Reflections

Reflections

A review of a few key principles of putting together a naturalistic design, and my advice for tackling tricky areas of dry shade.

My advice to you when you're putting together a palette of plants for your garden is to think about these things:

• What you love.
• What you want to see in that space.
• What you remember from the past.
• What you want to grow in the future.
• What you don't like – identifying these helps you to focus on the things that you do like.

We encourage people to pull together tear sheets and to make lists, and out of these, you'll start to find a mood for the place. From that, you can select plants that will suit your conditions.

Then refine that until you have a plant list that works both in terms of mood, and in terms of plants being suited to the place, and providing structure, interest and year-round dynamism in the planting.

The Benefits of a Garden

Our clients love this garden. It's brought the house to life, given them a backdrop and somewhere to go into, and created a changeable nature outside the windows that invites the seasons in.

• Gardens are wonderful for that – they are dynamic places that can tell stories, help make a home, and help you feel you're truly grounded.

Revisit the Ecologies That Inspired You

When putting together a planting, I'm constantly referring back to natural environments I've been in where I've observed communities of plants really working together. These have evolved over time to work in a particular place, and you can learn a lot from that.

Even in central London, I'm always thinking back to woodland, which is the inspiration for the way these plants come together in this cool, north-facing garden with layerings that are reminiscent of a woodland edge.

So you can go and look at those natural places, and then adapt what you've seen using the wealth of ornamental plants available to put your palettes together, but always keeping those ecologies in mind.

In the end, a garden like this becomes a proper community of its own, where the plants are helping each other grow, sheltering the soil, nurturing the place in the right way, and creating a mecca for wildlife. This balance you're tuning into is ultimately inspired by the natural environment.

Dealing with Tricky Planting Areas

Shade in a garden isn't something to be fearful of, but dry shade can be more complicated to plant. For example, the hungry roots of the bay tree really influence what we can grow underneath it.

Our solution was to place the seating area underneath the bay, with an area of paving around it, which means we have less planting to do in that zone. Then, we've used plants that can cope with those dry, competitive conditions, which are low in nutrition, water and light.

• What's great about this garden is that we've also got areas out in the light without roots, so we've got contrast between the tougher-to-plant areas and the more versatile areas beyond.

The take away is that dry shade isn't a disaster, although it is tougher to plant, and so it's always worth thinking about how to manage those tricky areas. So if you're faced with an area of dry shade, these are some key considerations:

1. It's really worth thinking about what plants can thrive in those conditions, such as Epimedium and certain ferns like the hart's tongue (Asplenium scolopendrium), for example.

1. Dry shade is often somewhere that can be used for siting 'places to be'. You could simply put an area of bark under a tree with a bench and a loose scattering of ferns, such as Asplenium scolopendium and Adiantum venustum.

• It then becomes a nice moment, rather than a place that feels unsuccessful for growing.

1. I never put lawn in areas like this beneath trees, because it will suffer and never look right.

So dry shade is something I think about differently, but not with dread. It's always nice to think of it as a respite from the more densely planted areas beyond.

Repeats Can Give a Complex Planting a Welcome Sense of Calm

When you're putting together your plant list, it's always good to try and hone it down to the things that are really going to work.

There are a surprising number of different plants in this garden, but what holds it all together is that certain plants are repeated, so that when you look at the garden as a whole, there is continuity.

• For example, the grasses travel through the other plants, and the ferns are repeated.

This means the garden doesn't feel as complex as it actually is. It's only once you get into the garden that you discover the detail and the little moments: the ferns that only appear by the bench at the end; the mind-your-own-business that appears around the water bowl.

Those moments of delight where there's a wider variety of plants should be things to be discovered, held together by elements that are repeated to give a sense of calm.

Plant Directory

• Epimedium
• Asplenium scolopendrium
• Adiantum venustum

Your Assignment

Either in the context of redesigning your existing garden, or imagining creating a new garden from scratch, have a think about the following starting points for putting together a plant palette, and jot down some ideas:

What you love

What you want to see in that space

What you remember from the past

What you want to grow in the future

What you don't like