Anyone recommending erigeron and hollyhocks as companion plants would draw a few strange looks because of their disparity in habits, but they do look strangely suited in this pavement garden. Continue reading “Hollyhocks In The Cotswolds”
Colourful Pavement Garden In Lancashire, England
I’ve been fascinated by the use of containers clustered together to create the illusion of a garden since my first visit to Japan where the style is widespread. This fine example of a container garden is much closer to home.
Diminutive, but for me, as sweet as they come, it brightens up the entrance to a traditional stone-faced terrace that opens directly on to the pavement. Continue reading “Colourful Pavement Garden In Lancashire, England”
Wordless Wednesday: Small Garden, Grand Gesture
RHS Chatsworth’s Mandala Mindfulness Garden
As news broke that this year’s flower shows have been cancelled, I found myself gazing at a pile of dry, leafy debris, cleaned from my hens and chicks, wondering whether making a mandala would sooth my mind. It wasn’t the best of ingredients, being a uniformly dull beige.
My thoughts turned to last year’s RHS Chatsworth Flower Show. The Mandala Mindfulness Garden had been designed as a quiet space to allow an urban school to provide wellbeing sessions for small groups and in one to ones. A sense of rest (from the seating areas) and calm contemplation (the mandalas), was balanced by flow (the airy planting and the oval path). Continue reading “RHS Chatsworth’s Mandala Mindfulness Garden”
How To Make A City Garden In A Small Space
Want to make a, easily maintainable city garden? Just follow this plan, as illustrated above.
- Select your space. The heart of a medieval city is ideal (the more souls that can overlook the garden, the better), but almost any space will suffice.
- Create one or more organic shaped beds in the centre and another around the perimeter, leaving room for a sinuous, scrollable path (experts advise laying out the path first).
- Edge the beds in a stone coloured material, selecting a darker tile to define the perimeter border.
- Scatter shrubs, small, decorative conifers, grasses and herbaceous plants that can tolerate some neglect in the central beds. Keep it on the minimal side – you don’t want to crowd things.
- Artfully place decent-sized rocks in small groups or piles.
- Mulch with crushed slate.
- Add curved, benches that will invite passers-by to linger. Chocolate coloured metal ones will match those tiles around the outer borders.
- Fix trellises to the walls and encourage vines to soften them, creating the effect of a glade within a city (if you lack walls, add a fence or baffle first).
- If the same vines can be pruned low to provide ground cover for the perimeter beds, so much the better. If not, plant something green to do the job.
- Pave, staying true to the neutral, natural theme.
- In winter, tie the grasses up into neat bundles by wrapping a few of the long outer strands around the clump.
- Sit back and enjoy.
Continue reading “How To Make A City Garden In A Small Space”
Summer gardens from the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show: Final5 Retreat Garden
The small show gardens are a great way to see how plots of land diverge when each is dressed in carefully chosen colours, features and accessories to create a designer’s idea of gardening heaven.
I’ve only recently arrived back in the UK and this year’s show is all over but for the shouting. Undeterred, I’m determined to get into the spirit by giving a shout out to the Final5 Retreat Garden from last year. If you’re concerned that these pictures are old hat now, as styles have moved on to quarries and such-like in 2017, I won’t be hurt if you give this a miss and search The Reader for Hampton Court Flower Show instead. But if you’re still with me, here goes! Continue reading “Summer gardens from the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show: Final5 Retreat Garden”
Mme Gregoire Staechelin climbing rose
Susan Rushton 