HOW TO GROW THE GARDEN OF YOUR DREAMS

Now is the perfect time to transform your patch into a slice of paradise, so let Monty Don share his personal insights and tips to show you...

We all want a garden that is beautiful and uplifting, somewhere we can relax and escape the pressures of modern life. But what makes it beautiful to you is as personal as the clothes you wear.

I cannot tell you what your particular patch ought to be like, but I can guide and steer you to help you achieve the garden of your dreams. And spring is the very best time to start working on it. This guide is not going to perform miracles, but it is packed full of hints, tips, advice and inspiration based on my own experiences and passion for gardening...

MAKE YOUR BORDERS A RIOT OF COLOUR

Surely every gardener wants to have borders packed with colour. What those colours are and how they relate to each other is a personal choice, but there are ways of managing them and making the most of whatever you choose.

Now that the soil is warming up, it is the perfect time to reassess existing borders and move plants around, introduce new ones and sow seed for colour later on in the summer. But before you get your hands dirty, the first thing to do is to edit your expectations. Work out what you really want.

This will be partly down to aesthetics. I have an area of the garden where the predominant colours are soft yellows and blues with a little white thrown in, and reds are absolutely banned. Some colours are lovely in themselves but clash horribly with others, so both are diminished. I love all the different pinks we have in our Cottage Garden but would never introduce orange flowers alongside them, while in our Jewel Garden we only use intense, rich colours, and here orange works really well with deep purples. Mix and match but do so carefully.

Colours also dictate your moods and emotions, so work out if you want to be calmed down or spiced up – and plant accordingly. Also consider the mundane practicalities that will affect your choices. Do you spend time in the garden in the morning or the evening? Do you like to eat outside or to sit and have a quiet moment before going to work? Do you have small children or are there limitations to your mobility?

Finally you must work with nature rather than fight it. So what is your soil like? What is already growing well in the gardens around you? When, where and how much do you get the sun?

Take the time to answer all these questions and you are well equipped to customise and finetune your borders so that you gain maximum pleasure from them.

The next thing to do is to take stock of the size of your flower borders. To get a really good display you need space. If your borders are narrow strips along the fence with a lawn in the centre of the garden, you need to ask yourself what you want. Is the lawn more important than the beauty of a colourful border? If you think you could give up some lawn space to extend your borders, now is the moment to do so. Lift the turf and dig over the soil, adding some compost or soil conditioner, and you will hugely improve your floral display.

Now think about the structure of the border. For the best effect, you will need plants of varying heights, from climbers or even small trees down to plants creeping along the ground, with all points in between. You can have the tallest plants at the back and the smallest at the front but it is often better to mix it up and have a few taller plants in the middle or even at the front of the border so you have to look through and round them. I like to use plants like cardoons, wigwams of sweet peas and clematis, and shrubs like lilac, buddleia and sambucus in my borders to add height and drama.

Do not neglect the importance of green foliage. To make any colour sing, be it the palest of pastels or a bright blue, you need to set it among plenty of green foliage – perhaps with some purple leaves too. There are a hundred shades of green and these subtle variations can be used in your garden to huge effect.

Border grasses such as miscanthus, deschampsia or stipa add structure, movement and wonderful autumnal and even winter colours, and can then be cut back

hard in spring to allow the emerging bulbs and early flowering perennials such as euphorbia, pulmonaria, primroses and hellebores to take centre stage. But know your soil and conditions because stipa, for example, hates cold, wet conditions whereas miscanthus will grow almost anywhere. The old mantra ‘right plant, right place’ is always the best advice.

You can add summer bulbs to the border by planting now. Lilies, gladioli, dahlias and crocosmia add a superb depth and range, and plan in early autumn to plant spring bulbs such as alliums, tulips, irises orn a rcissi to start the seasonal floral display going with a bang.

Finally do not waste time or money feeding plants in a border and, once every plant has had a generous soak after planting, I never water them again. Feed the soil, not the plant. So I mulch the

soil deeply with highquality organic matter. If you have very l ight soil or heavy clay, a mulch 5-10cm thick of mushroom c om p ost, well-rotted manure or garden compost will improve the soil structu r ea nd fertility while suppr essi ng weeds and retaining moisture. By not watering, plant roots have to delve deeper to find the water they need and thus become stronger and more resilient in the face of drought. This means that if we do get a hot summer, your borders will still look good and vibrant in the hottest, driest weather.

BRILLIANT TIPS FOR BEAUTIFUL BOUNDARIES

A garden’s hedges, trees, shrubs, walls, fences, paths and layout are its architecture, the basis upon which to create beautiful decoration in summer.inprincipleidonotwanttosee my neighbours from my garden and I do not want them to see me. That may not always be possible, but every garden must have some privacy if you are to enjoy it fully in a truly relaxed manner. So a fence, wall or hedge is essential around the boundary. But to create a sense of structure, shape, drama and privacy, anything other than a very small garden is improved by having barriers dividing it up as well as screening it.

Hedges do this job very well and have one huge advantage over a manmade, solid structure because they are extremely important for wildlife. Birds nest in them, insects love them, small mammals use them as cover along the base and it has been shown that they are essential for bats as a kind of road map that they fly along. However, I also use woven hurdle fences and brick and stone walls, and by using walls and fences as supports for plants you can encourage a beneficial series of habitats for wildlife.

GIVE THINGS A LIFT WITH FLAMBOYANT FENCING

As many of us discovered recently, fences are the first thing to be blown down or damaged in a storm. Ideally, a windbreak should reduce the flow of air, rather than simply deflect it. The best barriers are therefore woven hurdles, made from hazel or willow. These are light, easy to put up and, I think, look terrific in any garden. Larch lap panels, which are made from overlapping, thinly sawn wooden slats, are the most common fencing and are cheap, but they can be made to look a lot better by nailing trellis to each panel, which will also help any climbing plant to smother them. Close-board fencing panels look better and are stronger. They are made from vertical boards nailed to supporting cross-rails.

Whichever fencing you choose, it will only be as strong as the supporting posts. Hurdles are normally fixed to round posts hammered into the soil, but all other fencing has to be fixed to posts set in concrete to hold them firm and straight.

If you wish to increase your privacy but do not want to offend neighbours, try putting up a trellis extension to the existing fence or wall – climbing plants can quickly cover the trellis to make a solid barrier. Fences can be greatly improved and the garden refreshed with a lick of paint. Black or grey fences are a good backdrop for plants, and green wraps a layer of relaxation around the garden.

One final note: be sure to leave a hole or two at the base of any fence so hedgehogs can get in and out.

To make any colour of bloom sing, set it among green foliage, says Monty

Monty in his garden with dogs Patti and Nell. Left: grasses like feathery stipa add structure and movement