Whether you’ve got a huge garden or a small balcony, these tips from trusted gardening expert Cliff Woolley at CW Landscapes (a leading landscaper for housebuilder Crest Nicholson South since 1998), will help you create an outdoor space that’s beautiful and practical.
Tip 1.
Check your garden conditions to understand what you can and can’t achieve without overcomplicating your garden space. This will help identify what to choose from, as it will allow you to consider what you want to view from inside when looking out. It will also highlight any hot spots for patio or decking that could be incorporated into your garden design.
Tip 2.
Create a smooth finish and provide easy maintenance for your lawn, try to ensure two thirds of the garden can be turfed with slow curved edges. This will allow for easy mowing throughout the year and ensure that when spring arrives your lawn remains in a good, manageable condition after the cold winter months.
Tip 3.
According to the experts at thelocaltreeexpert.com, when selecting trees and shrubs, do not select all colourful shrubs as these will only last for a short period. A good place to start is by googling “shrubs” to find those that have seasonal colour over a 12-month period for longer durability. This was a key consideration whilst landscaping the green areas and gardens at Tall Trees at Bolnore Village, where we deliberately selected easy manageable evergreen plants. This included the Aucuba golden king, Viburnham tinus, Senecio greyi, Cornus midwinter fire, Cistus corbanensis, which all retain their beauty year-round as we were looking to create 12-months of colour.
Tip 4.
For smaller gardens, we would recommend using more herbaceous plants with seasonal colour and those that are 80% evergreen to ensure your garden keeps its colour all year round. These plants will only need dead-heading, rather than pruning, which makes them slightly less high-maintenance than shrubbery.
Tip 5.
Try to maintain your garden little and often to keep everything in a manageable condition. Try mowing the lawn once a week and hoeing through borders every 14 days to stop the germination of weeds. This means no bending down to pick out weeds and produces a well-maintained garden to be proud of and impress your neighbours and guests.
