Garden design.

Plan a garden that works: assess your plot, draw it to scale, then design the layout and planting. 5 guides.

Guide categories

Design a garden from scratch
Decide how you want to use the space, get to know its sun, soil and shelter, measure and draw it to scale, then settle the layout before you plan the planting.
Plan a planting border
Match plants to your conditions, set the evergreen structure first, group and layer the rest, keep the colour palette tight, and aim for something good every month.
Sun, shade and aspect
Find which way your garden faces, map where the sun falls through the day, then match each plant to the light that spot actually gets.
Raised bed sizes and materials
Keep beds under 1.5m wide so you can reach the middle, 30cm deep for salads or 45cm+ for most crops, built from sleepers, brick or recycled plastic and filled with a topsoil and compost mix.
Plant for pollinators
Grow single, open flowers across all four seasons, plant them in groups, skip the pesticides, and leave a little mess for shelter.