes and contours: aspect and light must be used and I think that the very best of garden design occurs when the designer’s instinct comes before contrivance – the latter is only relied on when other aspects of the design won’t fall into place naturally.

A garden designer’s initial thoughts must be simple: access to parts of the garden have to be created using a desire line mentality. If a desire line is not feasible, creating a physical barrier so as not to create blockage, but gently lead the garden user or wanderer is the next consideration – creating rigid angles or obstacles only serve to annoy will cause upset.

Creative collaboration

Maybe the very best of garden designers can pour emotion into the space that they are designing? Many designers will ask a client for a list of their requirements…others can introduce elements based on what life is being lived around the environment the garden is to be created in.

Philip Voice is a life long professional gardener turned blogger and the author of Landscape Juice and founder of the professional industry site, the Landscape Juice Network. I hope you’ll take a look at his wonderful websites and forum which celebrated getting 1000 members last week!

If you are wondering why Philip didn’t mention plants making a garden great, then this blog post on cake will explain why!

What are your thoughts on what makes a garden great?