Design Tips: Borrowed Landscapes Blog 4 - philipbarnesgardendesign.com

When thinking about creating or designing a new garden take time to consider the surrounding landscape. It is all too tempting to rush in and start creating your dream garden, taking a pause will lead to a much better garden and therefore you are likely to be more satisfied with the outcome.

Look at the surrounding landscape and see which parts you can borrow into your new design, make a frame with simple bamboo canes and hold them up from view points around the garden. What do you see, are you seeing your garden blend effortlessly into the landscape beyond.

Look at the types of materials, the stone, the structures being used beyond your garden, wooden fences or gates, what can you borrow and set within your own garden design which will blend and enhance the design. The garden will then naturally fit within its setting and have a sense of belonging. Also consider what plants are thriving and see if you can plant drifts of these in your new garden reaching out to the borrowed landscape beyond.

In this blog I will look at three great examples of borrowing the landscape, the first the garden, Jardin La Mothe in the Aveyron region in SW France, uses the landscape beyond at every corner. The opening picture illustrates how you can be quirky with your design, giving a glimpse of the landscape beyond whilst capturing the blue of the pool in the sunlight. The eye is drawn out the landscape and then back to the garden, it creates a sense of intrigue.

This second photo demonstrates how great structural planting leads the eye into the landscape, there is no sense of boundaries, it gives the impression that the garden is huge and in fact it is around 3 acres in total.

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In my second example, Gravetye Manor in Sussex created by William Robinson, the garden blends effortlessly with the surrounding meadows, again giving the sense of belonging and making the garden much more interesting and spacious.

The borders are carefully designed so that they curve and snake down to the meadow beyond. The planting emulates that of the meadow beyond yet is more intense leading to softer hues in the landscape beyond.

The careful design of these gardens comes from spending time in them before you set out the design. Sit in your new garden in all parts of the

garden and get a sense of how it feels and how you might want to extend your sightline so that the garden becomes more interesting.

In the final example I am using Delos, the new garden at Sissinghurst designed by Dan Pearson.

Dan carefully considered how he could use the landscape beyond and borrow it as part of the design. In this example Dan imagined the borrowed landscape to be the Agean Sea, looking out from the Mediterranean Garden. He frames the sea by carefully using the young Oak trees in the near distance, with some imagination it does feel like the sea is within reach! This shot from the Tower clearly shoes the sight line from the garden and the borrowed landscape beyond.

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To conclude, here are three essential takeaways when it comes to borrowed landscapes:

Take time to understand your garden in situ, sit in all parts of the garden and get a sense of how it feels. In each, look beyond the garden, what do you see, are there any opportunities to borrow the landscape.

In order for the garden to be set within a sense of place use materials from beyond your boundary, stone, wooden gates, fence posts and bring them into the garden as appropriate. Look at the plants growing beyond the garden and bring them into you new planting schemes.

Make a 1m frame from bamboo canes and hold it up from different parts of the garden. Identify parts of the landscape beyond which fit naturally with your garden and new design and start thinking about structural planting to frame this new view.

If you are interested in getting in touch to talk more about landscapes, you can find me here: www.philipbarnesgardendesign.com