My clients are wonderfully varied. This year alone I’ve worked with a French herbalist, an American interior designer, a fintech entrepreneur and a farmer. And whilst their backgrounds and tastes can be entirely different, sometimes I spot subtle trends in what clients are asking for. One such trend which I’ve found intriguing is the increase in people asking for their gardens not to feel too ’designed.’ When I ask them to elaborate on this, the answers are largely the same; they want the garden to feel relaxed, informal even, and don’t want things to look too staged or deliberate.
Sometimes it’s because they are interested in having a garden that is wilder–natural-looking and wildlife-friendly, without the tidiness that can characterise more formal garden design. But it’s also often because they want the garden to feel comfortable in its own skin, and not too obvious. Neither of these things have to be mutually exclusive, nor do they negate the need for good design.
I should add that every garden design should be specific to its own landscape, the house and buildings it is attached to, and of course the client. Classics are not to be messed with if that is what you want. I love a wholly white garden as much as the next person, and would never suggest you avoid the grand, tried and tested combination of topiary and hedging in a large formal garden. I also don’t subscribe to the idea that nature left to its own devices in a garden is the way forward.
Rather, a sensible approach to achieving the ‘undesigned’ garden, where appropriate, would be one where a space feels considered, site-sensitive, yet laid out in such a way that you don’t instantly notice the hand of the designer. Here are some thoughts on how to achieve that.
Ask yourself what you mean by a ‘designed’ space
Look at the gardens you admire; do you have one type of aesthetic that you enjoy particularly over others? Could you describe it? We are inundated with images in the modern world and part of a designer’s job is to help their client analyse exactly what it is they like and don’t like. One of the first things I do with a new project is sit down and go through moodboards and reference images with my clients trying to get to the bottom of what they like in that picture. Is it the light, is it the composition of the planting, is it a certain characteristic that the garden has that they’d like to emulate in their own space? These things add up to what your garden looks and feels like to spend time in, and are important to establish before we start talking about layouts and design.
Good design doesn’t have to be obvious
If a garden has no design at all, it can feel chaotic. Even if you enjoy the feeling of nature taking over, it’s likely that in your garden you will also want space for other things too. A disordered and completely undesigned garden is probably not where you would really want to spend your down time.
Our eyes seek out repetition in a landscape; that is what makes spaces beautiful to us. Designers create this through colour, texture and form, and even through the lines and tones of the hard landscaping. This is an important part of creating a garden that feels good to spend time in. That means making spaces big enough and comfortable for what you’re going to use them for. Once you have got the bare bones of the garden right and delineated your spaces properly, you will have more freedom with the rest of the design.
Think carefully about your plant choices and don’t limit your palette too much
Plants come in and out of fashion and our collective ‘tastes’ change over the years as new trends come and go. If you want your garden to feel overly designed a surefire way to do this would be to overly curate or oversimplify your planting; for instance a popular combination in the last decade or so has been the soft, feathery grasses of Stipa tenuissima, contrasted with the purple stems of Salvia caradonna or Verbena bonariensis. Planting multi-stem alemanchiers in a bed of hakonechloa is equally familiar now. These stylised selections are absolutely right for some people and places, but if you want a more laid-back approach try and include a slightly more varied palette (whilst not forgetting the importance of repetition).
Reclaimed materials will give your garden more character
Using one type of brand new, large format sandstone paving across your whole garden will instantly make it feel very new. The stone will weather, but a slightly more subtle approach would be to mix shapes and materials; using cobbles or clay pavers at intervals, or combine sandstone with reclaimed brick.
Also, think about the different areas and what you’re using them for; sometimes it’s a matter of the right material for the right place. For instance, use Victorian tiles on a path to a Victorian house; or find a clay paver that matches the tone of the brick on your extension. Design that tries too hard to be different is often the type which ends up looking thoroughly overdone.
And last but not least, avoid trends.
Look at what suits you, your house, the local vernacular. This will lead you to creating a space that stands the test of time, an authentic garden that has good design built into it, and isn’t about style over substance.
