From Lawn to Bloom: The Making of a Flower Garden No.2
Designing for Joy. The Needs, styles, and plants. I needed to know what I was working with. The ground. The light. The exposure. The soil.
Part Two: Designing for Joy (and Other Realities)
Know Your Patch
Before a single plant went into the ground, I played detective. What was this plot really like? Was it bathed in sun or battered by wind? What was lurking under the turf? There were important questions to answer and clues to be unearthed.
Let There Be Light
First up: sunlight. I used an app called PhotoPills. It’s a photographer’s app really, but the Sun Tracker tool is a garden designer’s goldmine. Hold up your phone, switch on the “augmented reality” and it overlays the path of the sun, any time of year, any year, right over your camera view. Like time-travel for light nerds.
As it happens, from late March to October, the garden gets over six hours of direct sun a day, sometimes far more. That’s “full sun” in plant label speak. Outside those months, the shadows creep in, thanks to the house and the hill, and it becomes light-to-full shade. By then, the garden’s mostly asleep anyway, so no problem.
Facing Facts. The Compass Can’t Always Be Trusted
Next: aspect. Which direction does the garden face? It matters more than you may think. My cottage sits on the northern slopes of the Wessex Downs, technically a north-facing plot. That usually means cool, shady, and damp, right? But this space is very open, especially to the west. So while the compass says one thing, real life says another. The result? A garden that bakes in the afternoon sun. Hot, dry, and because of the slope, extra thirsty.
Wind, Frost, and Microclimates
Exposure was next. Are we wind-whipped? Frost-prone? Do we get blasted by the kind of gales that flatten those treasured delphiniums before breakfast?
Actually… not really. There’s a mature hedgerow to the north and east, the house shelters the south, and neighbouring trees help diffuse any western gusts. Despite being on the north side of a hill, we aren’t in a frost pocket either. In fact, the cold air drains downhill, away from us. It gets chilly, sure, but not Arctic. And because it stays shaded all winter, we avoid the dreaded freeze-thaw cycle that kills so many plants, just as they’re coming into growth.
Soil Secrets
Then I turned my attention to the soil. Or, more accurately, I tried to. It was like digging through concrete. Years of lifeless turf sat on top of hard, stony compacted ground. In some spots, I had to use a wrecking bar just to get in.
Across the space, soil depth varied, but on average there’s about 15–20cm of crumbly, reasonably decent topsoil. More than likely imported when the lawn was laid. Beneath that, a concrete-like layer. Then a sticky grey clay. Alkali. And finally, 50cm down, a dense chalky base.
Oh, and the pH? Strongly alkaline. 8.5+. Off the scale. Not exactly rhododendron country.
Drainage was a mixed bag. Some holes drained in minutes, others took a day. In some cases, water flowed laterally rather than down, which is actually a rather good thing for shallow-rooted herbaceous perennials. Still, there was the risk of waterlogging in heavy winters, especially where that dense clay sat like a soggy saucer.
But I wasn’t daunted. Not really. I’d seen worse. London Clay for starters! And armed with that knowledge, sun, wind, soil, slope, I could start to plan the garden around it. Lean into the heat. Embrace the dry. And choose plants that would thrive, not sulk.
And that, quite literally, set the groundwork for everything to come.
Shaping the Dream (a.k.a. The Design Dilemma)
Right. We’ve had the dream, we’ve tested the soil, we’ve mapped the sun. Now I needed a plan. Time to sharpen the pencils, unpack the tracing paper, and make a very large pot of tea. Possibly with biscuits (definitely with biscuits).
The first step was to get the site measured properly. I bought a surveyor’s tape measure, the kind you peg in the ground and walk off heroically with, looking like you know exactly what you're doing. I would have worn a hi-vis jacket if I had one, I was that professional.
From fence post to shed, from terrace wall to border edge, I triangulated everything until I had the full layout. Turns out the garden is a wonky trapezoid, widest at the top, narrowest at the bottom, about 16 metres long, covering roughly 160 square metres (190 square yards) in total.
Then came the sketches. I drew curved borders, sweeping borders, serpentine borders. Formal square divisions, triangles, intersecting circles, meandering paths. Each version lasted about five minutes before getting binned. Or chewed by the dog. Or both.
I took a break. Then I remembered something important.
I’m not a garden designer. I’m just a gardener. One who wants to be surrounded by beauty, not diagrams or cleverness. One who is happy to evolve the space over time, not lock it in stasis. So I stopped overthinking and went back to basics.
What do we actually need from this space?
Needs, Wants, and a Dash of Romance
First and foremost, I needed a path to the potting shed. Non-negotiable. It’s also the route to the bottom gate and where the delivery driver dumps all the compost and aggregates, so it was going to see plenty of wheelbarrow traffic. The path needed to be direct.
Then, places to sit. I wanted one seat in the sun, one in the shade, and maybe one tucked away for Jacq, who prefers her tea with peace and quiet. And somewhere for Berkeley to lounge, preferably in the shade, just cool enough for a belly-flop. Although the big furry idiot does like to bake in the sun until he’s basically on fire.
We needed flowers for scent, for cutting, for sheer joy. But we didn’t need a fire-pit, an outdoor kitchen, or sunken seating (lovely as they are) because the Terrace already had all that. This garden was meant to be for growing and simply being.
As for style? Well, that was trickier. I love the quaint, higgledy-piggledy charm of cottage gardens. I swoon over formal topiary and symmetry. I adore the softness and romance of naturalistic planting and billowing, blousy borders. In short: I was torn in all directions and worked myself into a right old tizzy. If I were planning an outfit, it would be the sartorial nightmare of nightmares.
So I took the most sensible step available. I visited other gardens.
Stealing Like a Gardener
Magazines and social media are fine. But for true inspiration, nothing beats standing in a real garden, watching the light, feeling the space, smelling the air, listening to the bees and birdsong.
At Waterperry, I fell in love with their long herbaceous border: the towering delphiniums, the repetition, the rhythm, the sheer mass of colour. Hidcote’s vistas and fiery Red Border, Kiftsgate’s romantic air… At Seend’s (NGS open gardens), it was the roses that seized my senses and stole my heart. My heart said “yes” before my brain caught up and realised my nose had completely lost the plot.
I wanted all of it. So I stopped trying to pick a ready-packaged, pigeon-holed style and just decided to blend them. Romantic planting. Cottage plants. Clipped evergreens. A Mediterranean feel with a splash of English opulence. Why not?
It’s my garden.
The style police can file their complaint. I’ll be in the garden, not listening.
There’s no rule that says your garden style is set in stone, or stuck in time. That would be weird. It should grow and shift alongside you. As you gain confidence, experience, and spend more time in other people’s gardens (or nosing over their fences), your own space will evolve too. After all, a garden’s a living thing, not a museum piece.
The Big Idea
Back to the dining table aka drawing board. This time, the design was simple.
A wide, straight path down the centre to the shed. Huge borders either side. Benches tucked into the corners. And plants, masses of them, to wrap around you as you walk. Like wading through a radiant field of colour and perfume.
At the bottom of the garden, where it narrows and feels a bit tight, I used trees and tall shrubs to stretch the space. It’s a little optical trick (thank you, Adam Frost) and it works beautifully. The garden now feels broader, more inviting, like it goes on just a little longer than it actually does.
Once the design clicked, everything else followed.
We had the layout. We had the sun. We had the soil (sort of). And most importantly… we had a dream to bring to life. Next up — how do you fill a garden with hundreds of plants without spending a fortune? Stick around for Part Three!