Designing and Creating a Winter Garden E-Book

Sally Gregson

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 306

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

To create a garden that gives pleasure throughout the year is the goal of every garden-maker. The greatest designers maintain that it is the garden in winter that sets the scene for the remainder of the year. Designing and Creating a Winter Garden takes the reader through the process of designing a new garden from scratch or re-working an existing garden, with winter as the key, formative season. The first part of the book deals with design considerations and ideas, including: assessing the site and its opportunities and constraints; designing the basic framework for winter; making use of low, winter light and using sparkling colour; pots, containers and statuary in the garden, and finally the maintenance of the garden in winter. The second part comprises a detailed catalogue of suggested plants and their uses, grouped into: evergreens; winter-flowering trees, shrubs and perennials, including those that are strongly scented; shrubs with coloured and textured bark and finally, unusual, striking plants to use as focal points. This book sets out to inspire both garden designers and enthusiastic gardeners to create a garden that is as captivating in winter as it is during the remainder of the year.

Leseprobe

DESIGNING and CREATING

A WINTER GARDEN

First published in 2022 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

This e-book first published in 2022

© Sally Gregson 2022

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7198 4026 5

Cover design by Maggie Mellett

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I Design Considerations

1 Assessing and Planning: Where to Start

2 Planting and Positioning: Designing the Basic Framework and Planning Winter Areas

3 Colour and Light

4 Maintaining the Garden in Winter

Part II Choosing Plants for Winter

5 Structural Planting

6 Hedges

7 Evergreens

8 Climbing Plants

9 Plants with Coloured Bark

10 Plants with Winter Flowers

11 Scent in the Winter Garden

Appendix I Hardiness Zones

Appendix II Winter Gardens to Visit

Acknowledgements

Index

INTRODUCTION

Designing a garden for the first time, from scratch, is a very difficult process. Superficially it seems quite simple: lay out the plot, beds, paths and all; go to the garden centre and buy lots of lovely flowering plants that look so luscious, especially in May when spring stirs the blood; and just get planting. However, as anyone who has attempted to design a garden to look like one of those Chelsea Flower Show exhibits, it really is much more difficult than that. So much so, that it can take many gardeners most of a lifetime to get it right.

Those great gurus of twentieth-century garden-design, Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst and Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter, had a trick up their sleeves. They designed their gardens for winter: creating structure; putting in evergreens and hedges; positioning paths; locating trees; making a framework on which to ‘hang’ the flowers and foliage of spring, summer and autumn. If the basic shape and composition of the garden pleases the eye when there is nothing to distract, then everything else falls into place in its season.

Great Dixter, East Sussex, peppered with a hoar frost.

Winter Gardens

Winter can appear to be a negative season when nothing seems to happen in the garden. As Thomas Hood famously wrote:

…no warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member - No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, November!

Late winter into early spring at John’s Garden, Ashwood Nurseries.

John’s Garden, Ashwood Nurseries.

However, gardens planted especially for winter interest can provide the same solace and refreshment as those in the spring. A carpet of butter-yellow, fallen leaves beneath a birch in late autumn is as beautiful as the fallen petals of a flowering cherry in spring. The birch is not itself dying, merely re-cycling the nutrients in the leaves back to the soil ready for the following year: a moment in the rotation of the seasons.

Very many shrubs and perennials set bud and flower during the winter in order to take advantage of any late butterflies and early bees. To this end, the majority produce strong scent to attract those rare pollinators. A sprig of Christmas box (Sarcococca spp.) will perfume a large area: ideal to plant by the front door to welcome winter visitors. And early in the year, the re-emergence of bulbs as they push their noses up through the frosty ground in January is simply joyous.

The physical location of these winter highlights is important too. Keeping them close to the front door, the path to the bin or the car, or visible from the main windows, cannot fail to lift the spirits on a dismal winter’s day. A group of snowdrops, winter iris or early crocus shining in a shaft of sunlight, celebrates the season: inviting pleasure; lifting the spirits; imbibing the gardener with goodwill and hope for the coming year.

In the UK, the changing of the seasons is an integral part of the deeper pleasure of gardening. Designing and working in a garden inevitably makes the gardener aware of this ongoing process. In winter, the soil looks cold and dead, but life continues below the surface. While ants hibernate and we gardeners bide our time, roots are growing to support the coming growth, and shoots are very slowly emerging from spring bulbs. For gardeners there is a profound sense of anticipation, an investment in the knowledge that the cold winter world will warm. That life will visibly return. Spring.

Defining Winter

Winter divides itself into three mini-seasons. If we consider the start of winter to be when the autumn leaves finally fall and summer-flowering plants begin to fade: a time of bonfires and evenings by the fire.

Mid-winter is the truly cold season when the skeletons of deciduous trees and shrubs are the main players on the bare stage of the garden. It’s the time of evergreen structure, sharp outlines and low light. Then, when the first spring bulbs nose through the soil and winter-flowering shrubs perfume the frosty air, it is the third and final stage of winter, which eventually evolves into full-blooded spring.

Specific months can vary wildly – there are no calendars in the natural world. In the south of the UK, the first frosts of early winter can be expected from October to November; mid-winter seems to start in mid-December and carries through to the end of January; early spring arrives from late January into February. Usually March marks the first of the true spring months. Each mini-season is very much dependent on the weather conditions annually and locally.

This Book

In the following chapters, the reader will be guided through the first steps in assessing the individual site, analysing the potentials and problems, and overcoming the constraints. Making and drawing-out scale plans of the area will be the next stage, taking into consideration the aspect, local weather (including the temperature range), timing of local frosts and the amount of maintenance involved in different layouts and plants. We will cover the costs of different projects and plants, and help work out a budget for the plans.

Conifers, heathers, white birches and grasses in the Winter Garden at RHS Rosemoor, Devon.

Finally, the book concludes with details of individual trees, shrubs, plants and bulbs to construct a garden that really works in the darker months, with a strong skeletal framework and winter interest. It aims to assist the gardener in choosing the right plant for the right place: to create truly year-round interest and to enjoy the magic of a constantly evolving garden.

This book aims to guide both serious and professional gardeners and plant specialists, and to inspire garden designers, horticultural students, and those with a strong interest in design and style, especially in the winter garden. We will be tackling both newly constructed gardens with all the problems specific to virgin plots, and older, more mature gardens that have already existed for many years, where there may be issues with overgrown shrubs, large trees and sour soil. We cover the practical aspects of plant removal, soil treatment and replanting, taking into account the different physical constraints of aspect, soil, micro-climate and altitude; and how to deal with each situation without creating a further problem.

The planting suggestions are made from the point of view of the climate of the UK and northern Europe. Gardens further afield have different climates to deal with, different seasons and different soils, but the basic principles are the same and these are the major subject of this book.

We shall be taking a cue from the masters, and included in this book are pictures of several well-designed private gardens; among them, ‘John’s Garden’ at Ashwood’s Nursery and Great Dixter in Sussex.

CHAPTER 1

ASSESSING AND PLANNING

Where to Start

The first impression of any new garden is very important. The layout, the planting, the surroundings all contrive to set the mood, to give the garden its atmosphere: its spirit of place – even if it is still under a depth of weed growth. This is where the design process begins.

Make a note of what is especially striking about the garden at first sight. Perhaps it’s the shape of the garden, the positioning of the paths, the beautiful tree that ‘must be kept’, or the old shed, the battered brown fence, the weedy borders that must be cleared, or go altogether. Or perhaps the whole garden is in such a poor state that it’s a matter of clearing the site completely and starting again. This first impression soon fades with familiarity, so it’s worth taking a few photos during the early stages as a reminder of the best and the worst features. When faced with the task of re-modelling the layout, or simply re-planting the garden, those photographs will provide valuable reference material.

John’s Garden at Ashwood Nurseries.

The fresh eyes of a new garden-owner will inevitably find fault with aspects of the previous owner’s layout. How they failed to see, for example, that placing a bright blue shed against the middle of a dingy brown fence could blight the whole garden. Or how a ‘little flowering cherry’ planted against a boundary wall has become a monster casting half the garden into deep shade. Gardens change, grow: they are dynamic. The blue shed fades quite tastefully and almost becomes part of the fence; the cherry very soon creates a micro-climate beneath, where sun-loving plants struggle and lean to the light, and shade-lovers flourish and take over. The owner of even the best-kept garden is often quite blind to the changes that have taken place over the years. Acquiring an established garden gives the new owner a totally fresh perspective: no memories of its genesis or its heritage.

Newly Constructed Gardens

A blank canvas is the envy of every garden designer: no existing layout, or precious plants or trees to accommodate. But there are always certain considerations to take into account: the boundaries, the aspect, the soil type. While working out all these variables and drawing up plans, nature keeps on going, growing and filling up the empty spaces.

A loose boundary border at John’s Garden, Ashwood Nurseries.

Clematis cirrhosa.

Betula ‘Pink Champagne’ multi-stem.

Assessing the Characteristics

Screening for Privacy

Neighbours can be a mixed blessing. From the outset it pays to put in place some form of screening to block out their houses, in particular, and their gardens. Any encounters thereafter would then be planned and part of a social occasion, rather than accidental.

Screening the neighbours with top-worked willows. Wedmore, Somerset.

Fences and walls are usually used to mark out the divisions between properties and can provide useful support for a variety of climbing plants, especially evergreen ones. Depending on the aspect of the dividing fence, there is quite a selection of plants that will grow well and fairly quickly.

Alternatively, if there is a little space along the boundary, then an evergreen hedge will provide cover, nesting spaces and food for garden birds and small mammals, as well as sheltering the garden from strong winds. Avoid quick-growing hedging plants, such as the notoriously rampant x Cupressocyparis leylandii, as they tend to continue growing fast, resulting in very high maintenance over the years.

An alternative is a larger, looser layout with plenty of room to plant a depth of trees and evergreen shrubs. The whole area could be underplanted with successions of bulbs and spreading, dry-shade-loving perennials to highlight the area throughout the year. As a barrier it would not only give privacy, but dampen any road noise and slow down a high wind. About 4-5m width of planting would be the ideal minimum, if there is space.

Some gardens are dominated by neighbouring buildings, telegraph poles or other eyesores that spoil the atmosphere. There are one or two ways of tackling their intrusion. It can be tempting to plant a climber up a telegraph pole but often that just draws the eye to the blight. Telegraph poles work best when allowed to blend into the surroundings, so consider making a feature nearby to distract the viewer from the pole. You will still see the pole because you know it’s there, but visitors may not even notice it.

To screen an ugly building from the main windows of the house, one option is to plant as large a tree as is sensible in a small garden, not at the boundary edge where the eyesore is prominent, but further forward, almost into the centre of the garden. This will screen a far larger area, because it is closer to the viewer. Try it out. Put up your hand at arm’s length, fingers splayed, in front of the eyesore, standing first on the boundary close to the eyesore, then in the centre of the garden. Then raise your other hand really close to yourself. Note that the nearer your hand is to you and the further away it is from the eyesore, the more it hides.

A rime of frost in December. John’s Garden, Ashwood Nurseries.

Alternatively, in a conventionally rectangular garden with a neighbouring house looming in the corner, think about constructing a paved area in that corner, with beds along the boundary for climbers and trellising over the top. Grapevines could be trained to cover the whole, and a garden table and chairs installed for a shady seating area. The lines of the neighbouring house will disappear in the uprights of the woodwork, and the foliage of the vine will fill in the gaps.

Features within the Garden

During the dormant season, there is time perhaps to plan distinctive features within the garden, to give it character and interest throughout the year.

• Within the garden, consider portioning off smaller sections for seating and enclose them with hedging, espaliers and evergreens to create a haven of shelter.

• Such an area with a permanent seat may become a focal point in the corner of a garden, with narrow paths leading to the entrance and perhaps raised beds to enclose, protect and embrace.

• Or an incidental seat, set alongside a path across mown grass, falters the step and invites a pause.

• Or it could be much looser in design, perhaps within an encircling dry-stone wall just over one metre high. It might resemble the ruins of a tumble-down cottage that has succumbed to the surrounding flora. A strategically placed seat could be placed against one wall sown with campanulas and Mexican daisies in summer. This rural ‘folly’ could offer a useful focal point in winter.

• A seat should provide an interesting viewpoint: a statue, a large ceramic pot or the entrance gate to another part of the garden set at a little distance away and left just open – tantalizing and enticing.

Seating area enclosed by pleached Sorbus thibetica ‘John Mitchell’ at the garden of the RHS Rosemoor, Devon.

Seat in tumble-down cottage surrounded by a meadow in May. The Garden House, Buckland Monachorum, Devon.

Path across the grass interrupted by a seating area, North Somerset.

Aspect and Micro-Climate

The direction that the house faces is already determined and immutable, but much can be done within a garden, be it virgin or already laid out, to create small pockets of different conditions. East-west hedges or fences within a garden can be put in place to maximize light on the south-facing side, or to provide a little shade on the north-facing aspect. Take care not to create an east-west wind tunnel.

A sunken garden may be dug to achieve similar useful aspects and planted up, perhaps with a pond in the centre. It could be rigidly formal and symmetrically placed, or, less formally, the shape could be more amorphous with one side of the pond dipped to create a strategically positioned overflow into a bog garden. This provides a damp micro-climate and still water that would be an attractive home for tadpoles and dragon-fly larvae, provided there are no fish in the pond. Wild mammals and garden birds also throng to the oasis, bringing life into the garden in winter in particular.

A south-facing border, near the house, is an ideal place for some slightly tender, winter-flowering climbers to cover a wall or fence, and a warm border like this lends itself to Mediterranean planting, incorporating sun-loving, silver-leaved perennials and exotics. Winter is a good time too for scented plants in such a situation, and winter flowers are especially precious for early bees and butterflies.

Shady areas on the north and east aspects are ideal for hardy ferns, snowdrops and scillas in early spring, and there are some beautiful winter-flowering climbers for both shady and sunny walls.

It is natural to assume that winter gardens are better in the sun, but deciduous woodland is a much richer habitat for some of the beauties of the plant world, many of which perform at the turn of the year. In a small garden, a winter-flowering tree – one with interesting bark or a birch with a silver, buff-pink or black trunk – could provide interest all year round. An understorey of shade-loving shrubs, ferns, perennials and early flowering bulbs would highlight the winter season.

Prevailing Wind Direction

Ask any neighbour the direction of the prevailing wind and, gardener or not, he or she will know. Often, it’s common sense. Along the south coast of the UK, the strongest winds come off the sea; in the West Country, it’s the mild westerlies that are the strongest; and all along the east coast the biting east wind comes full speed from Siberia and the northerlies direct from the Arctic. Needless to say, in the Midlands, the winds veer from wherever the garden is open and vulnerable.

Wind can play all sorts of tricks within a garden. All those walls – house, garage, garden walls perhaps – cause quite a lot of turbulence. Wind approaches a wall, hits it square on, bounces up and over the top and swirls around inside the garden creating havoc. Filtering the wind at the top of a wall with a trellis or tall hedging plants helps to slow it down. A row of small garden trees along the boundary wall produces the same result, but can take a year or two to be effective.

Letting wind filter through a barrier, rather than creating a full stop, reduces the speed very effectively – 50 per cent permeability is ideal. Hence, many gardeners plant hedges if there’s enough space, rather than erect fences that blow down at regular intervals. Alternatively, a row of pleached trees, clear-stemmed with plenty of top-growth, allows space beneath for plants, while providing shelter from the wind at head height; it’s a hedge on stilts.

Frost Pockets

Despite the rise of ‘global warming’, the UK is largely still vulnerable to winter frosts and there is no doubt that a rime of frost on a dishevelled winter border is irresistible to garden-magazine photographers. It sparkles, it outlines the skeletons of the plants and it can be a useful ‘marker pen’ highlighting the outlines and the edges of the underlying structure, especially if viewed from above.

Snow, frost and ice on the water at John’s Garden, Ashwood Nurseries.

However, from a practical point of view, frost has to be managed and accommodated – most especially, those damaging, late-spring frosts. Our gardens in the UK have, or increasingly often have not, endured cold winds, driving rain or even snow, throughout the winter months, and a breath of warmth encourages plants to start swelling their buds: it is a ‘false spring’. Tender plants should be tucked up out of the frost and the remainder left to tough it out, if they can.

Providing the right conditions are given to each garden plant in terms of good drainage, and perhaps the shelter of a south-facing wall or fence, most should survive. Quite often, a marginally tender plant simply needs to be kept dry during frosty weather and its roots will survive to grow another day. Evergreens, in particular, can be scorched by cold winds: brown-margined leaves never look very pretty. They need positioning carefully in places sheltered from chilly breezes.

Some gardens are particularly susceptible to frost damage, as cold air tends to roll down a hill, creating frost pockets. The upper levels of a garden may suffer badly from cold winds but deep, sub-zero temperatures on a cold, still winter’s night are rarely as problematic on high ground as they might be lower down in a dark, damp valley.

Taking a Profile of the Soil

For the purposes of growing healthy plants, soil basically comprises two levels: the top-soil full of bugs, beasties and roots; and the sub-soil, which is a different colour and relatively lifeless.

1. Take a sharp spade and insert it straight down into the soil. Initially the depth of the spade will be sufficient (known as a ‘spit’).

2. Remove a cube of soil and take a look at the ‘walls’ to see:

(a) the changing colour of the soil as the profile descends;

(b) whether there is any life (insects, worms) and roots in the soil, and how far that level goes down (topsoil);

(c) and, as the depth descends, at what level the soil becomes paler and lifeless – this is the sub-soil, it supports little life, neither animated nor radicle, and it is impossible to re-animate;

(d) or whether there’s a ‘pan’ of impermeable soil below the surface. A pan is a hard compacted surface, the result of running heavy machinery over the ground (as in a farmyard); or a paved terrace; or the gravel of a tennis court, for example. A pan needs to be broken up or drainage will be compromised: the flower borders above will dry out in summer and flood in winter.

Clearly, the greater the depth of topsoil, the better and it’s better to discover a ‘pan’ at the outset than after planting commences.

Compost Heaps

Home-made garden compost is a constant benefit to any garden. Finding a corner to accommodate a compost heap, or three, in a garden is as important as laying out the garden plan.

• Ideally, there should be three compost heaps: one to fill, one to rot down and one to use. But with less room, one will suffice. It will just need ‘turning’ more often.

• There is never enough compost in a working garden, however many heaps there are. In a large garden, heaps may be distributed throughout the borders, hidden from view.

• Each should be a minimum of 1m3 for the process of composting to work efficiently.

• Compost ingredients include: garden waste (including soft trimmings), debris from herbaceous plants, green weeds, lawn mowings, kitchen vegetable waste, plain paper screwed up and green twigs.

• Compost should not contain: other kitchen waste (it attracts rats), pet animal litter, seeding weeds, perennial weeds with white/yellow roots, diseased plants or leaves, nor thick, woody branches.

• A compost heap can benefit from an accelerator, which is often a form of urea. The cheapest way to add urea is to ask the male members of your household for their re-cycled beer!

Three working compost heaps, 1.5m3, Somerset.

The Role of Water in the Winter Garden

Water also attracts frost. The temperature of the water in rivers and large ponds is usually a few weeks out of sync with the ambient temperature in the garden. So, in autumn and early winter, the water can be a degree or two warmer than the air and in spring, it can be colder. It often results in condensation rising off the water in a freezing mist that burns any overhanging vegetation and surrounding planting. Water in the ground has the same effect. Heavy soils that hold moisture tend to be warmer in the autumn, but in spring they take longer to warm up. Seed sown too early can rot in damp, heavy, clay soils. Raising the flower-bed can often overcome this problem: the surrounding edges allow the sun to warm the soil behind the planks or bricks that wall the bed, and the increased drainage means the ground holds less moisture and, therefore, warms up more quickly. It’s a trick that works especially well in vegetable gardens where much is grown from seed.

The Structure of the Soil

Very many years ago on the BBC’s Gardeners’ Question Time there was a wise old, professional gardener whose advice was always very sound, based on a lifetime’s experience. One of his catch-phrases was spoken in a slow West-Country burr. In answer to many a difficult problem he would intone: ‘The answer lies in the soil’. And he was right.

As gardeners we ask a lot of the ground that supports our flowers and vegetables, our trees and shrubs. Very many gardeners with a new plot barely pause to think about the soil before planting extensively. So often those plants are unsuitable for the texture or pH of that soil. An inherited garden can have exhausted soil that has run out of nutrients or has been trammelled by scores of feet, compressing the top layer. Gardens of new-build houses have sometimes been the dumping ground for broken bricks, plaster and offcuts of wood, or have simply been spread with subsoil excavated during the build.

It pays to have a word with the builder, if at all possible, before he or she starts moving the ground. Ask if the excavated top-soil could be put in a pile on one side. Sub-soil is lifeless and cannot be resurrected; it needs to be kept below the surface. The builder may charge extra; he will be very unwilling to create extra work. But if he can, it will save hours of work for the gardener. As soon as the first winter comes along, it will pay huge dividends either to turn over the bare earth or the borders you are changing, and incorporate lots of garden compost, or use the compost as a deep mulch on these areas. The soil will be in good heart and ready to grow anything.

Soil Texture

To identify the texture of the soil – whether it is sticky clay, rich loam or light sand – take a fistful of topsoil and squeeze it in the hand. If, when the hand is opened, the soil retains its shape, then it’s a clay soil. If it partly holds its shape, but can be crumbled into breadcrumbs, then it’s a loam. If it spills out between the fingers, and when it is rubbed between finger and thumb it feels gritty, then it is a sandy soil. But if it feels silky smooth and does not hold its shape but crumbles, then it is silt.

Garden at Wells, Somerset designed from scratch.

Heavy Clay Soils

Heavy clay soils are not the friendliest to work with, but once they are ‘tamed’, they are the most nutritious and can support the planting throughout the seasons. A clay soil drains badly; it is cold in spring, being heavy, and dries out completely in summer. If it is ‘broken up’ by adding sharp grit or fibrous garden compost (not the potting compost in bags from the garden centre), and either digging it all in, which is quicker, or mulching the top of the ground in winter; it will become easier over a few years. It’s not an instant fix, but it works… eventually. Clay soil ‘holds on’ to nutrients in the soil by ionization and releases them slowly to the plants.

Light Sandy Soils

Light sandy soils are much easier to work. They are easier to turn over and weed at any time of year, but their great disadvantage is that rain simply washes nutrients through the soil structure. Feeding and mulching a sandy soil is an ongoing job to be done every winter. Fibrous home-made garden compost, or an organic mulch, is the most useful addition. It acts like a sponge, holding moisture and nutrients until it too washes through.

Finding the Right Path

Once the layout is decided in the rear garden-to-be, it can be difficult to decide on the exact route a path should take through the garden. If this poses a real problem, take a tip from professional landscape designers.

• Landscape designers in cities place a thin layer of sand around a newly constructed office block and after a few months they can see where the majority of people walk.

• That route becomes the course of the path. It’s not only democratic, but practical.

• Very few people will then take short cuts or walk over corners, because the path is on the most comfortable and direct route. This is called ergonomics.

Accessibility

• Laying and topping up either bark or gravel is much easier with outside access from the front driveway.

• Hallways are not made for wheelbarrows.

• New-build houses have barely enough room for a garden, let alone a lawn with a shed to house the mower.

Loam Soil

A loam soil is the best and easiest to manage. It combines both the ability to hold on to moisture and nutrients, and yet is easy to work throughout the year. Adding garden compost to the soil each winter improves the soil texture and adds slow-releasing nutrients.

The pH Scale

Discovering the pH (the level of acidity/alkalinity) of the soil can seem a little daunting, but there are numerous tests on the market available from any good garden centre. It is important to remember that if you need to add water for the test, that water should be pH neutral and not from the tap.

A meadow in May, Great Dixter, East Sussex.

Mown grass sets off the winter-coloured bark on the birches. John’s Garden, Ashwood Nurseries.

The pH scale varies from 0 to 14. Theoretically 7 is neutral but, in practice, it is nearer to 6.5. The lower the number, the more acidic the soil; higher numbers indicate alkalinity. It is logarithmic – each degree is ten times greater or smaller than the next. So, a pH of 4 is ten times more acidic than pH5, and 100 times more acidic than pH6.

It is one step from impossible to make a soil more acidic. Mulching with pine needles over the course of ten years has been shown to alter the pH by a tenth of a degree. Adding sulphate to an alkaline soil does acidify it, but it is easy to overdose and sulphate can interfere with levels of phosphorus and may reduce the pH too much. It can also build up in the soil, making it toxic to all plant life.

Making an acid soil more alkaline is easier: merely add a calculated dose of garden lime in spring. In general, though, it is always better to use plants that are naturally adapted to the different levels of alkalinity/acidity in the soil.

The effects of planting incorrectly are visible within a year or two. Planting rhododendrons, camellias or skimmias (all of which make lovely winter evergreens) in an alkaline soil leads to yellowing leaves, slow growth and, eventually, failure of the plant. This yellowing, or chlorosis, can be ameliorated by adding a drench of ‘chelated iron’ or, commercially, ‘Sequestrene’, which allows the plant to absorb the iron. Planting lime-loving plants into an acid soil is less difficult, it merely tends to slow down the growth.

Making a Lawn

There are two ways of making a lawn: either by seed or by laying turf. The former is more flexible and cheaper, but slower; the latter is more expensive and can either be done by the gardener or a firm of contractors and, of course, it is instant.

It is essential to prepare the lawn area by removing all perennial weeds, raking the surface until it resembles breadcrumbs and trammelling it with your feet. Good preparation helps to prevent humps and dips forming in years to come.

Creating a Lawn from Seed

Sowing a lawn is best carried out either in autumn on a light soil or in spring on heavy clays.

1. Choose a seed mix that is suited to the soil and the amount of traffic on the finished lawn. For instance, the seed mix for a small grass patch for children to play on over heavy clay soil, is quite different from a velvet-green sward to be pampered and shown off to fellow gardeners.

2. Fill a medium-sized bag with dry sand and cut a small triangle off one corner. Trickle the sand to mark out a metric grid across the plot.

3. Weigh out the handfuls of grass seed to achieve the correct distribution per metre squared (the amount depends on the type of seed mix used). Find out quantities and sowing rate either from the nurseryman who sells the grass seed or by looking it up online.

4. Sow during a showery spell or be prepared to water in the seed.

5. Sow thinly; there is nothing to be gained from sowing too densely.

6. Protect from marauding birds using netting, if required.

Laying Turfs

1. It is important that the area is flat: ensure there are no dips or humps.

2. Ideally the weather forecast should be for rain.

3. The turfs are usually delivered in rolls. Unroll them to fit, using an old bread-knife to cut the edges, where needed.

4. Trammell the turfs down to contact the soil below and water thoroughly.

5. Continue to water every two or three days if there is no rain, gradually reducing the frequency.

Costing

• To check on the final costings for, say, a herbaceous border, work out just how many plants you would need for a square metre, using the recommended planting distances.

• Multiply it out by the number of square metres on the plan.

• Once planted, certain plants have greater potential for spreading into their neighbours, while others are more discrete.

• Always allow for a few extras.

Retention of Existing Plants

An objective assessment of any existing garden site often includes retaining certain trees and shrubs. Perhaps they are too big to move without heavy machinery or maybe they contribute to the overall structure of a garden, or screen an eyesore. Rather than attempting to move a large tree, it may be prudent to consider crown-thinning or pollarding as a means of shaping or reducing it.

After one or two plants are removed from a group of closely planted shrubs, it often becomes apparent that the crowns of adjacent trees or shrubs have adapted to the shape of their absent neighbours. It suddenly becomes obvious which branches or stems need to be shortened. Winter, when sap levels are low, is the time to cut them back, always to an outward-facing bud. Having pruned them, it is important to feed and mulch each plant with a broad-spectrum organic fertilizer and a dressing of garden compost once the soil is moist, to retain that moisture.

Planning the New Garden

Inspiration

Designing a new garden from an empty plot can be the stuff of dreams or nightmares. It helps to start with an idea of the style of garden that most appeals. Magazines, websites and books all have great photos of beautiful gardens that are immediately desirable. Try to analyse just what it is about them that especially appeals. Visit other private gardens open under the National Gardens Scheme nearby to see what others have made in similar conditions to your own. Steal ideas from those great gardens that you admire. Take photos with a mobile phone for reference.

Read some of the great gardeners on their own gardens: Christopher Lloyd on Great Dixter; Vita Sackville-West on Sissinghurst; Keith Wiley on Wildside; for example. Or visit some of the impressionistic gardens of the twenty-first century, such as Bury Court Barn Gardens designed by Christopher Bradley-Hole and Piet Oudolf, the garden at Hauser & Wirth in Bruton, Somerset (Piet Oudolf), or Knoll Gardens and grasses nursery, designed and run by Neil Lucas. All the while, try to work out the essential structure of each garden and, if possible, visit or find out how the garden is in winter, whether it’s open to the public or not in the ‘quiet’ season.

Hard Landscaping

Paths, fences and hard surfaces are more or less essential to the smooth running of a domestic garden. There will need to be access to washing lines, dustbins and the car. In a larger garden, all this could be tucked away out of sight; in a smaller area, these could be screened by planting. Also, these utilitarian paths are easier to use if they are dry underfoot.