Alan Titchmarsh A Fine Line
You don’t need a stately pile for a formal garden – create an orderly haven at home with topiary, geometric borders and clean-cut lines, says Alan
Enjoying the orderliness of a formal garden doesn’t have to mean you’re the sort of person who files their books in alphabetical order! I know people often think of it as the ‘statues, symmetry and straight lines’ school of gardening, but it’s not just for stately homes.
Out front
It can be a practical proposition for tiny front gardens or enclosed town courtyards, and it’s the natural choice to partner the frontage of a Georgian house. Forget about recreating a natural landscape – a formal plot is more like an extension of the surrounding architecture. And for a back garden big enough to create a series of “garden rooms”, a formal area makes a smashing contrast to natural, wild or woodland features.
In my last garden, I was pleased with my small, formal patch, which stood on the only level area, making a visual ‘pause’ between two sloping informal areas. You walked from natural and meandering to straight lines and back again in a few strides, with no solid barrier separating the styles.
My formal area started out as a rose garden with dwarf box hedges lining the paths, until I turned it into a garden providing cut flowers for the house. A formal garden is brilliant for growing anything you need to pick or work on regularly, as it’s well provided with paths. That’s why a lot of herb gardens are designed around a rectangular or circular shape with plenty of gravel or paving.
Potting and planning
It starts with the design. All you need is a pencil, ruler and graph paper. Choose a basic geometrical shape
– a square, circle or rectangle – then divide it up into smaller bits. A circle can be split into segments like an orange or concentric rings like a dart board, with a round central feature – a sundial, bird bath or plant container. A square can be divided into four using two paths that meet at right angles in the middle, or a square within a square with borders around the outside and a flower bed or lily pond
in the centre with paths between them. A rectangular plot can be turned into a floral walk, with a path and beds either side.
laying it out
Once you’ve planned it, lay your paths and outline them in dwarf hedging. Next, you’ll need some formal ingredients to go into the beds. For a traditional look, go for herbs, roses or a mix of herbaceous perennials. Dahlias look stunning planted in a double border, with tall varieties at the back and shorter ones at the front. You could use colourful varieties of vegetables planted in geometric blocks.
Otherwise, try Victorianstyle carpet bedding, using concentric rings of short, contrasting colours and shapes with a group of taller plants in the centre. You can also have modern formal – a carpet of short-flowering perennials with giant ball-headed alliums standing out, confined in geometrical beds in a symmetrical paved garden.
the right mix
It’s not compulsory to have a totally formal garden. A wild-flower lawn looks great with a topiary hen tucked away in a corner. A haphazard cottage garden can be pulled together by a neatly clipped hedge cut into a series of stepped blocks. A small, gravelled-over front garden comes to life with a yew peacock, and a modern front door looks smart with a standard bay or spiral-trained box bush alongside. And try a collection of potted topiary plants on a modern patio.