Best Garden

The style of a garden is largely responsible for its atmosphere, whether it is neat and geometric, relaxed and informal, busy and colourful, or still and discreet. The choice of style is often influenced by other gar¬dens that have been seen and admired. Try to be open-minded about the styles you look at, and con¬sider not just their personal appeal, but also how they would suit your house and family use, and how much maintenance they would create and when. Styles which rely on a very detailed planting to look correct will require a great deal of summer attention which you may not be able to give. On the other hand, a style which is architecturally complex may be more ex¬pensive to construct but far easier to maintain during the growing season. Some of the great historic garden styles have been extremely simple in terms of plant material, relying more on the form of the land, on water and buildings, and such staples as grass and trees. This restrained approach can produce stunning results, whatever the scale of the site. Let period styles be a source of inspiration, a starting point rather than something to copy slavishly. It is too easy to let period style become a cliche: draw the best from it and make it your own. After all, every style was modern once. By giving serious consideration at the outset to style, ideas are often enriched and crystallized and the temptation to simply fill the garden with a mass of favourite plants avoided.

Tags: garden style, garden styles, period style, plant material, plants, style ideas

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 10:49 am and is filed under Garden Design, Garden Ideas, Gardening Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.