GET THE FRENCH CLASSICAL LOOK

To create your own French classical garden, stick to the basic elements, no matter the size of space available to you, and you can’t go wrong!

For low hedging plants, choose from lavender, rosemary or box (Buxus). or try Pittosporum ‘Collaig silver’. For a tasty edible, Myrtus ugni (the New Zealand cranberry) doubles as a hedging plant.

If space permits you to plant larger trees, traditional varieties include european beech (why not trade it for one of our native varieties, instead!), linden (Tilia sp.) and hornbeam.

Flowers that bring the French classical look into the garden include white hydrangea and blue and white lavender (fill a Buxus-enclosed bed with them, or grow statement singles in containers). White roses also bring in the look (carpet varieties can be used to fill an entire enclosed bed).

Use paths to define the garden’s shape, and fill them with pea gravel or pale chip (lay down weed mat first as the material needs to remain pristine and weed-free).

Import topiary if you don’t already have it, but don’t overdo it (just one or two pieces is all that is required, and they must be in simple geometric shapes).

If a water feature is doable, keep it subtle in a smaller garden (a three-tiered fountain will only look out of place) and surround it with low hedging or stone chip laid within a geometric border.

As French classical gardens are designed to be viewed

from above, position yours below a deck, French doors or a picture window.

While maintaining the French classical garden can be time consuming in terms of mowing, clipping and edge trimming, remember that it does not require you to attend to such tasks as removing and replanting annuals or tying up plants in unruly perennial borders. Nor will you have to attend to cutting tall hedges. Keep everything small, low, clean-lined and subtle in colour, and you will have created a pretty French statement, whatever the season.