Gardens are mysterious creatures, capable of thrilling highs that induce heart-swelling pride and joy but also the reverse – devastating disappointment when that plant cutting you have lovingly nurtured gets nipped by Jack Frost, or those bulbs you’ve been longing for don’t quite deliver the bang you’d anticipated. Gardens can make you feel like the luckiest person in the world, revelling in the quiet privilege of witnessing cow parsley shimmer on a perfect May day in your own little paradise. They can also cause heart-ache and confusion and feel overwhelming in their complexity and variety.
But ask any gardener, and they will knowingly remind you that the mistakes are part of the process, and above all gardens are great teachers. Teachers of patience, of careful observation, and of our place in the world. Whilst there is no replacement for learning on the job, getting things wrong can be costly – to your bank balance, to your confidence and to the environment. Much of this lies in good foundations - as with everything from a pension to a party, planning and preparation is key, not just for the design but the overall health of the garden.
Mistake 1: ignoring your soil
Designer Marian Boswall suggests that your first port of call should be soil, the true foundation of the garden, it can’t be over-estimated. “Get a bokashi bin, learn how to create fabulous compost or buy a bio-complete compost to inoculate your soil with a wonderful workforce of underground gardeners, sources include Compost Club from Michael in Lewes or the Land Gardeners. Plants live 30 percent below ground so it’s not just what we can see that counts”. Wherever your garden is, improving the soil will not only give whatever you later choose to plant the best start, but it has myriad other benefits too. By feeding your soil, you’re improving its ability to retain moisture and mitigate drought, charging it with the kind of microbial activity Tim Spector would be proud of, whilst also finding an outlet for lots of your food waste.
Mistake 2: not having enough water
Next up, water. If you’re new to gardens (especially if you’re planning one in a wet winter when water doesn’t seem to be a resource that could ever be in short supply), it’s easy to overlook access to water in the garden. Some gardens can be designed and planned to need very little but most will need some. Where is it going to come from? Designer Tom Massey, who is doing a garden at RHS Chelsea this year with architect Je Ahn in aid of WaterAid, recommends disconnecting our downpipes from gutters and rerouting them into water-harvesting systems. It’s inefficient to allow all that rainwater run out into the sewage system. This could just be a water-butt which is as simple as it is effective, or it could be a raingarden or planter that collects water and allows it to dissipate at a much slower pace, easing the pressure on the system.
Mistake 3: including too much lawn
With the basics taken care of, where to start on what to have in your garden? The defining feature of the British garden still seems to be a lawn – something I often ask clients to consider if they really need. Could this be a gravel garden instead with a variety of species that will self-seed and romp about? Could you do away with it altogether and make your planting beds more generous?
But for many they remain a necessity. Lawns are not a bad thing per se (unless they’re artificial), but they don’t rate highly in the biodiversity stakes and they’re not as low-maintenance as many might think. Mowing a lawn week in and week out throughout the summer to achieve the immaculate Pimms-ready look is very labour and energy intensive. If you’re not able to give up your lawn entirely, Tom Massey says “try no mow May and see what happens, lawns don't need to be sterile, resource hungry green deserts”.
When it comes to the shape and size of your lawn, Polly Wilkinson says there’s often “a temptation to maximise the size of the lawn at the expense of planting… all this does is create a garden which is out of proportion. This is an easy fix for those who went too far with the lawn size - deeper borders can easily be dug out of the lawn to balance out the scale”. Similarly, Polly continues, “tunnel vision is a common problem - long thin borders down the side of the garden and a narrow lawn through the middle. It’s a sure-fire way to make a narrow garden look and feel even narrower. Instead look to divide up the garden widthways to give the feeling of breadth”.
When planning a garden on paper it easy to overlook how this will feel in 3D. Often people are nervous to put big things in a space because they worry it will make it feel small, but often the opposite is true – a tree or a generous bed of tall planting can bring a garden into scale and make it feel bigger, not smaller. Lots of small things dotted about, does the opposite. It’s much better to have one confident and generous gesture than a muddle of small ones.
Mistake 4: careless planting
Planting mistakes happen to everyone – perhaps the biggest mistake is believing you can avoid them entirely. Gardens are a long-term project and evolve over time through a series of edits and tweaks. Some plants will thrive or dominate while others struggle despite your best efforts and research – keeping a note of what’s working and where there are gaps so you can remedy them the following year is an analogue but very effective way of staying on track.
Polly Wilkinson says she often comes across gardens that look fantastic in May and June, but rather dreary the rest of the year. “Don’t forget to include some evergreen structure to see you through the winter months, as well as give a little breathing room between the more exciting flowers, as well as ornamental grasses to give you months of movement and interest.” Mapping your planting on a hand-drawn calendar is a good way to spot when you’re likely to have gaps.
Plant selection can feel overwhelming with over 350,000 to choose between. Often choice gets the better of people and there will be too much variety but no impact – the result is a busy mix of plants with little cohesion. Once you have found a plant that works, repeat, repeat, repeat or plant in a large swathe. You don’t need hundreds of different species, a hardworking quintet is much more effective that a riot of different species jostling for attention.
Mistake 5: making your garden into a chore
But perhaps the biggest mistake of all, is to lose the enjoyment of having a garden in pursuit of perfection – something we can all fall prey to. Gardens have the potential to bring great joy, and be a real haven of quiet and rejuvenation, but endless to do lists and finger-wagging can make them feel like a chore. As Marian Boswall sagely reminded me – “there are no mistakes in the garden, just chances to be kind to yourself and the planet, and to learn about both too”. So learn to love the mistakes, gardens are to be enjoyed.
