How to design your dream garden this spring — and what to avoid

Independent

06-02-2025

Spring is on the horizon, and with it comes the perfect opportunity to revitalise your garden.
Whether you're planning a complete overhaul or just a few tweaks, award-winning garden designer Pollyanna Wilkinson offers expert advice to make the most of your outdoor space.
Wilkinson, author of How To Design A Garden, host of The Ins & Outs podcast, and an Instagram influencer with 400,000 followers, emphasises the importance of understanding your garden's unique characteristics.
"One of the biggest mistakes people make is not spending enough time getting to know the garden," she explains.
Before diving into design plans, Wilkinson advises taking the time to observe your garden's light exposure throughout the day, assess the depth of your borders, understand your soil type, and consider the overall shape of the space.
Here, she offers some design tips to help you get the most from your outdoor space.
Make your garden look wider
'If you have a long narrow garden, the worst thing you can do is run narrow borders down the side next to a strip of lawn because it's going to turn it into a runway and highlight that it's long and thin,' says Wilkinson.
Instead, feature your highlights across the garden by planting into it and a deep border at the back which brings your depth of field forward. If you have paving immediately outside the house, bring plants up to that paving across the garden, she suggests. You could then create a gap through to a lawn, or position a path and planting in the middle of the garden as a focal point.
'We're trying to get you to move your eyes left and right, not down to the end. The trick is to bring the plants in.'
Plant deep borders
Make your flower borders as deep as possible because if they are under 60cm, you'll only get one row of plants, which can feel accidental, she advises.
'Ensure you can get at least two or three rows of plants, in which will give you a much more interesting garden in terms of seasonality, but will also give you more depth even in a smaller space.'
Use large pots
'In courtyards or small gardens, get rid of your small pots because anything small in a small space feels like clutter. You're much better off going with one or three really generous pots, I'm talking waist-high,' she suggests. 'They can be narrow but if they are waist-high they feel intentional.
'And don't shy away from putting small trees into small spaces. For urban gardens we use a lot of cornus, crab apples and Amelanchier lamarckii.'
'Look at the light in the garden, which is something people can forget,' she advises.
' Focus on where the light falls at different times of day, because that is going to tell you what you can plant, as plants have different light needs.'
The light will also have a bearing on where you will want to sit, she notes.
'Some people like to sit out in the sun in the middle of the day. A lot of people might prefer to sit in the shade. Also think about it at different times of the day. We may want to have somewhere for a morning coffee that's east-facing and a more comfortable area, like a sofa or bench, that is west-facing for evening sun or cocktails.'
Consider how you want to use your space
'How do you want to use your space and what's realistic for your lifestyle?
'It depends on where you are in life. If you've got young kids or pets, you're going to use your garden in quite a different way to if you're older or don't have kids yet, and you're using it to entertain or to actually garden,' she observes.
Make a list about what you want and what you can realistically do with the time available, Wilkinson suggests.
'Be strict with yourself, because if you've got a small space, it's more limited as to what you can do.
'Do one or two things really well. Maybe don't have a dining table outside. If you've got your kitchen right next to the house, you can still eat inside with the doors open.
'Instead, have something comfier, like a sofa or chairs out there, so that you've got more versatile space.'
Look at landscaping
'A mistake a lot of people make is to put the patio right by the house and nothing else, so you've got this hardscape by the house. We try to find at least one extra place in the garden which is a destination away from the house.
'We can all be guilty of sitting near the house, looking at the garden, rather than being in the garden. You could have a seating area at the end of the garden.
'It might just be on gravel, a few slabs or even on grass, but you could be on a bench in the garden that enjoys sun at a different time of day, or tucked away under a really beautiful tree.'
Repeat plant and cluster, always with perennials and also with shrubs, she suggests.
Repeat plants such as clumps of salvias at intervals down a border, spaced between one and two metres apart depending on the size of your border, in clusters of odd numbers (such as three or five), using fewer species but repeating at intervals, to create a fluid scheme.
If you can't move your shed to a spot where it is out of the eyeline of your main windows, put it to the back of the garden and plant hedging in front of it, which creates a fake boundary. You may want to also plant other things in front of the hedge.
Create a spreadsheet or list of plants you like which will suit each season. Don't forget winter structure or autumn colours, she says. You want the garden to be interesting year-round, not just in summer.
How To Design A Garden by Pollyanna Wilkinson is published by DK on February 6, priced £22.