Summary: In this blog I cover some of the most influential and adaptable garden design trends. I think it's important to understand the basis of the trend and how you can interpret it into a domestic garden setting. I have purposefully excluded trends for industrial brown-field sites and brutalist modern concepts as I think they are less likely to be interpreted in a domestic setting. This blog covers 7 key trends and how they have artfully evolved more traditional styles:
Nature first wildlife garden
Modern bio-diverse cottage garden
Woodland edge garden
Minimalist contemporary garden
Painterly Mediterranean dry garden
Contemporary semi-formal structured garden
Tropical paradise garden
The seven trends in detail.
1. Nature first wildlife garden
What this trend is: A mosaic in a wider network of green spaces, nature reserves and the countryside, your garden welcomes all wildlife with eco conscious considerations under the 'Rewilding' banner. A place for refuge for creatures great and small, traditional boundaries are replaced with green hedges to allow nature free access. Heavily scented plants provide night time nectar for moths. A rainwater fed pond creates habitat for newts, frogs and dragon flies. Fruit trees bring blossom and food for wildlife. A lawn is left uncut for nettles, cow parsley and buttercup to thrive. Pathways are simply well-trodden routes of necessity. A secluded bench seat is your simple space to sit and wonder at the amazing power nature has to help our planet rejuvenate. Nothing is enriched or treated as nature does what it does best left untouched and unconstrained.
How to achieve it at home: Any domestic garden can achieve this. It's a widely available concept which simply needs owners to invest the time in understanding wilding principles in their garden - replacing the traditional concept of a manicured British garden with a land that time forgot. Coordination with neighbouring spaces also add scale to this concept and creates natural corridors for wildlife to travel through.
For more aesthetically pleasing installations of this concept, removal of certain species and those which cannot survive unaided means you can replace them with more adaptive trees able to cope with our modern climate is a good start. Planting an avenue of fruit trees in a lawn with a winding natural pathway through it and leaving the grass uncut most of the year will improve bio-diversity. This can be curated initially for a more natural and suitable look - for example trees must be planted in well considered spots, natural ponds taking rain water from guttering need to be 5 metres from a house and 2 metres from a boundary. You can't install multiple bee hives in a small garden as they become unhappy in close proximity to one another.
There are still considerations to ensure your garden is not going to create problems down the line, especially if you want to sell your property in the future and what you have built doesn't add to the overall attractiveness of your overall property. Invasive species like Elder and bramble still need management in a small domestic garden - not everyone has sheep or cattle to control them, so you will have to do the work instead.
2. Modern bio-diverse cottage garden
What this trend is: A charming drought resistant and bio-diverse jumble of frothy herbaceous and edible borders, heady scent and antique colours bursting with interest. Filled with interspersed and natural planting, there is plenty to see, do and eat. Plants seed themselves in pathways and you let nature follow a gentle less manicured look. Cut material is left in carefully placed piles for insects to live in. There are secluded patios, winding pathways and luscious lawns punctuated with bulbs and perennials to compliment the overall dreamy aesthetic.
How to achieve it at home: Suitable for any domestic setting and easily created. A design for careful hard landscaping placement and enough space for wide, yet deep, borders is essential to create this overall look. This concept is suited for medium to large gardens due to the need for border size. If you forgo a lawn you will have more space for planted borders and hard landscaping, which in general is a more modern take on the traditional cottage garden. Collecting local seed heads and scattering them, alongside interspersed edibles, can add a wilder more bio-diverse element as this concept has progressed from manicured to a more natural gardening style. You will need to understand companion planting techniques and steer towards dry garden planting for a more sustainable take on this trend.
3. Woodland edge garden
What this trend is - A reflection of heatwave summers and our need to keep delicate skin protected. This shady and secret garden is ideal for moisture retentive, simple planting. Trees, natural hedges and shrubs enclose the garden into a secret haven. There are numerous little seating areas to contemplate and winding pathways to meander. Shade is dappled and occasionally deep, punctuated with sun pockets. When cut, coppice wood brings fresh sunlight to spaces and hand carved standing deadwood is left for insects enjoy as totem pole homes. You can hear water trickling and see undulating green planting under trees with dainty woodland flowers and plenty of evergreens to provide all year round interest. There is no lawn, this garden is a calm sea of flowing green and delicate leaf or petal structures.
How to achieve it at home - Relevant of you are able to add trees and large multi-stem shrubs across your garden. Close proximity to built structures will cause expensive subsidence problems at a later date. Engaging with a garden designer to ensure your location is appropriate so the concept is implemented professionally would be wise. If you already have a woodland garden, this concept can be challenging to enhance yourself as dry ground congested with tree roots on a slope is exhausting to add pathways and underplanting. Professional help to get the bones added, so you can refine around the edges, would be wise. This is however an important trend which reduces the need for watering, provides essential shade for people in hot summers and tree exchange of carbon dioxide for oxygen.
4. Minimalist contemporary garden
What this trend is - Paired back chic with an architects eye for detail and clean simple lines. Limited materials with a cohesive colour palette work alongside subtle features and artful lighting. Design is pared down with an honest use of materials carefully deployed for subtle impact. Curated viewpoints are situated amongst contemporary landscaping and block planting without decorative embellishment. With a nod to mid century, this garden is a modernists paradise.
How to achieve it at home - This can be applied to any size garden, but is quite successful in small to medium gardens. A professional garden designer will be essential to recommend materials, structure and form principals, along with furniture and planting to deliver a cohesive design. Paring back a garden is much harder than adding complexity, so be sure you know what practical aspects you need like seating and dining areas to inform the design phase. The build will take exacting landscaping skills so this trend is not for most DIY gardeners to successfully implement solo. Typically low maintenance by comparison to more detailed garden styles, this will require a degree of care to retain the overarching design approach, for example gravel pathways clear of weeds and planting pruned and fed to maintain their vibrancy. This trend is best suited with a good degree of trees and shady areas, otherwise large areas of hard landscaping become unbearably hot in summer months.
5. Painterly Mediterranean dry garden
What this trend is - UK hardy drought tolerant planting to reflect dreamy holidays abroad. The painterly inspiration sets a carefully curated colour palette of muted sun bleached tones. A mediterranean sun trap with coastal influences. Saplings, grasses and characterful trees hint are semi-abandonment of a bygone era. Walls, tall pines, holm oaks and olive trees provide protection from strong winds and summer sun in exposed locations. The planting is grey-green with touches of antique white and mauve to echo Tuscany, Provence or Croatia.
Rubble, shingle or aggregate fines are used for dusty paths with stepping stones in softer materials for contemporary deployment of locally sourced, sustainable and recycled building materials. There are terracotta features, natural stone patios and generous pergolas for structure. Low-key sun loungers next to a babbling water feature complete the setting of summer sun and lazy days.
How to achieve it at home - This garden style is relevant in any domestic setting but will need constant attention to remain true to the initial design. While recycled materials remain expensive by comparison to locally sourced more widely used materials, they are good for the planet and we need to stretch budgets to include them. This means crushing and repurposing of existing unwanted hard landscaping materials. This garden style can be inserted into an existing mature garden through careful curation of plants and a strong unstructured design format, but I appreciate it's not practical for every garden. I would strongly recommend a garden designer be utilised to help bring a cohesive end result when inserting amongst existing mature trees and structures.
6. Contemporary semi-formal structured garden
What this trend is - Traditional low level topiary is replaced with large scale and confident hedging blocks, providing statesmen-like structure to borders. Themes are taken from the surrounding landscape - waves for coastal, ruins for castles, buildings for industrial. Parterre's and structured paths are exchanged for organic seating areas and walkways which undulate throughout the space. Wide luscious lawns are punctuated randomly with huge structural statement topiary. Planting in block formation enhance the garden's modern feel with tall single specimen plants to complete the modern play on the classic formal garden.
How to achieve it at home - This is for the medium to large garden as the concept needs scale for impact to deliver wow-factor. On a small scale this will quickly become cluttered and disjointed. The borders will need constant maintenance to control weeds and tired or thin herbaceous perennials replaced regularly. All clipped structures will need telescopic hedge trimmers (expensive machinery) and a strong person to wield them - as a strong woman who landscapes professionally, I'm still unable to handle them. There is no respite from the sun in this style of garden, and with our increasingly hot summers I feel it's best suited to larger gardens with professional help.
7. Tropical paradise garden
What this trend is - UK hardy planting is carefully selected to provide a layered colour palette complemented by plenty of lush greens. Size matters here - from the tiny to the huge and exceptional leaf structures add variety and texture. Bold leaf plants are layered to provide a lush sense of the exotic as birds dart amongst the lushness. Delicate floral blooms dance amongst a verdant carpet of foliage in a multitude of forms and surfaces. The rich understory bathes in the dappled light, filtering through the layered canopies of trees and shrubs.
Secluded patios and seating offer sunny spots with surrounding shade. Here precise contemporary hard landscaping carves a strong and determined line amongst the vivid foliage. This is where the foundations of tropical comfortably sits between woodland edge and mediterranean influences.
How to achieve it at home - This concept really needs professional eye for design as secluded seating and dining areas need to be artfully set amongst the planting. Investing in contemporary materials and specimen shrubs and trees will also need a decent budget to deliver a garden of this nature. Patience and investment in assessing the planted areas will benefit from regular attention as filling thin spots and getting the planting lush will take patience and dedication. The results speak for themselves however... what a paradise!
For assistance in getting the look for any garden trends, or the more traditional looks, contact Zoe to arrange your free initial consultation on 07860283761.
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