Island beds - pros and cons, your thoughts please!

Plantminded

To get some extra planting space in deeper soil which gets more afternoon sun, I'm thinking about creating an island bed in my lawn.  I'm not sure if this is a good idea and would welcome your thoughts on your own successes, failures and what you would do next time, if at all! 

The potential shape is also a consideration - a circle, square or something a bit more creative!  I'm interested to know your thoughts please and any photos would be really helpful.  Thank you.  Here's the lawn, still thawing out:

CrankyYankee

I have no advice, I just wanted to say that from all the photos you've shared, your garden is spectacular!

Plantminded

Hello @CrankyYankee, thank you, that's very kind of you - there's always room for improvement though!  I've gone a bit overboard with grasses and want some more flowering perennials to add some extra summer colour.

B3

I think your garden is lovely as it is. I wouldn't add an island. Do you have plants in front of the wall? If not, perhaps you could nibble a bit off the lawn in front of the wall or to the right of the photo. But I think I'd leave it as it is

bédé

Adrian Bloom of Bressingham Nurseries wrote a lot about island beds.  It might be worthwhile to track dowbn some of his writing.

Regarding your garden: of the bit you've shown therr doesn't seem much room for an extra bed.   But maybe one with almost lawn-high plants - say, heathers.

Ness Gardens might be a useful local resource.

Nollie

I have no practical experience of creating island beds, but since your lawn and surrounding beds are irregular, I would avoid a square shape and maybe try to mirror some of the existing sweeps or go for a simple circle. Depends what you are thinking of planting but I think some height always looks good, low planting always looks a bit municipal, I think. 

Busy-Lizzie

I think your garden looks lovely as it is. Hard to tell from a photo how big that lawn is but it look a bit small for a bed, might make it look fussy. 

We live quite near Bressingham Gardens. They are spectacular but huge, plenty of room for grass and beds.

LunarSea

Definitely a good idea @Plantminded. I've no regrets creating ours, although I do curse every time I mow the lawn cos' there's never a right way to do it.

I've posted this before but here's a view of ours from the upstairs window (OH's on the left & mine on the right).



As we're on clay soil I wish I'd have dug more out. I dug out about 8 inches and filled with a mixture of Wickes bagged topsoil, grit & home-made compost and mulched with grit later. But it's really interesting finding out what thrives in the new environment. I'm on the third iteration of my bed now, having made significant changes each year since creating it in 2019.

This is a plan of the shape I opted for with my bed, mainly to fit in with the shapes of the existing beds.



I'll be changing the planting again this year as I want a drift of Agastache 'Blue Boa' right through the bed. 3, 9, 23 & 24 are all grasses (none of which were in the original creation). 1 is Anthemis tinctoria 'E.C. Buxton' which I've got to have in any well-drained bed I create!

bédé

Just thought I'd change my picture (is that what they call an avatar?).  The ones offered are pretty boring and contribute nothing.  

It's "The Gardener Vallier" by Cezanne.  It think it looks a bit, but only a bit, likw me.

Plantminded

Thank you all very much for your thoughts, lots to think about now!  I'll also think about widening that border on the far right which is just edging into the photo but it only gets morning sun.  You've done a great job there @LunarSea, thank you for the detail.

bédé

I lean more towards a minimalist Zen look.  A bit like a Japanese temple gravel garden but without the symbolism.  I use a grass lawn as my basic horizontal, flat water-like theme, to set off my borders and plants.

But it sounds like you are on a journey.