Hello, and welcome to Fantastic Flowers and Tremendous Trees, the final post of my 5️⃣ part blog series on garden design secrets. This is where I show you how you can create your own dream garden in easy steps. I have made so many gardening mistakes in my time, I want to take that experiential knowledge and give it to you, so you don’t make them too!
In part 4️⃣ we talked about embellishment. How through design we turn your garden from being nice, to something special.
This is part 5️⃣, and my final post of this series. And this is my favourite part as it contains my favourite things. Fantastic flowers and tremendous trees! I don’t profess to be a plant expert and I learn something new about plants and flowers pretty much every day, but I will try and pass on to you my meagre knowledge. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have writing it.
Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful. They are the sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
Luthur Burbank
Final piece of the puzzle
The final piece of your garden design puzzle is working out what plants you are going to have in it, and where they are going to go. Professionals call this the planting plan. Click here to see examples of planting plans on my Pinterest account.
Now, on this topic, I really could go on forever. There is after all a reason why people study plants, or write books about them. I cannot possibly convey everything I would like to about plants in this one post, but what I can do is try and pick out what I consider to be the most important parts of adding plants to your design. Some of these points could be whole posts in themselves so I am going to try and simplify the topics.
🥇 Right plant, right place = fantastic flowers!
A useful tip to work out what plants would suit your garden, is to look at natural environments around the world. For example, plants that grow in the dessert like sun, sand and drought. Whereas, plants that grow in the rainforest, like shade, rich soil and moisture. So, this is why right plant right place is so important. However, the thing that these examples have in common is that the soil, sunlight and moisture levels all have an impact.
Soil
Assessing your soil is a necessity when working out what plants will do best in your garden. Personally, I advocate doing the soil work at this point, because by this stage you know where your plants are going to be. And just to be clear, assessing your soil involves identifying the pH levels and soil structure.
Soil pH is important because some plants need a certain soil pH level to survive. Whilst some do better in acidic soil e.g. azaleas and rhododendrons. Others prefer alkaline soil, such as roses. However it is easy to find out your soil pH level, just conduct an acidity test. This is a small kit that you can buy in loads of places and it gives you specific results.
The other way you can assess your soil is by looking at what plants you already have and whether they are thriving or not. How do you find this out? Well, without going into plant groups here, the plants that are doing well in your garden will indicate what type of soil you have, and you can research which ones to buy, by comparing the ones you already have.
Importantly, soil structure indicates moisture and nutrient levels. For example, sandy soil can be dry, because it is loose and the water and nutrients drain out of it quickly. So, plants that like sandy soil are ones that can cope with drought and sun. Whereas clay soil is typically, well, like clay! So whilst it can hold water and nutrients when wet, it can also get very dry in the summer. Therefore, the best rule of thumb for any soil is to add some soil improver. Manure, leaf mould (rotted down leaves) or compost are all really good additives for instance.
Sun
During part 2️⃣ of this series I droned on about assessing your space, and garden aspect in particular. To recap, you need to know which parts of your garden are in the sun and which in the shade. This is because every plant has different needs. Whilst some like to bathe in the sunshine, others are shy and prefer to stay in the shade. There are even some who are not fussy and you can put them anywhere. But to get the best out of your time, effort and money, put your plants where they will do best.
Feeding and watering
The last tip for right plant right place is food and water. Yes, like children, plants need to be fed and watered 😆. So to nurture them to grow up to be productive adults, sorry – plants, you need to know what growing conditions they like. Again, some can fend for themselves, and need little additional care. Whilst others need a bit more TLC, additional nutrients and water.
The more you give your plants the conditions they like, the better they will grow for you. If only the same could be said of children!
🥈 Use plants of different heights
I believe the key to making your garden look perfect is the right planting scheme. And the key to the right planting scheme is to use different types of plants. Therefore, trees, shrubs and flowers are the mainstay of my garden, and if you have a good mix of all three you can’t go wrong. Plus, you can have these types of plants either planted direct into the ground or in pots.
Trees
I love trees. I think I may have mentioned that before. This is because trees come in all shapes and sizes and in a multitude of colours. Furthermore, you can put them in the ground or in pots. Plus they create instant height and can add feeling to your garden. Additionally, they can make a small garden look bigger, and a big garden feel cosy and intimate. Finally, trees can be useful as screening, as well as attracting birds and other wildlife into your garden. So Have I convinced you yet? Get some trees!
Shrubs
Shrubs are generally long lived plants, which are termed perennial because they survive year after year. Some can keep their foliage permanently (evergreen) whilst others lose their leaves in the dormant season (deciduous). Shrubs can range from smaller plants to really large ones and will provide structure and framework to your garden. Moreover, they also come in a variety of colours and shapes so can really add to your garden. And if you’re baffled by garden terminology, I have just the post for you! Click here to read it.
The below photograph I took at Gravetye Manor. It is a superb garden. Here you can see a beautiful mix of shrubs, trees and spring flowers.
Fantastic Flowers
Oooh flowers. They are so pretty. Fantastic flowers generally come in three groups. First there are annuals, which is where they go from seed to flower in a year and then die off. Secondly, there are biennials, where they grow one year, flower the next then die. Thirdly, there are perennials which live for years, dying back in the winter and regrowing in the spring. Therefore, you can mix and match so that you get the ones that suit you best and that you love.
Flowers, also come in various sizes. For example, there are ones which spread like a carpet so you are left with no visible soil. And this is called ground cover. Then you have flowers that are so dramatic they draw your eye and you just cannot stop looking at them. Which ever plants you use, get ones that you love the look of and that make you happy. Over the years I have grown so many fantastic flowers, that they have their own Insta account! Thus if you would like to see all the flowers that have bloomed in my garden then please Click here.
Lastly, the below two pictures are great examples of planting fantastic flowers. The picture on the left shows a mix of perennial and annual flowers, cosmos and petunias to name a few. Whilst the second photo shows repeated planting and the use of different flower head shapes and foliage to create a beautiful effect.
🥉Seasonal interest
Try to create a garden which looks good all year, not in the summer. To do this, find plants that are at their best at different times of the year. For example, dogwood, is a shrub which during the summer months is a bit nondescript. But in winter, when it has lost all its leaves, it has beautiful coloured bark which really stands out. Also, use evergreen shrubs and trees which keep their leaves and colour all year round. Additionally, some fantastic flowers look even better if you leave the blooms to turn into seed-heads. And there are some flowers which come as bulbs that flower from January (crocus, hellebores), when nothing else will.
You really can have a year-round garden with some thought and the right plants.
Final tips for truly fantastic flowers
Find the plants you love. And if they fit your conditions plant them. If they don’t, try and manufacture the conditions. By this I mean, put them in pots, use the right soil, feed and water them correctly and move them to where they are in the right growing conditions.
Consider planting more than one of each shrub or flower. You can also do this with trees depending on their size. I don’t know why, but odd numbers work best. Therefore I plant in clusters of either 3 or 5 as I find this creates more of a visual impact, and much like using the same material through the garden, allows for connectivity and flow.
Think about where you are going to put your plants depending on where you can see them. Just because a plant is tall, doesn’t mean it has to go at the back of the garden. For example, a tree can go in the middle of the garden and draw everyone’s eye. And if you have flower beds that you can walk all the way around, put the taller plants in the middle do you can see them from all angles.
Think about the smells too. Because plants like lavender smell amazing, so put them next to seating areas, or line a path where you can reach out and touch them as you walk past. That way you will release their scent and it is just heavenly.
Conclusion of fantastic flowers and tremendous trees
It has been very difficult to keep this post to a reasonable amount of words as there is just so many wonderful things to learn about plants. Plus, I could go on about fantastic flowers for days! I tried to keep it as simple as I can so that you can design your complete garden from the information contained within these five posts.
I hope you have enjoyed my Easy Garden Design Secrets series and more importantly have been able to take these tips and design your own dream garden.
If you have any comments or question then please get in touch and in the meantime enjoy your new garden!
Happy designing!
JT.
