Gardens Designed and Landscaped for You

There are many garden styles possible. It simply depends upon imagination and creativity. You only have to look at The Chelsea Flower Show to appreciate the variety of styles and outcomes available. Nonetheless there are certain stand out styles in this country such as the traditional suburban garden with its straight borders framing a large lawn. The borders mixed with a choice of roses, perennials and shrubs framed by a hedge or more commonly now a fence. There is of course the cottage garden which is a quirky mix of beautifully woven perennials, roses and shrubs even vegetables crammed into borders around small rustic paths. In recent years Prairie Style gardens have been in vogue combining grasses with perennial planting inspired by the American Prairies… Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Sanguisorba to name a few plant examples. The use of large drifts of planting a reference to the pioneering Victorian designer Gertrude Jekyl.

Contemporary gardens have tended to stretch that in a different direction by using blocks of planting quite often using a restrained planting palette to great effect….actually not all that new Dan Kiley and Garett Eckbo famous American Landscape Architects were designing such spaces in the 1950s. I think though now with climate change our gardens are under very challenging times. Dry hot summers may well become the norm but with the potential still for cold winters presents the designer, the gardener with quite a challenge. The practicality of a regular cut lawn needing regular water in the summer may need to be rethought alongside considering drought resistant planting. … rewilding the lawn …the dry gravel garden in Mediterranean style planting maybe an option but some winter protection will be necessary.