GROUND RULES FOR A GREAT GARDEN

Drawing on a lifetime’s experience, Monty Don shows you how to create your personal paradise from scratch in his new book

Over the years I’ve made quite a few gardens, including three large ones , f rom ba r e ground. So the advice I’m about to give you is a distillation of the principles that seem to me really important behind creating a beautiful garden. Some may seem rather remote from conventional horticulture, but every gardener knows that there is so much more to a lovely garden than gardening!

I realise that tackling a new plot or even just redesigning an existing one can be very daunting. It’s not so much the physical labour involved or the lack of knowledge that seems necessary to create even a workaday garden but the seemingly endless range of choices involved. The secret is to reduce the options. The best way to do this is by sorting through what you want from your garden, finding out what will easily grow in your particular location, and what resources of time, money and labour you are prepared to expend.

I think there are two basic principles, whether you are starting from scratch with a completely bare plot or changing an existing one. The first is to follow your dream however elaborate or unlikely it might seem. It is with gardens as with life – you always regret what you did not do more than the mistakes that you made. Give it a go and if it doesn’t end up entirely as planned then it will at least be interesting and you’ll learn from it.

The second principle is to keep it simple and personal. This might seem at odds with the ambition of your dreams but the wildest horticultural fantasy has much more chance of becoming reality if it’s underpinned by a clear plan.

Whatever kind of garden you want to create, now is the perfect time to begin. The soil is still warm but growth has slowed right down so the next month or two is the ideal time to plant structures such as trees, hedges and shrubs. There’s no hurry and you have five or six months in which to plan, prepare, work on hard landscaping and plant your structure before the garden really starts to take off next spring.

So bearing all that in mind, here are my top tips for a fabulous garden:

Be patient. For three years few people will see what you’re doing – it will all be in your mind’s eye. Then

the garden will reveal its true colours and after five years it will be looking like a youthful version of itself. At seven years many will not be able to age it at all and by 12 years everything save the trees will look mature.

Only grow what you want to grow. There’s a culture of selecting plants and

then working out ways of growing or raising them. Turn this on its head. Find out what will thrive in your garden then make the very best that you can from this. If you’re not sure then see what’s growing well in your neighbours’ gardens as a guide. Do not be aspirational. Copy, steal ideas, imitate and derive as much as you like but only to create something that is unique and imbued with its own sense of place. And remember that beauty is essential. So add nothing ugly and don’t accept any existing ugliness as fixed.

Two plants are usually more interesting than one. How plants interact and complement each other is what makes a garden rather than a collection of botanical specimens.

Don’t expect your garden to do everything all the time. Relish the different corners and sections as they come and go.

Get your structure in early. A good and interesting garden can be created simply by planting hedges interspaced with grass. Then, when you’re ready, you can lift the turf as and when you require to create your borders. Plant hedges and trees when they are still very small. They will grow much faster and better for it, they are much cheaper when small and they will quickly catch up and overtake plants twice their size.

Do not fight lines of desire. People will always take the easiest and most direct route even if it means stepping over the corner of a border or through a gap in a young hedge. Cater for this. Make utilitarian paths – to the compost heap, tool shed, greenhouse, front gate – that are straight and easy for wheelbarrows and muddy feet. If you want to encourage a more meandering route then have curving paths and close off the sight line to where they are going so you have to follow the set path to find out. Block off any possible short cuts.

Let your garden be charming. This is such an important aspect. Only you can be the judge of this so look for and relish its charm.

Sit in the sun. If your garden is big enough, have a seat in the sun for all occasions – a cup of coffee before work, relaxing at midday, enjoying the last lovely light of evening.

Make somewhere private. You cannot properly relax if you feel overlooked or watched. It might only be big enough for a single seat but create somewhere that is truly private where you can go and metaphorically close the garden door behind you.

The smaller the space the more you should fill it. Make borders wide and paths narrow. It’s a common mistake to make a thin strip of border around the edge of a small garden as it only makes everything look meaner and pinched. A long, thin garden can be divided at least once by a wall, hedge or fence accompanied by just a narrow path and perhaps a gate. It will immediately make the garden seem bigger.

The basic point of reference in a garden is the human body. You should always refer back to this. So 2m is a good height for a dividing hedge; an arm’s stretch of 1.2m is good for a low hedge; a pace of 1m is right for a narrow path; and a pace and a half, or 1.5m, is wide enough for two people to walk comfortably side by side.

Neaten the verticals. The eye always runs to the edge of things so keep these neat – entrances, exits, edges, openings – and the unruliness contained by them is enhanced and forgiven.

Very few gardens are big enough to hold half the plants we’d like to grow and most of us have to dramatically limit our choice and planting style. Make a virtue of this. Edit hard then edit again so everything in your garden feels essential.

Every garden must have its own personality, its own atmosphere and a real sense of not being anywhere else in the world. So always look to local materials – stone, wood, plants – first.

There’s a temptation to do what you

think you ought to do or what you think others might enjoy. But gardens have to come from the heart or else they’ll never reach the head. You have to please yourself first or else you run the risk of pleasing nobody.

Adapted from Down To Earth: Gardening Wisdom by Monty Don, published by DK, £ 17.99. To order a copy for £14.39, call 0844 571 0640 or visit mailbookshop.co.uk, p&p is free on orders over £15. Offer valid until 28 October.

A pond surrounded by lush cover is ideal for wildlife