Designing Natural Gardens
In the 1940's and 50's in southern England a gardener called Margery Fish created an iconic garden. It reflected a time when labour was short, and gardens had to be more self-sustaining with fewer inputs. What developed at East Lambrook Manor was an informal, style of planting which more closely resembled the countryside around the garden than the previously popular formal herbaceous borders and bedding. Natural garden design has been a popular style ever since.
When designing a garden, you must “consult the genius of the place”. This may be old advice (first dished out by Alexander Pope some 300 years ago) but it is good advice. If you live in a town you may have a garden that reflects the linear nature of the buildings. If you live in a rural setting the straight lines could clash with the informality of the countryside beyond the garden fence and thus a natural garden design is going to be more appropriate and acceptable.
Gardening is an international art form. It is not surprising that different nations have different styles and different ideas about what is natural garden design. For a Japanese designer of shoyo-en gardens, the pond and the clipped bushes represents a natural lake with mountains and hills around it. To an English gardener this looks very contrived and unnatural. Japanese gardeners on the other hand, think that English gardeners push nature away from their houses and create something totally artificial in their gardens.
One of the most striking features of the 2012 Olympic Village in London were the flower borders designed by Professor James Hitchmough and his colleagues from Sheffield University. These innovative borders of herbaceous perennial plants were sown rather than planted and the plants were all jumbled up rather than grouped in blocks. Despite almost of the plants being cultivated varieties, the borders were referred to as wild flower borders because for many people this is a natural garden design reminiscent of the prairies and wild flower meadows.
One of the primary considerations in garden design is colour. The same cannot be said of the countryside, where flower colour is related to pollinator preference. When you create a natural garden design, there is a more important consideration than colour and this is the vigour of the plants. Putting the metaphorical shrinking violet next to a vigourous spreader is going to end in failure. The second consideration in natural garden design is making sure that all the plants grow in a similar environment without the need for watering, feeding, and staking.
Interested in learning more about Natural Garden Design, why not enrol on our 100 hour course? Start at any time and study with the guidance and support of our expert tutors.
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[30/04/2024 11:17:43]
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