Prospect and Refuge

I built a patio along the width of the back of the house. Its practical, as its one bit of the garden that is always ok to walk on regardless of the weather, its somewhere for our young son to chalk on or play toys, its somewhere to mend stuff where you don't want to lose tiny components in the grass. Its also pretty I think, and it's the last part of the garden to get the sun, as the sun sets, the last bit of sunshine of the day lands on our patio.

Practical doesn't have to mean uncomfortable or ugly. Everything you do in the garden has to be be practical, as plants have no notion of 'romantic' or 'beautiful', they either have the conditions they need to thrive, or they don't.

You mentioned the french approach to garden design being different to the English approach. Depending on the part of france we're talking about, they have very different conditions. Southern france for example has long hot dry spells but can suddenly become cold just because of a change in the wind direction, so gardens there will have to be drought tolerant, whereas in Normandy and Brittany, it rains at least as much as it does in Britain, so they can have their lush green 'natural' gardens.

 

What amuses me about a rural French garden are the rows of vegetables in the front garden! Where most of us British plant to show off our finest floral specimens!
Jenny

 

That's kind of what I tried to achieve this year. There are carrots, onions, leaf beet, beans, peas, brussels sprouts and there were potatoes, all in my main flower beds. Didn't work quite as planned, but only because the slugs went on a rampage. It didn't look bad at all.

 

Would love to see a piccie - if you do it again next year Clueless,

 

Hi chums.

You'll often hear professional gardeners talking about creating a bit of mystery, wondering what's around the next corner. It's something that I paid heed to when I moved into my current home. Although my garden is 200ft long, it's only 15ft wide, so to me it was important not to be looking down a tunnel. I did this by putting in a few arches, and a winding path. Pretty basic stuff, but I'm relatively pleased with the outcome. Now that the plants are pretty well established, there are areas where it's totally secluded/not overlooked, even though we have a terraced house. My garden is divided into 4 areas (apart from where I did the 'tidy up'), and not one area is visible from another. Obviously, people like different things and have different requirements. As long as they enjoy their garden, it's all good

Cheers...Freddy

 

That's very kind of you to say so

 

That's the sort of garden I like too. Somewhere that you have to go explore, rather than having a garden you can see in entirety from the back door.

 

Yes, you're right in saying that most of us have typically English/British gardens and I think our line of thinking/planning is to do with what we have available to us. Clueless said climate has a lot to do with it, British weather is totally unpredictable so therefore we have to choose plants that will survive our conditions. We also have to think about our style of home. For instance, my bungalow is over sixty years old and suits a more cottage style garden, to place something like your last picture in my garden would look completely out of place, ridiculous in fact. I believe gardens should reflect the property and it's age, that they surround.

Everybody, including those in other countries have they're own style of garden, we respect that fact and it's interesting to see how the layouts differ.

I have a great respect for all properties of all ages and think the gardens should be designed to reflect them. Therefore, the one thing I really dislike are buildings of bygone era's that have been altered or extended with a modern influence, I find them ugly and misplaced.

 

Well, exactly. You can sit out on the patio and look out on the garden. As opposed to sitting on a stage at the bottom of the garden and looking at the kitchen! We've got a patio thingy too but although I like sitting on it on balmy evenings I tend to get bitten. During the day I can't stand the sun and I'm frightened to put the sunshade up because one of these frightening gusts will take it away. My neighbour's just put up a pergola-like wooden frame with roof over his back door decking. Sitting out there when it's raining - that's my idea of heaven! Lord knows when I'll have time to make something like it when the walls inside still need painting!

Funnily enough it was Brittany I was thinking of, where I used to stay as a boy. The lack of lawn or shrubs, but flower borders was what I remembered. Probably the habit of giving hens a free run had something to do with it! And as someone else remembers, the veggies on the front lawn. I once spent a morning helping my host's black-clad and Breize-speaking grandmother dig up vegetables - her entire front garden was a spud field.

 

Well yes. I've taken as a starting point the kind of plants you find around our village on the grounds that the weather and soil probably suits them.

Mine's a new house so I have to make it up as I go along!

 

must admit, i like every type of garden, whether full on modernistic with hard landscaping and minimilastic through to the quaint old cottage garden. if its beautiful and relaxing then

i think having the suprise on the outside of an old cottage but then entering to find an ultra modern interior and garden is a lovely suprise. mixing old and new does work, it just needs sympathy i think.

 

No, I'd hate it, but I don't think that picture is of a garden for a "gardener".

There is plenty of new-money, with nicely done-up town houses, with small gardens, which are done in a contemporary style. My expectation is that they just want to "live" in their gardens, and they probably do want to entertain every spare moment - after all, their gardens are very low maintenance so no time spent tending to them - and if they do the cost of the garden "build" in the first place probably means they can afford to get-a-man-in.

I am imagining people who would holiday in Italy or the like where the weather is conducive to alfresco dining ... and they want to replicate that back home whenever the weather permits (and when it doesn't they use Patio Heaters, Chimineas and Fire Pits ... with an obscene waste of non-renewable energy IMHO)

 

I hate "contemporary" with a vengence. Mainly because it doesn't ring the changes with the seasons, you just look out, all year round, at your marble-wall, or stainless-steel sheet flowing with water ...

But I don't think gardens need to be "conventional". Christo Lloyd is famous for having ripped out the Roses from the formal garden than Lutens designed and replaced them with Cannas ... and subsequently changed it further to "exotic". I've seen NGS gardens and gardens on e.g. Gardeners World that are "themed" - one that was all containers, another than was all hostas ... just a different "take" on the gardening hobby