麻豆社

Garden Rescue's Lee Burkhill gives you his top five tips to improve your garden. You can watch Garden Rescue every day at 3.45pm on 麻豆社 One or on 麻豆社 iPlayer.

The fastest way to revive your garden and give it that Chelsea wow is to use repetition in the garden. By repeating certain colours or patterns you bring unity and cohesion to any garden space. It may be tempting to try and cram in as many diverse styles as possible to bring some drama but with design, less is more!

By repeating the same colours or patterns throughout the garden you unify the space. Imagine a bedroom where the pillows don’t match the bed sheets or three different types of wallpaper? It suddenly looks chaotic and awkward. Choose a few complimentary colours and then repeat them throughout the garden area for immediate impact.

The same goes for paving and hard landscaping. Try and keep to a couple of material choices used repeatedly throughout the garden. Rather than lots of mismatching styles. Using the same paving material in different parts of the garden helps to create a joined-up garden. By keeping some restraint in the garden by using repetition your green space will feel far more inviting and enjoyable.

When it comes to urban gardens privacy is often the most sought-after requirement. Especially with lots of urban plots looking out onto other people’s houses and gardens.

Most new gardeners’ think the answer to privacy is to raise their fence lines and try and cover over parts of the garden. This can feel oppressive and stifling. A better option is to use a blend of plant heights in the garden to create private zones and spaces.

A well-suited small garden tree, shrubs and herbaceous planting will bring far more benefit to the garden in terms of blocking out some views whilst also giving wildlife a helping hand. Large textured multistem shrubs can help section off parts of the garden to make you feel like you’re a thousand miles away!

You can even incorporate plants with vertical screens to create garden rooms without blocking out light or putting your barriers up. So rather than raising fences think of plants as softer structures that can be arranged to provide you with private areas where you need them most.

When it comes to planning your garden layout many new gardeners simply try to cram too much into the space. Thinking that by adding more it will become a garden for all functions and uses. Meaning the space tries to please every member of the family for every use possible! However, it can end in a haphazard approach to your garden layout meaning it's never really used. As you simply don’t have enough impact for the multitude of requirements.

It’s far better to plan your garden based on my 90% rule. This is to design your garden for what you will do in it 90% of the time.

One recent example I had was a client who wanted a huge cooking area for the ‘once a year’ party they throw. However, when I asked what they would use the garden for 90% of the time it was for working from home. So, it made more sense to design with this as the main focus rather than a once-a-year cooking area that would sit untouched. If you’re not going to be using it 90% of the time, think, ‘do I need this in the garden?’. By focusing your layout in this way you’ll make better garden design decisions and provide a garden with a purpose.

If your garden is looking like a one-hit-wonder, why not play around the angles? There’s a tendency to plan rectangular gardens with a skinny border around the edge and lawn plonked in the middle. Usually in the misguided thought process that this will provide more space. However, these can provide little in terms of interest, you see the entire garden all in one glance meaning the garden feels small and lacklustre.

Why not think about cutting the space up using a 45-degree angle for example, which immediately draws your eyes into opposite angles? Play around on paper with dividing your garden up into different zones with angles and start to create inviting areas.

You’ll be amazed at how much more you can fit in your space when compared to the plain rectangular design. Playing around with angles can provide the illusion of space and help make even tiny gardens feel bigger.

The biggest secret that the best garden designers use is by planting in multiples. It may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you’re shopping for or growing plants but it’s a sure-fire way to immediately bring a wow factor to your garden. By planting the same plant in multiples, you already start to give the garden consistency like those gorgeous award-winning show gardens.

It may be enticing to buy one of each of your favourite plants, however, these usually end up looking pick and mix and lost in a garden. If you really like a plant, use at least 3 of them in your garden. Either group them into one area or drift them through the garden to draw your eye like punctuation marks.

By matching this rule with the tip on repetition, you start to create a garden that has a purpose! Planting singularly should be saved for specimen trees or shrubs. For all other plants start thinking about 3, 5 or 7’s even in small spaces. Planting in multiples makes you consider how much you like that plant vs something else!