Laying out your existing garden

Laying Out Your Existing Garden

If you've just moved into a new home and inherited an outdoor space it's very important to spend some time getting to know your garden and its aspect. Take note of where the sunshine is hitting throughout the day, while also thinking about how you want to use the space in the future.

Take the Time to Understand What You Have

Depending on the home you've moved into, the outdoor space may include trees, shrubs and climbers that you haven't personally grown before. To get to know these new plants, it can be very beneficial to spend a whole growing season observing your garden so you can fully understand what you have.

This is particularly useful if you have inherited trees, as you will be able to see them in full colour and also see how much leaf litter they create in autumn if they are deciduous.

It's important not to make snap judgments about the plants we inherit, particularly if we don't know their variety, as they may have sensational scents or blossoms that we won't know about if we remove them as soon as we arrive.

Consider Sightlines and Focal Points

If you don't have the time to measure out your space, you can pay to get a site survey done, but doing it yourself will help you to understand your space in a deeper way and get a real feel for your garden and its aspects.

Afterwards, you can even make scale drawings of the inside of your home and map out your rooms, which will help you when purchasing furniture in the future.

Now that I have added all of my windows and doors onto my scale drawing, I can concentrate on the sightlines from my windows so that I have a pretty view to look out at. I think it's important to have a pretty view of the house from the garden too, which can be attained by framing the windows and doors with climbers or pots.

When considering your sightlines, it's important to focus on the longest view from your window or door and create something pretty to look at that will be there all year round and even in the worst of weather.

Using Tabletops to Create Interest in a Garden

Tabletops are a great way to introduce sightlines into your garden and to create varying interest throughout the year. I use mine to display pots of herbs or annual plants. If your seating area is next to your house, this area will also be your closest viewpoint and will bring your garden close to the inside of your home, which is particularly important in winter when we are outdoors less often.

Using Bird Feeders and Pollinators to Create Interest

Another way to create interest in your sightlines is to make use of pollinator-friendly plants. By planting these in your sightlines you will be able to witness a range of insects visiting them throughout the late spring and summer months.

Installing a bird feeder or bird bath in your sightline means you'll also be able to witness local birds visiting your garden, which will provide joy and interest throughout the year.

The Trellis Screening

At the rear of my garden, I have three trellis screens which hide a further two to three metres of my garden. This is the working section of my garden which is also home to my shed, workbench and compost heaps. These screens act as a cover for this less-than-beautiful area and mean that the inner workings of my garden are hidden from my sightlines on a day-to-day basis.

The trellis screening is made up of two side trellis panels and then a larger trellis panel that spans the length of the opening between the two others, but is set a metre in front.

This provides a screen so that what is going on behind is not visible from the house, while also allowing me to walk between the panels to reach the working area of my garden.

If You Can, Make Space for a Shed

A shed is a great luxury in my eyes and holds all of the things that keep my garden looking like it does.

I'm lucky enough to have electricity in my shed, which means I can charge everything in it without having to cart it into the house and back. If you're going to be storing electrical items, it's important to ensure that your shed is dry and watertight.

The shed is also a great space to overwinter pots that have been planted with bulbs in the autumn before they are ready to be brought out into the garden in the spring. This also ensures that they are protected from squirrels and other creatures who might disturb them before they have sprouted.

My trellis are covered in Trachelospermum jasminoides, an evergreen climber with beautiful white flowers which provide fantastic coverage.

I interweave this with late flowering clematis, which will flower after the jasmine and create another element of interest in the garden.

In front of the centre panel is my two-seater bench, which provides year-round interest from the sightline of my door.

Think About Your Borders

When I laid out my garden I wanted to ensure I could fit as many plants into it as possible. This meant creating borders that would be at least 1.6 metres in width. Ideally, the minimum width for a border would be 800mm but if you are working with a smaller space then try and aim for a width of 600mm.

The thing to remember is that plants need space, so if you want to position plants in front of one another then aim to create the deepest borders possible within your space.

I have two borders, one on either side of my garden and for the purposes of mowing, I have edged them both with bricks. This helps to define the border edge, while also referring back to the brick of the house. These bricks also create a lovely architectural feature in the garden and become weathered with moss as time goes on. These take up 200mm of space though, so you may want to leave them out if room is tight.

Plot Your Existing Trees

If you have any trees in your garden, now is the time to plot them into your plan. This will give you the basic structure of your garden, so you're now ready to move on to the planting that will be laid on top.

If you have any large shrubs in your garden, plot these too, as they are also providing structure and interest and will need to be thought about when filling in the softer elements of your space.

If you're tight on space in your garden, then trees in pots are a great way to introduce height and will give you the feeling of a fuller and larger space.

Why Not Try?

If you've just moved into a new house and aren't sure what plants you have, try using a plant ident book or plant ident app to find out. By getting an idea of what plants you have in your garden, you'll start to understand what grows well there.