Garden Style

If you are starting gardening, or want to learn more about it, then it might be worth considering various gardening styles, to see which one appeals to you. A garden tends to reflect its gardener. But you don't have to make a firm choice straight away. If you learn to love gardening, you will probably change your mind about what you want in your garden, or how you prefer to maintain it. Still, have a think now, and use your thoughts to get started.

One common initial reaction is "I have this patch of ground out back, and I don't know what to do with it!" I think that this is a good starting point (it was mine...) Read through the rest of this page and perhaps you might get some ideas.

I must make it clear right away that I don't think one style is better than another. I have my own ideas about what I like to do, but I admire many gardens which are completely different to mine, and even those I dislike are perfectly valid, if their own gardeners like them. That's the point. You can always tell a loved garden, I think, even if the gardener insists that it's a mess and they want to do this or that to it! So while I may sound biased in the ideas below (it's hard not to be), please take all my ideas with a pinch of salt!

One starting place is - what do you want from your garden? Do you want to admire it? Sit out in it? Commune with nature? Look at wild life? Use it to eat in? Have a blaze of colour? Make it look good all year? Show it off to other people? Invoke memories and nostalgia? Have a particular plant you like? Make it look as good as this garden you saw? Or do you use want to use its produce - grow your own vegetables, or fruit, or herbs, or flowers for the house? Or do you want somewhere for your children to play? Or your pets? These aren't either/or choices, but things to think about. I hope that bunch of questions (and I am sure that there are many more) might make you think "Oh yes, I'd like that..." about at least one or two things.

There is also the character of the gardener. Some gardens are very strictly controlled. They may be beautiful imitations of nature, but rigidly controlled by the gardener, with not a leaf out of place. Or they may be cleared down every year, and regrown with bedding plants, then rigorously weeded. Or - quite frankly - they may be completely paved over, either with no plants at all, or one specimen bush or tree in the middle. This is not my style of gardening! If there is only a little in a garden, then it risks looking dull (although I have seen beautiful minimalist gardens). Then the more you put in, the harder work complete control involves. The "imitation of nature" people not only have to work hard to imitate nature, they also have to be knowledgeable to make it work.

On the other hand, a gardener can do nothing to the garden, or very little, and just let things grow as they want. Again, this requires a certain amount of knowledge to make it work. Yes - there are patches of beautiful wild flowers in the countryside. But they depend on soil type and climate and many other things. Some bits of countryside look very ugly. If you do nothing to your garden, you will probably get scrub. Or woodland. And not nice trees!

Gardeners tend to be between these two extremes, of course. My own feeling is that if Nature is doing a good job, I'm not going to step in and say it's wrong! On the other hand, if I don't like it - up it comes and on the compost heap! But growing vegetables and fruit does require a certain amount of control to actually get a crop, and if I plant some flowers, I would prefer for them to come up and flower. So I do need to look after the garden to achieve this.

I have hinted at another character of the gardener - how much work do you want to do? Some gardening can be physical work, some just pottering around, but taking time. Or you can organise things so there isn't much to do, or perhaps a simple regular task like cutting the grass.

Another garden characteristic is how much is in it. There are minimalist gardens, with very little, and then there are cluttered gardens. My garden is definitely at the cluttered end of the spectrum. I keep buying new plants and thinking "I'm sure I can fit that in somewhere."

There is also how interested you are in what makes things grow. With your own garden, you can try things out, see if gardening advice you are given actually works! Probably to start with, this won't be a strong aspect of your gardening. But if you get interested, you will note more and more, and find out what matters in your garden (as opposed to another else's). Eventually you'll find yourself giving advice to other people!

There are specific types of gardens:

Flower garden: Flowers may last from one year to another (perennial), or may be replaced each year (annual). There may be a lawn (or not!) There may be paths. The garden is probably supposed to look good. On the whole, you probably don't need to feed the plants apart from a few greedy plants such as roses. You probably need to do some weeding to make sure that your flowers don't get smothered, but many flowers can hold their own! You might consider smell, as well. You might want to show it to other people, and end up saying "Oh, it looked much better last week!"

Vegetable garden: Vegetables are grown as annuals. The whole garden may be dug over in the winter, to remove weeds and any trodden paths. You may need to feed the plants with fertiliser and/or compost. The garden must be well weeded to allow the vegetables to grow their best to get a good crop. You may need to water as well in dry weather. Crops vary in amount - see what works in your garden! And what you like to eat - very important! About half my garden grows vegetables.

Fruit: These can be trees (apples, pears, etc), bushes (raspberries, currants, gooseberries), or plants (rhubarb, strawberries). They are all perennials. The trees can be put into flower gardens, as they have attractive blossom, and the fruit on the tree looks interesting as well. Since they are cropping, they would welcome feeding. If you get a fruit tree or other plant to work, then you can have good crops (although it may vary from one year to another). On the other hand, birds and squirrels may eat the lot! Or the plant just not grow, or not fruit. But I enjoy my fruit!

Herbs: These are usually perennial (with some exceptions such as basil, which isn't hardy so doesn't survive a winter). Perennial herbs are ever-green, and pretty tough. They don't need watering. You can use them in cooking, of course, but somehow I forget to... But the leaves are scented if you bruise them, and bees and other insects like the flowers' nectar. And anyway, the idea of a herb garden is a nice one, so I grow herbs!

Trees and bushes: These don't require much looking after, and give a garden some height, which can improve its look, and shade for hot weather. They can be part of the flower garden, of course. I think that their main problem is that they continue to grow, both higher and wider. People enjoy buying them as they provide an "instant" garden. Then next year, they are elbowing other plants out of the way, and after a few years they can take the garden over. Remember what happens under the soil as well - the roots can grow sideways and steal nourishment from other plants, or even undermine your house foundations.. Still, I like a couple of trees in my garden, and I definitely like fruit trees!

Wild flowers: Some people assume that wild flowers are easy. After all, they grow in the countryside by themselves, don't they! But different flowers require different soils, and in your garden, they may have to compete with your own garden's weeds which are the wrong type of wild flower, and almost certainly more vigorous. So if you sow wild flowers, you may have to weed them, which sounds a little incongruous... However, you might find flowers which seed themselves freely (usually in the vegetable bed! But you can always transplant them.) You might have sown them originally, or planted them, or they may have arrived of their own accord. And now they are settled, a part of your garden, and popping up all over the place every year. That is the type of "wild" flower that I enjoy. Less work, too.

Wild life: You can't guarantee badgers and foxes and hedgehogs! But if you are content with butterflies and bees and hoverflies, then there are things you can do to encourage them. Don't use pesticides or herbicides or fungicides. Plant or sow flowers with good nectar, and different flowers which blossom at different times of the year, and native species, or old-fashioned garden plants. The insects will come! And using compost in the vegetable beds will encourage the worms, which you might not like, but will make the soil better. Insects and other small wild life provides food for birds as well.