How to create a new garden from scratch

Taking on a new garden can be daunting.. let's break it down. Here are the key considerations HRWGD tackle when designing clients gardens:

• What are your main views?

Are you going to be mostly looking at the garden from the kitchen, living room, bedroom or perhaps you have a newly installed garden office, gym or conservatory? Perhaps a new extension with huge bi-fold doors? Are you spending your days looking dreamily out of the upstairs office window and watching the world go by from above?

Whatever this primary view is - make this your beckoning call into the garden.

​Create a focal point with a specimen tree, jumbo planter, sculpture, water feature or extra comfy hammock!
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• Hide or remove the ugly and enhance the beauty

Disguise the road noise with water, nosey neighbours with trees, hedges and canopies. Throughly editing plants that don’t do much or you just don’t love it a good thing. UNLESS they provide a valuable haven for the following!…

• Native flora and fauna

Commit a space no matter how small (or big!) to the wild. 

This is a balancing game.. WILD may not fit with your neat-freak tendencies but go-on.. you will be rewarded with birdsong and butterflies. If the wild is too bothersome add a mown-edge to the long wildflower and meadow grasses or a neat clipped low hedge to add order. The eye is drawn to anchor points that enhance the surrounding ‘chaos’.. like this boardwalk through boggy woodland.

There is JOY in the fine balance of Wild and Sculpted.

• What do you want to DO in the garden?

Are you set on a swimming pool and spa?.. Find exactly the right location first-off for maximum sun and shelter from the wind. 

Are you more likely to be feet-up on the lounger with a G&T? You need the right sized space for entertaining and eating. You don’t want to be squeezing past each other but of course hard-landscaping (the patio) can be the most costly part so you don’t want a concrete jungle either.

Don’t forget SHADE. (The right trees do this best if you have the space)

• Resist narrow borders around the edge

Inevitably the borders will be too narrow for great plants to really do their thing and this tends to lead to the bland ‘patio/lawn/borders with a path down the middle’ look. 

Think about your experience as you travel through the garden by creating garden ‘rooms’ with their own personality, connections, microclimates, vistas and SURPRISES.

• Know your soil and aspects and experiment

Clay, acid, alkaline, sandy, loamy, wet, droughty, sunny, part shady or shady?.. The list goes on but don’t let it put you off experimenting with the plants you love. The garden will evolve continuously, it’ll never be ‘finished’ (that is if you plan to have a variety of plants with seasonal interest). The right place/right plant books are rife so buy one and get cracking - its fun, promise!

• Finishing touches

Lighting, planters, furniture and sculpture. 

These add life, colour, movement and drama to the bare bones of a garden and in fact don’t have to be the finishing touches they can be the inspiration behind a garden!

• Hire a garden designer

If all of this is just too much or you just need an overall MASTER-PLAN to get going and focus your hard-earned cash in the right areas then this is a no-brainer. 

At Helen Rose Wilson Garden Design we will take care of all of the above (and some) so…

Call us on 07784137352 or email info@helenrosewilson.com to see how we can help you.