Long, Narrow Design Ideas Please!

mpjarmitageFHA-vgak

Hello,

We have a long narrow garden (see picture) which we would like to split up into 'rooms'. We don't want trellis or anything too dominating, could anyone offer advice as to how we could maybe use planting, reshape the lawn etc to make the garden look a little less like a rectangular corridor?

Perki

Watch the last episode of  - your garden made perfect - , it about a long narrow garden one of the design looks suitable for you dont look at the price   , just to give you an idea on how to break a garden up .

rachelQrtJHBjb

I think you have a great garden to work with. It looks generous and well-kept.

I thought this was an interesting pin. It's really about the lawn shape breaking up the journey from one end of the garden to the other. With small children you would want to avoid the pond (or make one safe with an overlying grid) and tweak the area shown as a veg garden to accommodate the play equipment. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/291537775863474970/

You may not want any trees or large shrubs coming close to the lawn at this stage so that sight lines from the house/patio to the play area are uninterrupted. You can add them later, if desired.

If the borders are deeper, you could consider having a secret bark pathway through them on a relatively straight line from house to play area so that the children use that. It's more exciting when planting is tall and creates natural dens and hiding places - and it will save your lawn from a good deal of foot traffic.

Another way to break up the space is to have a serious of connected squares at 45 degrees. Though this design is for a much narrower garden, you get the general idea how it is laid out. The 45 degree angle helps make the garden appear much wider.https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/39265827971731235/

Cambridgerose12

John Brookes the garden writer is quite useful on small spaces. He suggests several possible solutions. One is to compartmentalise, so you have a series of smaller, nearly square spaces that can be used for different purposes and styles, which are separated by permanent boundaries such as hedges, or temporary ones. You pass from one space to another through archways, for example.

Another of his solutions is to create paths and beds that run diagonally or in curves across the space rather than straight down it--this will make the garden appear wider. 

BobTheGardener

I like this sort of thing - couple of mins with photo clone tool:

Sorry, seem to have lost half of one of the children!

punkdoc

You could get a very well paid job losing children that easily, @BobTheGardener.
Nice garden design too.

Obelixx

The trick is to make your garden look wider and use plants or structures to stop you seeing all the way down the garden in one glance.   For simplicity, you could have the terraced area as one section and then divide the rest into 2 or 3 areas using circular lawns which will create planting spaces between them.

@BobTheGardener's design is another option with curvy paths leading the eye around and different heights of plants to hide what's behind and make you want to explore.

Plenty of ideas on pinterest that you can adapt as needs and available time and budgets change.  https://in.pinterest.com/Violette92/long-thin-garden/