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Telegraph
15-02-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Seven common garden-design mistakes, and how to avoid making them
When Pollyanna Wilkinson made the career switch to garden design eight years ago, she realised there was a lot more to creating a successful garden than simply being greenfingered. 'Training in garden design was such an eye-opener for me. It was the reveal behind the curtain,' says the 39-year-old. 'I'd done gardening, but I had no idea about any of the simple design tricks we were taught.' Wilkinson had previously worked in marketing but was craving a more creative path that would work with having a young family. She has since forged a career as a garden designer with her own studio based in Surrey. As well as over 400,000 followers on Instagram, she has a clutch of RHS medals, including two coveted People's Choice awards from RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022 and RHS Hampton Court Flower show 2019. Part of the joy for her is working on fabulous designs for clients, but she also enjoys bringing garden design to a wider audience via her popular Instagram tutorials, 'so everyone can have a go'. Her new book, How To Design A Garden, was written out of a desire to demystify some of the simple tricks she uses every day. 'They are so easily preventable,' she says. 'I don't want to do myself out of a job, but everyone really can have a beautiful garden.' Here are seven mistakes she spots most frequently, and her advice for what to do instead. 1. Planting the boundaries Narrow borders along fences are a cardinal sin, says Wilkinson. 'I totally understand why people do it. They're usually trying to keep maximum lawn space for kids or dogs, but I think what we've learnt as a studio is that even if your garden is quite compact, it's far better to hand more of it over to planting. You can't necessarily have a football pitch in a small urban garden; it's better to own that.' From a garden design point of view, allowing space for more generous planting makes everything feel far more intentional. Wilkinson suggests playing with shape: 'Borders don't have to be straight lines down the side.' If a client's garden is a classic rectangle with a patio by the house, she will always bring plants along the patio in between the paving and the lawn; that way, 'When you're inside looking out you're looking at plants before you're looking at the lawn. Lawn is a void, as is paving. Bringing plants in is such a simple trick that completely changes the dynamic of the garden by adding mass.' She advocates for borders that are at least 1.5 to 2 metres: 'That's when you can start to get layers of plants. If you've only got 70cm, for example, you're only going to get one row of things, which is really not going to give you depth.' Making the shed a focal point 'This is an absolute classic,' says Wilkinson. 'Most people have their kitchen sink under a window, overlooking the garden. But so often, you're looking out at a shed.' Popping a shed at the end of the garden means the eye travels straight down to it. 'And they are rarely that beautiful,' points out Wilkinson. As a solution, she always tries to tuck the shed to the side of the house if there's space. If there isn't, she will put the shed at the end of the garden and turn it 90 degrees, so the door is not facing the house. 'It means it's taking up less depth, and then we'll put a hedge in front of it.' Wilkinson loves evergreen yew and Portuguese laurel, which provide coverage in all seasons. 'Having a hedge allows you to use the last two metres of your garden as a utility space,' she adds. 'You can place your compost there, or anything ugly you want to hide away.' In front of the hedge she will plant a border: 'So now you've got this lovely focus point at the end of the garden.' 3. Not painting your fences dark Painting sheds and fences dark was one of the first tricks Wilkinson learnt: 'And it blew my mind. I didn't see how it could work.' It works, she says, because pale fences draw the eye, whereas darker fences blend into the background more easily. 'The point is to plant in front of it, so you won't even notice it. It's like a mount on a picture.' She will add wires to a black fence, for instance, so that climbers can grow up it. 'The goal is that you don't even notice that you've got a fence by the end of it.' Wilkinson loves climbing hydrangea for shadier spots. And for the sun, she loves star jasmine. 'I love the scent it pumps out in May and June, and the evergreen leaves. It can be a bit sulky, but once it gets going it's great.' Painting fences black – Railings by Farrow & Ball, which is a very dark blue black, is a favourite shade of hers – is also a cost-efficient way of unifying mismatched fences (although, she caveats, 'If it's not your fence, you do need permission to paint it'). Wilkinson also points out that dark fences are best in urban or suburban spaces: 'In the countryside we try to avoid fences altogether and have more hedging.' 4. Too much paving If you love entertaining and have a large family or group of friends, the temptation is to think you need a large patio. 'The big mistake is that you end up with a great big sea right outside the house that runs the entire width of the house and looks like a furniture showroom,' says Wilkinson. In our desire for versatility, we can end up creating very hard spaces, 'Which is the opposite of what a garden should be.' She encourages clients to divide paving into different 'rooms': a dining area, for example, will be wrapped in a border of plants so that it feels like a room and the plants act as a wall. 'We mix up the materials on the floor as well,' she says. 'We wouldn't just do an enormous sea of large-format paving; we try to delineate using a smaller format as well.' If you already have a large patio you could try lifting some of it, or bring in large planting troughs to divide it up: 'Anything that brings in some verticality,' says Wilkinson. 'We will often bring in oversize pots with trees. That can feel a bit scary, but we're trying to bring in height.' Another no-no is to pave all the way up to the fence: 'We always put planting between paving and a fence,' says Wilkinson. 5. Not paying attention to the light in your garden It is a mistake that we've probably all made at some point: planting plants regardless of your conditions. Wilkinson says that a common mistake is to place plants such as lavender in the shade: 'Those Italian plants that I know a lot of the UK love, like olive trees and lavenders, get put in north-facing gardens, and then we wonder why they look really sad.' She adds: 'I think a lot of us get very excited about sun planting, but shade planting is a bit more subdued and tends to be more greens and whites. It can be easy to ignore the fact you have shade and deep shade and put in roses and peonies, plants you love but that aren't suitable for those light conditions.' Even so, Wilkinson professes to love a north-facing garden: 'It means you can sit in the shade and eat,' she says. 'And you can still have beautiful shade planting. People love hydrangeas, and they are plants that do pretty well in part shade, as do beautiful soft grasses such as Hakonechloa macra.' 6. Thinking too short-term This is something Wilkinson knows about from her own experience as a parent; the tendency to design your garden around kids that grow up quickly. 'We will often get asked for climbing pits, sand pits and trampolines quite near the house in view, because obviously when your kids are small you want to watch them bounce on the trampoline – but it's very short term,' she says. Wilkinson's children are now nine and 10. 'I don't need to supervise them all the time and I'd rather not stare at the trampoline,' she says. Similarly, she encourages her clients to think about how they will use their garden over the next decade or even longer. 'If you've got a two-year-old, then fine. But if it is a forever home, then we always say: 'When they grow out of the climbing frame, what will be there?' Building gardens is expensive, so we want to do it once and do it right.' 7. Haphazard planting Before she trained as a garden designer, Wilkinson would go to the garden centre and buy one thing that was in flower and looked good. Now, she says, 'It's really rare that we'd put one of something in a garden.' Her studio is known for its repeated clusters of perennials. 'A lot of perennials are actually quite narrow and it would look nuts if one was sitting on its own,' she says. However, clustering and repetition are two things that unless you've been taught, you don't do, she says. She advises trying to be restrained on your shopping list. 'It's a bit like going to the supermarket hungry. When you go to the garden centre you need that list. It feels over the top to go and buy 15 Salvia 'Caradonna' but that's sort of how many you need for it. Then you introduce them into the garden and repeat them. 'I don't want to be a killjoy, because gardening is so much about a love of plants,' she adds, 'but if you want it to be designed and thought-through then it's better to sit down and make a list to make sure you've got plants for each season. And if you say, 'I'm just going to have 15 plants that I cluster and repeat around', it looks so much more considered.'
The Independent
06-02-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Independent
How to design your dream garden this spring — and what to avoid
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.
