The building blocks of design

The Building Blocks of Design

In this lesson you'll learn how we set out the underlying structure of a garden - the grid, the paths, the hedges, and the practical decisions that make everything else work.

We started by agreeing on a simple grid, anchored by two things: a door out of the big hall in the house and the church bell tower beyond the garden. That immediately gave us the main paths - two running west and a cross path centred on the tower. The existing nut tree with ferns beneath naturally became the spring garden, so the plan wasn't forced - it presented itself.

When the big yews arrived, some people worried they'd block the view, but we don't want to see everything at once. Verticals and framing make you move, pause, and look harder. It's not blockage - it's theatre.

A few key building blocks we always return to

• Structure first: hedges, paths, and enclosures matter more than flowers.
• Decide where you sit: every garden job comes down to living - where you park, where you eat, where you'll be in the evening etc.
• Use paths properly: they make a garden usable (and stop you getting soaked feet).
• Create punctuation: gateways, corners, seats, tables - these are the moments that make a garden feel like a place you want to be in.
• Aspect: where you want to sit at different times of the day.
• Considering what the garden looks like from upstairs windows.

Planting the large yews

We chose large yews because this site is so flat and open, and we wanted the garden to feel grounded quickly. Planting small is often better (cheaper, easier, and plants establish well and grow quickly), but sometimes you decide you want the bones now, not in 20 years. Yew will also outlast nearly everything - it's the long-term framework while borders evolve and change.

Punctuating the design

Gateways are important in providing punctuation, along with paths, seats and corners. Oak posts with spheres on the top flanking a path provide gentle punctuation.

Gravel paths

Paths are essential in a garden for structure as well as simply moving around comfortably. We use a lot of gravel, partly because it's affordable, but also because gravel is brilliant: it throws light up, it's comfortable to walk on, and it becomes its own growing medium with little seedlings popping up. Paths are always one of the first things we put in.

The importance of the periphery

What you see out of the corner of your eye as you move through a space, such as what you're surrounded by, affects the atmosphere. This needs to be incorporated into the design and can often be achieved through the use of vertical elements.

Designing for all seasons

The key elements of a garden are generally where you'll park, where you'll sit and eat, and where you'll grow vegetables. But a garden should still work even in winter - in fact winter can be our favourite time, because structure and expectation are what make a garden sing. Think about whether a garden would work as a black and white photograph, without any colour from flowers, to gauge whether there is good structure.

One of the things we always say is: a plan can look clever and still fail. You have to design for how people actually move - what you notice out of the corner of your eye, the feeling of enclosure, the way a space changes as you walk through it. That's why vertical structure is so important.

Make sure it's maintainable

It's so easy to be swept away by beautiful images in gardening magazines, but it's essential to create a garden that won't overwhelm you. Create something you can be immersed in that's joyous and scented and all the things that you uniquely love but is manageable.

Further reading

• RHS garden design hub - ideas, inspiration and advice
• Garden Design by David Hicks

Plant Directory

Taxus baccata

Common yew

Hardy evergreen tree or shrub

Taxaceae

Bellis perennis

Daisy

Hardy evergreen perennial

Asteraceae

Wisteria species and cultivars

Wisteria

Hardy deciduous climbers

Fabaceae

Malus domestica cultivars

Apples

Hardy deciduous trees

Rosaceae

Corylus avellana

Hazel (nut tree)

Hardy deciduous shrub or tree

Betulaceae

Meconopsis species and cultivars

Himalayan blue poppies

Hardy short-lived perennials

Papaveraceae