This helps the garden to fit with the house and landscape around it so the whole English garden ideas look is pulled together for a natural fit. Locally sourced stone, brick and gravel are favourites, as well as timber and metal that will rust to add an interesting patina. Aim for a weathered look to add character. Use materials that complement the house too, preferably ones that are local and reclaimed. Whether it's old stone walls, reclaimed bricks or wooden trellises and fencing, the materials that you choose for your English garden should look like they have been there for years. For a less structured look that’s still smart, flank paths with low lavender hedges. For low mounds try naturally small plants such as Euonymus fortunei and hebe. Later the influential Arts & Crafts movement picked up the theme again by using topiary to create a sense of enclosure in ‘garden rooms’.īox is the most versatile species for snipping into topiary. With its crisp edges and clean outline, elegant box hedging is the easiest way to define different areas of your garden and create the English look. Privet, Japanese holly and yew also work well.įor fairly simple, rounded forms try holly, bay, myrtle, laurel and pittosporum. Then geometric parterres featuring low clipped greenery featured widely as English garden ideas. Living sculptures (as topiary is also known) date back to Tudor times when knot gardens created with clipped plants became popular. It also makes the perfect backdrop for flowers. Welcome a water featureįormal clipped green hedges and whimsical topiary offer a visual means of defining boundaries and delineating different areas of the garden that’s also easy on the eye. If there really isn’t enough room for any of these options, an English-inspired whimsical dovecote will work just as well as a real conversation piece. Whether festooned with climbers or left bare, they provide a simple architectural detail that works well. If space is tight a simple arbor will add charm and a vital design element that completes the overall look of your English garden. Garden shade ideas such as these have a practical use too as a place for relaxing, entertaining or offering a retreat from the sun, as well as providing a framework for roses, clematis and vines to scramble over to create that wild romping look that's key to this design aesthetic. To succeed as a design feature aim to integrate the structure into the rest of the garden so it looks cohesive. Even if your garden is on the smaller side, you can still add a focal point with a gazebo, pavilion or pergola. At the front paths are softened with edging plants like Alchemilla mollis that spill over.Īppealing garden structures are a hallmark of English garden ideas and help to reinforce the geometrical aspects of the space. Trees or tall shrubs are used as the upper layer, while mid-height and low-growing shrubs mix with perennials and ornamental grasses to form the main planting. Layering of cottage garden plants is a key feature of English gardens. In a large border, different plants are used while in smaller borders, one or two long-lasting, structural plants work well. Repetition of plants in groups of three creates rhythm and a sense of balance. More recently there’s been a fashion among English garden designers to add tall architectural plants and ornamental grasses to the mix. They led the movement away from the structured planting favored by Victorians and instead combined perennials in deep borders to create naturalistic looking long-lasting displays. Robinson and Jekyll were key in helping to define the planting aesthetic for borders that still forms the blueprint for English garden design today.
0 kommentar(er)
