Garden Design - part 4

So, last month we looked at the hard landscaping in the entry and entertaining spaces; this month we are focusing on plants.

The stone wall on the east side of the garden provides shelter and also absorbs and retains heat, releasing it slowly, so the plants growing close to the wall will benefit from that. Likewise any plants growing close to the wall of the house.

When looking down the garden from the patio, the woodland creates a natural backdrop, so I can bear that in mind when I select plants – echoing the forms and colours in my garden to link both together, or using contrasting shapes and colours to emphasise the difference.

As it is a deciduous woodland, colours change from pale greens in spring, through deeper greens in summer, a blaze of orange, red, yellow and brown in autumn and bare branches in winter. While bare branches are architecturally interesting in their own way, the lack of colour can be a bit depressing, so I want to counter that by having some year-round colour in the garden.

I’m going to start by considering the plants that will give me some interest during winter and early spring.

I already have a couple of mature evergreen laurel trees in the centre of the garden, providing some winter colour, and I will incorporate a few dogwood (Cornus) species into the lower and mid borders as their stems are stunning colours in winter.

I also like Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’– a compact evergreen shrub with aromatic leaves and Photinia ‘Red Robin’ - a two-tone plant with red young leaves which turn darker green later. The Photinia and the Cornus species have white flowers in spring, which will pull elements of the design together.

Positioning the shrubs carefully draws your eye around the garden from the reds of the Skimmia, Cornus Sibirica and Photinia to the red-tipped gold of the Cornus midwinter fire and winter flame and the yellowish-green of the bay laurels.

Primroses, hellebores and bergenia will feature in the borders and I will plant bulbs in the grass as well as in the borders and rockery - crocus, snowdrops and fritillaria creating a naturalised display in the grass between the laurel and red robin, and between the rockery and the path. Climbers such as winter-flowering clematis and honeysuckle can be trained against the east wall. Cyclamen, hyacinths and muscari will find homes in the borders and rockery as well as in pots, and I will create swathes of daffodils to brighten the darker areas at the bottom of the garden as we head into spring.

I asked AI to generate a realistic image of the garden based on the plan above. AI is very clever, but has it's limits! The closest I could get is the image below - which may be easier for you to appreciate than the scematic above, but it's not quite how I hope my garden will look!

But you get the general idea..... the rockery, borders and even the grassed areas are brimming with interest during winter and early spring. I also have plant pots on the patio containing herbs, but there's no reason not to have ornamentals in there as well. Here are some examples that inspire me:

Combinations including cyclamen, winter kale, checkerberry, carex, winter pansies, skimmia, phormium, hellebores, winter heather, sedum, sempervivium, gaultheria, heuchera or ivy are all great choices, (https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/best-plants-for-winter-containers/) but even herbs like rosemary and sage can double-up as decorative winter plants!

We’ll find more plants to provide interest through the warmer months next time....