21 garden ideas to transform your outdoor space
Garden ideas come in all shapes and sizes, varying hugely depending on climate, soil, local planting traditions, how you want to use your garden, and how high or low maintenance you need your garden to be. Within the English garden world alone, you can find formal gardens, romantic cottage gardens, modern city gardens and much, much more. Increasingly, the gardening world is moving away from water-intensive, high-maintenance gardens and looking more towards resilient, drought-tolerant styles, such as those that are traditionally associated with the Mediterranean. Biodiversity is another key principle of today’s gardens, and a reason why many designers are minimising the size of their lawns and looking to meadow-style planting to encourage wildlife. Gardens are also a brilliant way to help people to get more in touch with the food they consume, with edible planting (and ‘edimental’ planting that uses plants that are both edible and ornamental) and kitchen gardens becoming increasingly popular, even in small gardens.
Garden design isn’t limited to the actual planting, of course. There are plenty of other elements that can make or break a garden, such as patios and terraces, greenhouses and garden rooms, pools and ponds. These are expensive things to install and difficult to change, so it’s definitely worth getting them right the first time. We’ve gathered together a few of our favourite garden ideas and styles of planting, for both front gardens and back gardens, all drawn from the House & Garden archive, along with advice on how to get going with each.
How to lay out a garden
Before you start, you need to think about how you are going to use your garden and what you need to make that happen – as garden designer Angel Collins explains in our piece How to design a garden from scratch in 17 steps. The first thing to think about is a seating area with some pretty garden chairs – preferably this should be near the house and, if possible, facing south west to make the most of the afternoon and evening sun during the warmer months.
How to design a garden cheaply
Gardening doesn’t have to be expensive, as long as you know what you’re doing and plan ahead, advises Tabi Jackson Gee. Her two top tips? Play the long game (especially if you’ve just moved into your house) and don’t binge-buy at the garden centre. You can find plenty more cheap garden ideas and a guide on making your garden budget go further here.
Garden ideas from the House & Garden archive
Boz Gagovski1/21Small gardens
It doesn’t matter if you have a balcony garden or a small patch of patio or even a small front garden, you can make it a space to be proud of with the right planning and planting. No matter how small yours is, it can provide a space for growing beautiful flowers, harvesting a kitchen garden or simply relaxing on a lovely seat.
At Benedict Foley and Daniel Slowik’s flat in Hackney, they have created an inviting seating area at the front of the house. ‘The garden is little more than another green clad room,’ they say, ‘but it’s heaven on a summer’s eve having a drink after a long day. It feels worlds away from the dusty streets of London.’ They have cleverly screened this space by planting a mass of greenery, with advice from their friend, the plantsman Alexander Hoyle, including star jasmine on the front wall of the house that reminds them of warm nights on Italian holidays.
- hollyhocks, angelica, foxgloves and verbena. And these don’t necessarily have to be planted at the back, they can be front-row, leaning perilously over paths. Equally at mid and low levels, choose plants that create an airy haze of flowers or flop lazily over edges – <em>Alchemilla mollis</em>, <em>Gaura</em>, <em>Dianthus carthusianorum</em>.’","contentType":"photo","credit":"Eva Nemeth","segmentedSources":{"sm":[{"height":480,"width":320,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_320,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"},{"height":960,"width":640,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_640,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"}],"md":[{"height":960,"width":640,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_640,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"},{"height":1920,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_1280,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"}],"lg":[{"height":1536,"width":1024,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_1024,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"},{"height":3073,"width":2048,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_2048,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"}],"xl":[{"height":1920,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_1280,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"}],"xxl":[{"height":1920,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893ad8f6acdd8ba4455e88/master/w_1280,c_limit/_85a0578075x.jpg"}]}}}" data-testid="GallerySlideWrapper">
Eva Nemeth2/21The cottage garden
‘The English country garden, more specifically the cottage garden, is so intensely romantic and full of charm that even the most ardent minimalists would struggle to deny a soft spot for them,’ says garden designer Lottie Delamain, looking at this beautiful part of Libby Russell’s Somerset garden. ‘Blousy, abundant and floriferous, they’re a tangle of girlish colour, soft shapes and accidental magic. But underneath it all, they’re actually quite hard to pull off and often true labours of love.
‘The overriding feeling you want from a cottage garden is abundance – bordering on overgrown and ever-so-slightly out of control, rangy height, borders spilling over paths and clouds of colour artfully mingled in a decorative tangle. Plants that give height, that dance and sway and stretch long limbs towards the sun are all very welcome – think hollyhocks, angelica, foxgloves and verbena. And these don’t necessarily have to be planted at the back, they can be front-row, leaning perilously over paths. Equally at mid and low levels, choose plants that create an airy haze of flowers or flop lazily over edges – Alchemilla mollis, Gaura, Dianthus carthusianorum.’
Christopher Horwood3/21Front gardens
Of course, a lot of our gardening attention should go into our back garden as that’s where we spend our time, but front gardens should not be left to languish. However much space you have, a front garden can be a space for experimentation and can encourage you to innovate in ways you might not have expected, including – of course – thinking creatively about the most efficient use of space, and how plants and other garden features might interact with whatever sit in front of your house differently to what’s behind it.
‘The most important first step in any front garden is to ensure that your hard surfaces are permeable,’ explains garden editor Clare Foster. ‘Flooding is becoming an increasing problem as weather events become more extreme with global warming, and rainwater needs somewhere to go, so the more permeable surfaces and flower beds you can have in your garden the better. Plan a gravel driveway that you can soften round the edges with self-seeding plants such as poppies, fennel or valerian, or choose permeable block paving with space for flower beds all around. Any area of mixed planting will also improve the soil underneath, acting like a sponge to soak up run-off after heavy rain. In terms of planting, choose tough, low maintenance plants that will give as much seasonal interest as possible. Plan a simple layout to give continuity, starting with structural shrubs. Frame a path or front door with yew spheres or a low hedge of lavender, and then infill with colourful seasonal planting: tulips and honesty for spring, geums and salvias for summer, and Japanese anemones for autumn.’
Britt Willoughby Dyer4/21The kitchen garden
Sophie Conran created her kitchen garden from scratch in the grounds of her Wiltshire house. ‘There was the shell of an old bothy and the base and back wall of a large greenhouse, so this must have been the site of the original kitchen garden, when six full-time gardeners took care of the place,’ she says. Today, she grows flowers, vegetables, fruit and herbs in a glorious jumble that helps confuse any predatory wildlife.
If you’re planning your own, you will need to consider the arrangement of beds and the definition of pathways, although there are plenty of ways to do it. As our garden editor Clare Foster notes, it’s best to ‘sketch out a plan with a number of beds divided by pathways that can be covered with gravel or bark chips. Beds can be edged in brick or stone, or you may prefer raised beds made using wooden sleepers, Corten steel or recycled plastic.’
There are other styles to think about if you’re planning a kitchen garden, such as a French-style potager, ‘a space where ornamental plants grow side by side with edibles like vegetables and herbs’, as garden designer Tabi Jackson Gee explains. Such gardens might look purely decorative at first, with their espaliered fruit trees, box hedging and perennial flowers, but look closer and you’ll find lots of productive crops in the mix.
Alister Thorpe5/21The city garden
There are of course no limits to what you can do in a city garden, depending on the size and shape of your plot, and your individual taste. That said, there are a few common layouts for the typical terraced or semi-detached townhouse garden, which tends to be long and narrow. A terraced area is a good idea right outside the house, particularly if you have french doors to open onto it. Beyond that, a small lawn or beds can follow, perhaps with a shed or garden room at the far end. Make sure you include evergreen planting that will look good all year round – you can't escape the view from the kitchen, after all!
Containers are very much your friend in a small garden: they can enliven an area of terrace or decking, and can also easily be moved around if you want to switch things up. Garden editor Clare Foster also recommends that you ‘trick the eye by growing large plants, which will make the space appear bigger. Choose ones with bold foliage, such as Fatsia japonica, or two or three large topiary specimens to create focal points. If you have the room, plant a single tree, such as a crab apple or a multi-stemmed Amelanchier lamarckii.’
In the west London garden pictured above, designer Sheila Jack opted for a multi-stemmed Tibetan cherry (Prunus serrula) near the house to provide year-round interest, set among a froth of ferns and knotted cranesbill.
James McDonald6/21Decking, patios and terraces
Though it’s lovely to have a lawn, a patio, terrace or patch of decking provides a brilliant social space in a garden, somewhere to arrange some garden furniture, plants in pots and create a distinct area for dining, relaxing and entertaining. The first step towards your patio transformation is to tidy your existing space. Throw away old plant pots and broken containers, sweep the terrace and prune back overgrown shrubs or plants that overhang the space. Give yourself a blank canvas and then step back and visualise the elements you would like in your revamped space, from seating area to storage.
At this converted warehouse in south London, the rooms at the back of the house look out over a peaceful enclosed garden with a large terrace closest to the house. Here, climbers including roses and jasmine, and planting beds were introduced by Stephen Woodhams to soften the terrace, which is furnished with a table and chairs from Gloster.
RICHARD BLOOM7/21Topiary gardens
Topiary is the hallmark of many an English formal garden, as you can see in the beautiful image of Owlpen in the Cotswolds. It can be used to plot out the structure of the garden via hedges that mark out boundaries and pathways, or employed in a more whimsical (or even amusing) manner. If you want your garden to look good in winter, topiary is one of the best ways to do it. ‘The structural elements of a design, including hard landscaping, cleverly placed trees, hedges or clipped topiary, knit everything together and give the eye a focus in the winter months,’ says Clare Foster. ‘A heavy frost or a light sprinkling of snow can highlight the sweeps, lines and curves of these static elements, lifting the winter garden into a magical realm to quicken the heart and cheer the eye.’
‘In terms of evergreen plants to use for topiary, there are dozens to try as alternatives to the popular box and yew. Bay (Laurus nobilis), common privet (Ligustrum vulgare) and Japanese spindle (Euonymus japonicus) can all be clipped into any shape you choose. Phillyrea angustifolia is another popular topiary plant, while hollies, elaeagnus and conifers such as Thuja occidentalis and Cupressus macrocarpa can also be used. Garden designer Arne Maynard has popularised deciduous topiary, using clipped hornbeam and beech to form striking domes and chess-piece forms that draw the eye and give weight and pace to the winter landscape.’
BROOKE HOLM8/21Roof gardens
If you are lucky enough to have a roof big enough to grow plants on, there’s no excuse for not creating an inviting roof garden like this example at Keith McNally’s New York apartment. A roof garden is essentially a container garden, whether you use smaller containers or larger planters, so one of the most important considerations is how much weight the roof can take. Once you have established that, you can plan a layered scheme, ideally one that mimics the shapes and sizes of beds in a garden on the ground.
A very different option worth considering is a green roof, which essentially adds a layer of planting onto a roof via a substrate, in which grasses, sedums and small flowers can be planted. These have many benefits, such as providing microclimates for insects and bird life and reducing the surface runoff of rainfall to positively affecting the heat produced by urban environments and purifying the air by turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. Then there are the direct advantages for the owner such as providing insulation in winter and reducing the need for air conditioning in summer.
Eva Nemeth9/21The herbaceous border
The herbaceous border, spilling over with flowers, is one of the hallmarks of the English country garden. Largely relying on herbaceous perennials, which die back each winter before coming back to life in spring, these borders have a full, romantic feel which is nevertheless highly structured.
This large, curving border in our garden editor Clare Foster’s garden was created from scratch in spring 2018. With the help of her family, Clare dug over the border, enriched the soil with compost and planted it with a mixture of grasses and herbaceous plants, carefully chosen to ensure interest in each season. Shown here in July, it includes magenta Penstemon ‘Garnet’, pale Scabiosa ochroleuca and tall spires of Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’ in a haze of Stipa gigantea.
As garden designer Angel Collins says in her guide to designing a garden from scratch, ‘For most borders, start with the principle of the front, middle and back row, where you have three different height requirements: tallest at the back, shortest at the front. Next choose three perennials for each row which flower at different times of the year and repeat these in groups of three or five plants, making sure they are not in lines but groups. There is a danger that this could look overly neat, so try to encourage a bit of a wriggle in your planting–it doesn’t matter if your group merges into a different row.’
Andrew Montgomery10/21Rose gardens
Roses have long been an indispensable part of the English garden, loved for their scent as well as their gorgeous, many-coloured flowers, which come into their own in June and bloom throughout the summer. Roses can be planted in borders and beds, they can climb up walls and make beautiful container plants as well. Plant roses among other flowers and plants, rather than on their own in dedicated rose beds; this makes things fuller and more interesting, and will ensure that you have blooms all year round. One of our favourites is the glorious rose garden shown above, created by Isabel and Julian Bannerman at their home, Ashington Manor in Somerset.
For borders and beds, Hazel Sillver advises that you ‘opt for repeat-flowering varieties, which have the colour to blend well with a tapestry of perennials and annuals’. For walls, ‘a climbing (not a rambling) rose is required’, while ramblers are best for pergolas and planting around trees.
Ngoc Minh Ngo11/21Shade gardens
Not every garden (or every part of a garden) can be gloriously sunny, and that is often viewed as a problem, but there is something very atmospheric and beautiful about shady spots. As Lottie Delamain explains, ‘shady gardens have hidden depths – rather than relying on ostentatious blooms and washes of colour, their character comes from texture, form and scale’.
Susanna Grant, a designer who specialises in shady planting and author of Shade, advises that you ‘look to nature for inspiration – if you have tree shade, look at woodland planting. Early flowering bulbs, when the canopies have not yet filled out can be echoed in your garden and I love drifts of Tiarellas, Tellima grandiflora and Luzula nivea for a shady meadow-like vibe.’
Elsa Young12/21Balcony gardens
Gardener Charlie McCormick has a lot of experience with balcony gardening, having had his own in London. ‘The advantages of a small outdoor space is that they are quite easy to maintain, giving you plenty of time to potter and enjoy the space,’ he explains. When it comes to planting on a balcony, Charlie’s advice is that ‘you can rarely choose which direction your garden, balcony or terrace is going to face so adapt your planting to suit its situation and exposure to sun and shade. Hostas are good in the shade and they are particularly easy to grow (just beware of slugs – consider banding your pots with a copper ring to ward off devastation). A surprising number of perennials enjoy a spot away from direct sunlight.
‘Foxgloves, agapanthus, lavender and star jasmine are good in sunny locations. Accessibility can affect small spaces so it's good to have a think about what size planters to use on a balcony or small deck and also consider how the garden is going to be watered before installing them. Pots dry out quickly so will need regular watering in the warmer months. It’s worth putting a simple automated watering system if you know you will occasionally be away or don't fancy endless trips with a watering can.’
Richard Bloom13/21The Mediterranean garden
Mediterranean gardens suit sunny, dry climes, so they are not perhaps an option we immediately think of in the UK. However, they are sustainable and beautiful if you do have enough sunshine to maintain them. That’s the one and only rule: sun. As Lottie Delamain explains, ‘Mediterranean planting has many virtues, not least that it’s very low maintenance – as Olivier Filippi, the celebrated Mediterranean plantsman says, they are gardens “without a gardener. No one is there to weed or water, no gardener comes to mow, or treat or fertilise.”
‘As in their natural habitat, the plants we associate with the Mediterranean like free-draining, poor-quality soil and not too much attention. So, ideally you’ll need a sheltered, south-facing spot with free-draining soil (i.e. not heavy clay). The usual cast of plants that feature in a Mediterranean garden are also those that are undemanding in terms of water; they have evolved to thrive on the sun-baked coastal plains and mountains bordering the Mediterranean sea. Often evergreen, these plants also tend to have silvery grey-green foliage designed to conserve water and reflect the harsh sun. Drought-tolerant plants such as these are becoming more and more appealing as our once green and fertile isle is subject to longer, hotter summers due to the changing climate.’ Lottie’s final piece of advice? ‘Gravel, which is often associated with Mediterranean gardens (as opposed to lawn or paving), will further reduce your maintenance bills and up your sustainability credentials – it acts as a weed suppressant and also help with water drainage.’
Britt Willoughby Dyer14/21The tropical garden
Much like a Mediterranean, you might assume that a tropical garden is not an option in the non-tropical climate of the UK. But as garden designer Tabi Jackson Gee explains, ‘Whilst you can’t control the weather in your garden you can use things like the natural light, colour and sound to your advantage in order to create the atmosphere you want.’ For a tropical-inspired space, this usually means creating a space with depth and character, with a sense of adventure and intrigue, colourful accents and running water of some kind.
The urban London garden pictured above was created by Jinny Blom with a generally tropical plant palette, including Pseudopanax ferox, Melianthus major and Tetrapanax papyrifer. ‘All those wonderful jungly things create a texturally interesting, green backdrop that looks good all year round. Then we embroidered it with strong seasonal colour,’ Jinny explains. Fiery red Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, orange Hedychium coccineum ‘Tara’, and the giant crinkled leaves of Salvia confertiflora – topped by velvety orange flowers on rich red stems – all pack a visual punch.
- Piet Oudolf</a> is the man to look to. The Dutch designer, whose garden at <a href=https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/"https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/piet-oudolfs-garden-at-hauser-wirth-somerset/" target=\"_blank\">Hauser & Wirth Somerset</a> is pictured here, is widely recognised as bringing it to the fore, translating a desire for a wilder, more natural style of planting into something that can be achieved at home, because here is the great misconception about naturalistic meadow planting: it is not a simple replica of nature that you can just abandon to do its thing, but a stylised and contrived rendering of it. As Piet says, ‘I try to create nature as you would wish to see it.’\nLottie Delamain has the lowdown on how to recreate this look at home, suggesting ‘swathes and large groupings of long-flowering perennials and grasses, naturalistic shapes and lines (no rectilinear symmetry here), an abundance of colour and variety of form and an appreciation for plants long past their flowering “best” are some of the hallmarks of this style of planting. Thanks to this, naturalistic gardens look good well beyond the traditional late-spring-autumn window, and in fact often look their best in the depths of winter.’ When it comes to planting, Lottie’s advice is “the backbone of naturalistic planting schemes are grasses, which form the visually quiet and restful stage on which the other players perform. Grasses are used as a matrix plant, to knit the more showy characters together harmoniously. In a smaller space, in order to achieve a similar look, selecting fewer species and having larger groupings of them is key. If you have a larger space, this style of planting is great way of covering large areas with (relatively) low maintenance planting.’","contentType":"photo","credit":"Jason Ingram","segmentedSources":{"sm":[{"height":213,"width":320,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_320,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"},{"height":426,"width":640,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_640,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"}],"md":[{"height":426,"width":640,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_640,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"},{"height":852,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_1280,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"}],"lg":[{"height":682,"width":1024,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_1024,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"},{"height":1363,"width":2048,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_2048,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"}],"xl":[{"height":852,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_1280,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"}],"xxl":[{"height":852,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/61893b6efd526e0f5307f4a2/master/w_1280,c_limit/_dsc074405x.jpg"}]}}}" data-testid="GallerySlideWrapper">
Jason Ingram15/21The naturalistic garden
When it comes to naturalistic gardens, Piet Oudolf is the man to look to. The Dutch designer, whose garden at Hauser & Wirth Somerset is pictured here, is widely recognised as bringing it to the fore, translating a desire for a wilder, more natural style of planting into something that can be achieved at home, because here is the great misconception about naturalistic meadow planting: it is not a simple replica of nature that you can just abandon to do its thing, but a stylised and contrived rendering of it. As Piet says, ‘I try to create nature as you would wish to see it.’
Lottie Delamain has the lowdown on how to recreate this look at home, suggesting ‘swathes and large groupings of long-flowering perennials and grasses, naturalistic shapes and lines (no rectilinear symmetry here), an abundance of colour and variety of form and an appreciation for plants long past their flowering “best” are some of the hallmarks of this style of planting. Thanks to this, naturalistic gardens look good well beyond the traditional late-spring-autumn window, and in fact often look their best in the depths of winter.’ When it comes to planting, Lottie’s advice is “the backbone of naturalistic planting schemes are grasses, which form the visually quiet and restful stage on which the other players perform. Grasses are used as a matrix plant, to knit the more showy characters together harmoniously. In a smaller space, in order to achieve a similar look, selecting fewer species and having larger groupings of them is key. If you have a larger space, this style of planting is great way of covering large areas with (relatively) low maintenance planting.’
Michael Sinclair16/21The Japanese garden
Japanese-style gardens are becoming more and more popular throughout the world, including here in the UK, thanks to their association with serenity, spirituality and symbolism. ‘To capture those same feelings, but with materials that feel naturally suited a specific region, is better than simply buying stone lanterns that feel out of place, or a bunch of Japonicas which say nothing of the topography outside,’ explains florist and writer Amy Merrick. ‘The elements that give Japanese gardens their calm respite and elegant simplicity can, with delicacy, feel at home in any landscape in the world.’ As such, she suggests incorporating stones, long-lasting foliage, pathways and hand-crafted elements to capture the essence of the Japanese garden in your own space.
You can even bring this feeling into a small space, like the courtyard of the Holland Park house shown here (the same house that has the tropical garden out back). Here, Jinny Blom has created a Japanese-inspired scheme, complete with a cloud-pruned pine tree that had to be craned in from above, and a playful bridge that runs across from the front of the house to the back at the level of the ground floor. It also provides the most perfectly peaceful vista from the rooms of the house, and brings in lots of extra natural light.
Britt Willoughby Dyer17/21Pools, ponds and rills
As summer temperatures rise across the UK and heatwaves become more and more common, landscape designers have seen an increase in clients requesting water features (from ponds to natural swimming pools) in their gardens. They are an excellent way of encouraging wildlife in your garden and providing for the ecosystem. You do not need to have a huge garden in order to consider having a water feature; even a tiny city garden can have a rill (small stream) running through it to provide a cooling element on hot days. It’s not a small undertaking, however, and adding a water element to a garden is a large build, so it’s best to consider one as part of a more extensive landscaping project. Ask yourself what you want from your water feature – wildlife, somewhere to swim, a focal point – and take it from there.
Owen Gale18/21The container garden
A container garden is where your plants are in pots, planters, repurposed sinks, apple crates, old wine boxes or any form of container. Container gardens are therefore brilliant in rental gardens where you can’t necessarily plant anything permanent, on small balconies or roof terraces, or when you inherit a garden with small borders and acres of patio, but don’t have the budget to re-landscape. Containers work brilliantly in city gardens with little space, as you can still have abundant greenery without sacrificing space for garden furniture, and you can move your containers around to accommodate parties and the like.
This small London garden was designed by Piers Beeching, who used an elegant wooden bench as a focal point and added an abundance of potted plants for colour and protection from neighbouring gardens. By using plants of varying height, Piers has created a sense of scale in the space that is full of brilliant ideas to copy for both front and back gardens.
Owen Gale19/21Garden rooms and sheds
A garden room is an extension of a house, and as such can serve many purposes. The building at the end of Alice Peto’s garden (pictured) serves as her painting studio; Beata Heuman has a wallpaper-adorned summer house; and others function as home offices, gyms or extra guest rooms. A traditional garden shed can come in many shapes and sizes – long gone are the days of dusty, cobweb-adorned horrors – and they can be as beautiful as they are functional.
Alister Thorpe20/21Greenhouses
For the enthusiastic gardener, a greenhouse is a must-have, enabling you to take care of your tender plants in the winter and sow seeds in the early spring. A restored Victorian greenhouse makes for quite a special and characterful addition to your garden. There is a huge range of options, starting with affordable, ready-made greenhouses that you can buy and assemble on a pre-prepared concrete base, to beautiful bespoke buildings. Traditional greenhouses are rectangular in shape, but you can also buy lean-to versions that can be situated against a wall, or charming octagonal shapes that might fit better into a tricky space.
When siting your greenhouse, it’s traditional to orient the ridge east-west, maximising the amount of light you get in winter, though this is not essential. If you live in a garden where strong winds prevail, make sure the gable end of the greenhouse (the strongest part) faces the wind. Stay away from sloping ground when positioning your greenhouse, and also keep clear of overhanging trees.
Eva Nemeth21/21Pergolas
Is there anything prettier and more romantic than a garden pergola draped with flowers? These structures create distinct areas for seating and dining, or garden rooms that are seamlessly connected with the outdoors. Most importantly, they provide shady spots in the summer for relaxing away from the heat of the sun, which is becoming more important as our climate changes. The classic arrangement is a wooden frame, covered in some sort of climbing plant – wisteria creates a very lovely pergola – or an abundance of thin wooden sticks. A pergola can come in many different forms, from simple and rustic to elaborate cast-iron versions – and there’s a wealth of plants to train around them.
