What’s at the heart of your garden?

Garden design is all about balance and proportion, how to make spaces feel right.  The best gardens are those where you can’t quite put your finger on the one thing that makes them that way and usually that’s because it’s a combination of things that are making it just right.

Being able to think about the garden in a three dimensional way is the key to the success of the design and one of the most powerful parts of the design process comes when you think about how you want to move around the garden because it makes you think about the space in a different way.

When I first approach a design I have to see the garden on paper because it’s only when the survey is in front of me that I can see the shape of the plot, how the land lies and where the house sits within the space.

The garden must not only fit in all the elements that need to be included…the terrace, the lawn, the shed etc., but it must also work with the house and the landscape beyond the boundary fences.

I recently visited Gresgarth Hall in Lancashire, the amazing house and garden owned and designed by the brilliant Garden Designer, Arabella Lennox-Boyd.  It is probably the most wonderful garden I have ever visited and it’s because it is so perfectly balanced.

Each element of the garden sits comfortably with the other at the same time as working as a space in its own right.  The garden has been brilliantly designed so that the house remains at the centre of it, whether you’re right up close on the terrace or in the woodland looking back towards it, there’s always a view to be taken in, it’s truly breathtaking.

What’s at the centre of your garden?  Is it an old oak tree, the architecture of the house or a view across the landscape?  If you discover what it is then you’ll be half way there – all gardens have a heart, you just need to find it!

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