Garden Design - Keep it Simple

Perhaps one of the largest mistakes people make when creating their own gardens is to try and fit too much in. It is very easy to go to the nursery and end up driving home with a small forest squeezed into the car. A multitude of plant varieties, species in bloom, varieties for shade and sun, small timid shrubs that will soon become towering giants. They're all there, packed and shoved in, in an attempt to make your garden look glorious.

Whilst this may be fun, it is one of the worst things you can do. Unless of course you are simply looking to flesh out borders with some colour, or create a cottage garden esc style. But to create a garden that looks designed, carefully contemplated, less is definitely more. Away from a jumble of colours and leaf shapes, will be smooth guided lines of planting. Sporadic, but carefully considered, injections of colour, or height, or form add to the pleasure of the design.

Planting doesn't have to be boring, far from it. It is just important to remember to keep spending fever under control and pick a highlight, or palette to work from. Choose one or two key colours to aim for. Think carefully about how large plants will be when they mature, whether blooms occur on single towering stems, or a tight bouquet of flowers interspersed with leaves. The more you know about the plants involved, the better design scheme you can achieve without the need for moving plants around later.

Take the ever popular grasses for example. One could take a garden in a number of ways, using one or two key grass species, or deciding to make a large collection of varieties. With the former direction, buy a large number of plants and group them throughout borders, troughs, or pots to create high density impacts of interest. Contrast the shades of green against vivid blasts of colour such as a small dahlias or astrantia's which will rise up beyond the wispy textures of the grass. Combine with shingle, wood and fleshy succulents to create a beach, coast theme, or clash the soft grassy stems against stainless steel, granite and other manmade textures to create a modern, chic look.

For gardens dedicated to a collection of a species, use the differences between plant varieties to your advantage. In the example of grasses, contrast colours, sizes and leaf texture, allowing each plant to stand out against its neighbour rather than get lost in a random sea of green. Plant sizes carefully, with larger ones towards the back so that small plants don't become hidden. Buying as large a variety of contrasting species as possible, grass for example comes in vivid greens, through to blues and greys, and even black. The contrast between a black and vivid green grass will be explosive, whilst two greens quickly will create an uninteresting bland scheme.

Design isn't easy. It take practice and experience before you can get it right, and even design guru's, once plants are in place, can realise that they were wrong. By far, the easiest tip to help achieve a stunning garden is to stay simple. Choose one or two key colours, plant species, or hard landscaping materials and stick to them. Highlight them by injections of other, unexpected colours or forms, and you're well on your way to horticultural design heaven.