10 Best Tips For GARDENING ON AN ESTATE 2024
RECENTLY BUILT ESTATE of houses often have open plan front garden, and giving a plot character without making it an eccentric misfit among its neighbours is a challenge.
It is vital to inject some variety into the flat rectangle. Doing without boundary hedges of Fences – often a condition of sale – poses problems but the guiding principles for all successful garden design still apply: link the garden to the house in materials of shapes, keep the planting in scale with the site and match the character of the garden to its setting.
SPOT THE SHAPE TO DEVELOP FOR
GARDENING ON AN ESTATE
The ground pattern works best when it has details that echo those of the house itself, so that the two clearly belong together. For example, a pointed gable breaking the roofline or a pointed porch over the front door suggest a diamond or lozenge shape for a lawn and for decorative motifs in a path. If the house has a curve in a front door panel or at the top of the window or door frame, shape the lawn with curved ends end – and insert arcs of brick into a concrete path.
CUTTING DOWN LAWN CARE
Quality turf is the best buy for a small lawn in a show position. The finest grass is short growing and does not turn into a waiving meadow when you miss a cut or two. There is not much wear to withstand so the velvety green stays at its best.
If moving is a problem or there is no access for a mover except through the house, keep the lawn very small; even at table – top size it gives that smooth green foil for the planted areas. Ten minutes with hand shears, or with a cordless powered trimmer is enough to cut it.
Consider artificial turf, which is not a bad copy of the real thing now – and it keeps it’s trim surface with regular hosing down or lifting to shake well. If you do not want a lawn at all, choice low – maintenance planting for the whole area. Gravel, or paving slabs of deferent sizes laid in a random pattern, are labours saving alternatives to plant cover.
Choose hard materials that tone with, rather than match, the building. Too much of the same material and color can be overwhelming. Just a few insets of matching brick are enough for a visual link. Merge this hard surface with the path to give an impression of greater breadth, a less rigid form to the path and Sharper definition to the planted areas.
HOW TO VARY THE FLATNESS
Give your garden some contours with the planting, concentrating on foliage plants, which give much longer value than flowers. Put hummocks of knee – high plants at the edge to create the illusion of a boundary. Within, grow large Swatches of a few ground – cover species rather than a mosaic of single plants.
Fill gaps with spring bulbs and clean up the garden in summer. Add yellow and orange nemesia or red and white antirrhinum for pops of color. Grow a variegated Holly or a slow-growing conifer for an eye-catching focal point. Cut back the Eucalyptus gunnii bush each spring for a blue-grey appearance. Pinch back shoots in summer for continuous growth of new leaves.
Instead of an evergreen, try cornus alba sibirica ‘ ; it’s cream – splashed leaves fall in autumn but the bold red upright stems make a brilliant winter display. Finely cut garden foliage is the chief de – light of the elder ( Sambucus racemosa ‘ Plumosa Aurea’ ) ; before the leaves fall in autumn they glow even more than usual round clusters of little red fruits.
SMALL AND EASY GARDEN
HARD SURFACING over most of the garden biggest nabour – saver. Tiny patches of grass in an urban or formal setting need to be meticulously cared for. They are not suited by the casual scattering of daisies that looks so pretty on country lawns.
But immaculate grass is not achieved without the persistent maintenance most gardeners prefer to reserve for the back garden. Nor is it easy to manoeuvre a mover in a small area. It can soon seem to much trouble when the mover has to be brought through the house.
EFFECTS WITH HARD MATERIALS
Hard surfacing may sound unlikely to give the delight that plants do, yet an imaginative use of materials can create a satisfying pattern and color harmony, two chief pleasures of any garden.
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Apart from the many sizes and shades of paving slabs ( in real stone, reconstituted stone and concrete), there are stone setts and a wide choice of bricks. Strong red, soft red, brown, buffs, greys and purple are available. Quarry or mosaic tiles, tiles in black and white, and the Victorian favorites of blue and red add to the range for making bold outlines.
To fill in, use less geometric materials that are much easier to manipulate.
Fine gravel come in shades from cool off – white and grey to warm rosy hues.
Marble and flint chippings cover the same range and add greens and mauves.
Shingle offers oval shapes as well as subtle colors. The larger cobbles set in mortar of matching or contrasting color give a softer, quilted look.
To negotiate curves or fill in angles, use roofing tiles pushed edge – down into mortar until flash with the surface, and fanning out like daisy petals; blues, greys, greens, browns and reds make up a varied palette.
Tiles are appropriate in a town garden, laid in straightforward chequers – board fashion or in a more decorative pattern focusing on one spot where a single plant commands attention. The plant may be in a pot or a bed; a standard rose or artemisia does well in either.
With a pot you can put deferent plants such as fuchsias, hydrangeas, palms and conifers on slow at different season. If you decide to a small bed, you need a plant such as an ever – green berberis or cotoneaster, which more than one period of interest, or a plant with the year – round sculptural quality of holly or the lobed – leaf × Fatshedera lizei.
STRONG PARTNERS FOR LONG – TERMS PLEASURE
Lay two or three colors of tiles as a simple knot garden and its precision will give all most as much pleasure as a genuine knot, without the work of clipping and feeding. Interlaced squares or diamonds are easier to achieve then circles. Put a pot plant or a small bed with an evergreen were the motifs overlap to soften the effect. Neat grey hebes or san – tolinas look well with terracotta and blue tiles, while sarcococca or box give strong green to balance black and white tiles.
You can give variety of texture by using gravels of two or three different colors to fill in a pattern laid out in tiles into four by more box. Fill the sections with grey santolina for a cool scheme. For a warmer look use purple sage or variegated periwinkle with the box.
MODERN STYLE OUT OF TOWN
Away from town terraces, low – care small garden are still easiest to create with a hard surface. A modern house allows a striking, simple design of bricks in con – centric circles or rectangles, whichever suit the building’s details. A curved bay window or porch top, for example, suggests circles, while a square – cornered bay or porch calls for rectangles.
At the center, plant a dramatic yucca, a fatsia, a New Zealand flax ( Phormium tenax ) with gold or orange stripes on its soaring sword – shaped leaves, or an ever – green Mahonia japonica, whose holly – like leaflets are paired on either side of long stalks, and whose yellow, scented flowers bloom in winter. Take care that the planting does not block the way to the front door. Push the pattern to on side of the garden area if the front door is at the center of the house front.
CONCLUSION
Mortar the joints in the brickwork or fill them with fine gravel, matching the color to the bricks. You could also lay porous plastic sheeting before the bricks to suppress weeds. An evergreen fringe of ferns and red – hot pokers ( Kniphofia caulescens ) softens the edges.
When the house walls are of brick that is too insistent in color to repeat over the whole garden, space out the bands of brick with wide strips of gravel between. For a stone – built house, make the pattern of setts and encourage moss to fill the gaps. To low the cost, space out the bands of setts with strips of gravel.