London Garden Designs – 3 top tips for the city garden
The city garden needs to be an oasis from the world outside, a haven that you can relax in. Three starting points to get there.
1. Enclose the garden. With luck the city garden already has walls round it – they may look ugly and depressing right now, but that is going to change. If the garden doesn’t have walls, put up some sort of boundary fencing between it and the neighbors. Panel fencing is relatively cheap and easy to put up. A feather board fence will last longer and need less maintenance but takes more time and skill to erect. Once you have your boundary wall or fence, turn it green. Do this either by growing clematis, honeysuckles and climbing roses up it, which will be lovely in the summer, but less interesting in winter, or by having a line of small This will also prevent any problems with roots going through into neighboring gardens.
2. Pave the centre of the garden. Lay stone slabs down in sand to make a paved surface. Otherwise, in a small space you will have a mudbath in winter and a scorched area in summer. Leave a good yard round the outside of the paved area, filled with gravel to allow drainage from the slabs. The better quality slabs you can afford, the better the end result. If you can only afford concrete, have a gravel garden instead and grow herbs which will self-seed into it.
3. Round the outside of the paved area grow a selection of perennial flowers and small bushes in front of the trees or climbers. Grow your plants in containers, not plastic if you can avoid it. Unglazed clay pots are lovely but will crack in freezing conditions, so go for wooden tubs, stone troughs or glazed pots. The container method allows you to move plants around and change the appearance – important in a small space. If you want a garden that will require very little care, grow rosemary, bay, sage and lavender, all of which grow into good sized bushes and keep their leaves and colour throughout the year without any attention, apart from a little protection for the bay from frost.
For more exquisite designs and to view the work of one of the UK’s best garden designers click here – Garden Design London
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